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Thorney Toll
Thorney Toll maps
Historic maps of Thorney Toll and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Thorney Toll maps
Thorney Toll photos
We have no photos of Thorney Toll, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Thorney| Wisbech St Mary| March| Whittlesey| Crowland| Leverington
Thorney Toll area books
Displaying 1 of 10 books about Thorney Toll and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Thorney Toll
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Cambridgeshire memories
Thorney And The Rose And Crown
The Rose and Crown at Thorney was managed, I believe from the early 1930s by my Great-Aunt Ellen and her husband Joe. My mother, Daisy Steele (nee Camp), and other members of her family spent pre-Second World War summer holidays there, and during the war, presumably during the heavy bombing of London and the later V1 and V2 rocket attacks, my mother and I, along with other members of the family spent time at the Rose. I remember soldiers being billeted there and how I made off one day, aged about four, with the rifle of one of them, and dragged it into one of the bars. I remember how heavy it was and how disappointed I was when it was taken off me. I went to a school somewhere in Thorney and vividly remember being in class in the mornings and then being taken to the fields in the afternoon. This was not a good preparation for 'proper' school in Fulham after the war, where we lived, as I fully expected... Read more
Bricklayers Arms
Researching my family history I have found the sale papers for the Bricklayers Arms. It was sold by my Great Grandmother, her husband was Frederick Easom Robinson. It was sold on Friday 8th august 1890. The sale was for Brewhouse Blacksmiths & Wheelwright shops, two Brick Built & Slated Tenements, an orchard, and 4 acres of land intersected by the railway, formerly the Brick Yard.
Crowland Road
My uncle, Bill Oliver, who lived in Crowland Road used to work at the brickyards pictured. He worked on the kilns. I can remember on Sunday mornings going to see my uncle and my nan, Florrie Oliver. My dad Russell Oliver and I used to cycle over the old bridge which is now part of the Ete bypass. I was born in Eye in Northam Terrace just of the Crowland Road and lived there till I was 21. I now live in Stilton.
Childhood Memory
The old photographs helped me remember some lovely memories of when I was a very young child, when it was a daily routine walking past the old brick works to go to Eye school, I believe that just past the brick works (obviously depending on which way you were walking) there was a bridge that went over the old railway.
My father Sid Earnshaw knew Bill Oliver who worked at the site and his brother Ray, sadly my father is no longer here, but the pictures were wonderful to see, and I cannot help but feel a little sad that Eye now looks nothing like it was when I was a child, but thats progress I suppose!! Although it's not all bad... as I still live in Eye.
Early Accommodation For Leverington's Fruit Pickers
It was after World War 1 that strawberry growing became important around the Wisbech area and as strawberry prices continued to rise so more and more strawberries were planted. Eventually, local labour could not cope with the picking so hundreds of poor people from London's East End were encouraged to come to the area for a 'holiday' and earn money as well. They came in special trains to Wisbech's Midland and Great Northern Station (yes, we had two stations in those days) and were given lifts to the farms in farm lorries with sides fixed on the and planks put across for seats. To them it was a real adventure. The farmers had to provide accommodation for these people and very poor it often was. The locals called them ' bunks' and they were usually a number of small cubicles on each side of a narrow corridor. There were straw mattresses and chaff pillows. Some farmers provided grey blankets. The cooking was done in a... Read more
N.U.S. Camp
I think it was July 1967. We arrived at Leverington hitch-hiking from the Continent. We were nineteen years old, and we had so little money that we had decided never to pay for accommodation until we got to Leverington. I remember we slept in a lean-to shed at the back of a pub. The pub owner had served us a few pints and listened to our little story. She offered this solution. Another night, we slept in a kind of blockhouse in the middle of a field. Round about midnight, two policemen woke us up with their torches and checked our passports. Some motorist had seen us walking across the field with our suitcases and had thought it was rather strange. Tom, the manager of the farm camp at Leverington (I think it was called "N.U.S. Camp"), and Jim, the cook, welcomed us and showed us round the place. They were both from Ghana and students in England, and nice chaps too. I don't know how today's 'campers' are accommodated,... Read more
N.U.S. Camp Second Time.
The second year we came to Leverington was 1968, June and July. Our country had just lived the most spectacular revolt of the twentieth century, and we decided to air ourselves in England. Instead of two, we were three boys this time, and we came in my car. Tom knew us from last year, but it was his duty to deliver his standard speech on the rules of the camp : "This is a WORKING CAMP, NOT a HOLIDAY CAMP ! When you do not work in the fields, you can enjoy yourselves, but I don't want to find French boys and Swedish girls fooling around together in the laundry... etc... ". This speech always raised laughter among us, because we tended to confuse leisure and work. The guys and girls from eastern countries (communist lands then) DID work hard, because they could not export hard currency from their home countries, and they depended on what they earned at Leverington for their living. We did not really depend on our... Read more
