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Wheatacre
Wheatacre maps
Historic maps of Wheatacre and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Wheatacre maps
Wheatacre photos
We have no photos of Wheatacre, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Burgh St Peter| Somerleyton| St Olaves| Gillingham| Oulton| Beccles| Fritton| Carlton Colville| Lowestoft| Corton| Barsham| Hopton| Reedham| Kessingland| Gorleston
Wheatacre area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Wheatacre and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Wheatacre
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Suffolk memories
The Wherry Dyke
The 'Wherry Dyke', Somerleyton, was the home of 'Ripplecraft Co' which built and hired out the Broads Cruisers that the picture shows. It had been owned by Sir Francis Cockeral, inventer of the Hovercraft, who tested his original model on this water. The 'Dyke' was dug out to allow the wherry sailing craft to collect bricks from the local brickworks for transporting around Britain. Where the Wherry Dyke enters the River Waveney, on the left-hand side, Somerleyton had its very own swimming pool. It was a fenced area with a walkway on the riverside and a sandy bottom sloping upto the river bank. By the 1960s it had fallen into disrepair.
Holidays With my Grandparents in Somerleyton
My grandparents lived at 5 The Green until my grandad retired from working on the Estate farms. They then moved to 5 Widows Cottages. My grandma lived there after grandad died in 1951 until her death in 1959.
I have very happy memories of school holidays spent with them. My cousin and I used to walk everywhere, round the candlestick etc., with no worries. I remember the Co-op, which always smelled of cheese and bacon, the little off-licence and butcher's shop next to the Post Office. There was a garage run by Nee Woodcock, who was always on hand when our not so reliable car broke down.
My auntie and uncle lived at The Nook, on The Street, and he was Butler at the Hall.
My grandparents moved from Fritton to The Green in about 1925 and my father left home as a teenager to join Birmingham Police. He was a keen photographer and fortunately I have his albums which contain... Read more
Somerleyton Primary School
My first memories of school were of Miss Barwood the First Year teacher. She lived in Oulton, driving to school in a china blue Morris Minor. The school was heated by coke fires in each class which a monitor would stoke up during the winter. We would often throw coke at each other after classes. Unfortunately one day the Morris was chipped and dented by a lump of coke... Howard G. did not turn up for school of several days.
As the school years passed we move through the three classrooms until we reached Mr Brundel's, for our final years. He was the Headmaster, living in the house attached to the school. On his retirement he was to move into 'The Chimneys', in the Brickfields, which was modernised from two cottages. When not taking class he always had his pipe on the go, often standing on the entrance steps to the school watching his 'flock' at play. Another 'throwing accident' happened in the winter during a playground snowball fight. Mr... Read more
Jacksons And Popes
My husband's mother came from Somerleyton, and he and I visited the village and church two or three times between 1978 and 2004. We though it a very beautiful area. The churchyard has the last resting places of quite a few of my husband's ancestors, and I believe some of them worked at Somerleyton Hall. In, I think, in the gardening area. His mother's maiden name was Florence Jackson, and her mother's maiden name was Pope.Tomorrow, I am visiting the village and Hall with the Essex Theatre and Leisure Club, and I just know that it will be a memorable day. I hope to find the village as beautiful as it is in my memory!
Rhoos Hall (aka Roos Hall or Rose Hall)
Previously I had posted to My Memories, a much longer, "informative" post, but I learned from further research that a lot of what I had previously heard was not accurate in fact. My memories remain unchanged, regardless of the more accurate details so kindly provided to me. It had never before occured to me to go to the best source of more factual information, the Town of Beccles, of which Roos Hall is associated.
Upon contacting the Beccles Town Council by way of e-mail, just yesterday, with a myriad of questions, my request was turned over to a gentlemen (whose name I will not use, in respect of his privacy) who responded even before 8 hours had passed. Again, before another 8 hours had passed I received a 2nd e-mail. My husband (not the same one I visited England with) asked me what kind of town existed that people had that kind of time to make such a fast response, and what kind of people would go out of... Read more
Maurice Dunn (Alberta, Canada)
Playing Cowboys and Indians, down the steps, and along the cliff, after coming out of the old Picture House on a Saturday afternoon, in the Second World War years.
A Ghost on Beccles Church Steps
My father, Stafford Brown, was a student at Beccles College during the First World War. He stayed with the Knights family of Puddingmoor. Mr Knights, who was a wherryman, told of a strange event that happened to him one evening. He had been returning home from the town, and took his usual short cut through the churchyard. When he arrived at the top of the steps, he encountered what he could only describe as an invisible barrier. Mr Knights pushed against it, tried to climb over, under or go around. It was impossible. So he retraced his steps and took the longer route home by the road. He said that he had not been in a public house! This only happened to him once, and nobody else ever reported a similar incident.
