Memories of Spaldwick
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 Spaldwick, Church 1906 (ref: 55435) |
Year: 1860s
The Cooper Family
My family, the Coopers, lived in Spaldwick from 1800-1900 if not before. My great-great-grandfather, Daniel Cooper, was a baker, corn seed merchant and the registrar for births, deaths and marriages in the Spaldwick area. There are stained glass windows in Spaldwick church dedicated to him and his wife, Susan Jellis, and their children and four very prominent gravestones in the churchyard. His son married Ann Horsford in 1881. Her father, James, a land owner, had a brother John who married Ann Belton. In the 1857 census there was a three-year-old John Belton living with my great-great-great-grandfather John Horsford and his wife Ann Griffin. It was their son John who married Ann Belton. Last edited: 27/11/2008 11:14 by Susan Goldston |
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Year: 1955
Spaldwick Windmill & The Belton Family
The Belton family has a long association with Spaldwick as millers, witnessed by a hill being in the family name, (O.S. map 153), just north of the village. My mother's sister Violet Bass, from nearby Kimbolton, was married to John Belton. John, my uncle, inherited the windmill as well as a further windmill at Alconbury and a *water driven mill at Houghton, now owned by the National Trust. The Belton family had a very healthy corn milling business in this area of Huntingdonshire, (sad that it had to be gobbled up by Cambs.). I have documents associated with the business as well as John's 'verge' pocket watch, which formerly belonged to a "Charles" Belton, (father?). I have also, letters written to John's mother when he was in France in WW1 and a number of French embroidered postcards which were popular with soldiers. Why 1955? Well it was around this time that I visited the mill as a teenager and was saddened to see it in its dilapidated state. The ruin and attached land were subsequently sold by my mother who inherited the same after her sister, my Aunt Violet, died. I believe that a house has now been built on the site. The Beltons lived in a house in the centre of the village near to the church in whose churchyard are buried their children who only lived for a short time. Consequently, the family name of Belton does not live on, in Spaldwick at least! *Note: My further research casts some doubt on the Beltons' actual connection with Houghton Watermill. A John Belton is recorded as having worked the mill but beyond that there remains much uncertainty. The National Trust has no record of Beltons owning the mill. I shall be grateful for any more information on my Belton relatives. If anyone lives in or near to Spaldwick I would be most grateful if they could, on a sunny day, look in the churchyard for any reference of Beltons being buried there. Last edited: 15/07/2008 08:00 by Paul Digby |
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