Woodford Halse, Northamptonshire

The Gorse BR Staff Association Club

My mother and father (Charles and Lilian) ran the Club from 1954-1957 approx. We lived in just one part with a large living room, a kitchen which led to the back area of stables and grass and 4 bedrooms. Most of the upstairs rooms in the rest of the Gorse were unused except for the Billiard room, but as an eleven... [more]

To School from Manor Road

Each day my journey either was via the cinder track (there was the old reservoir running alongside and the iron railway bridge stood in those days, the railway was still operating I think or in the stages of being dismantled) or we walked over a somewhat ricketty wooden bridge at the bottom of Castle Hill, there were a few hens scratting... [more]

Childhood

My father was the village policeman until 1958 and we lived in the Police House which doubled as a Police Station (there was a counter for public use at the front of the house). We left for Corby in 1958 when I was 6.
My memories are of the blacksmith's forge (opposite the secondary school), Nobby Brown's dairy (next to the... [more]

Early years

My early memories of Woodford, were being taken by bus, from Byfield Primary School, to the Moravian church, in Parsons Street, for the polio injection, also of going to the cinema, which was opposite the Post Office, to see the Big Country.
Some of my relatives, worked on the railway, I spent a lot of happy times, watching the comings... [more]

Northamptonshire Living Memories

Woodford Halse grew from a small ironstone village in the later 19th century, partly through ironstone working but mostly when the Great Central Railway arrived in 1899. As a result there are numerous terraces of workers' cottages, all in brick and mainly attached to the west side of the village. This view looks along one of the best streets in Woodford... [more]

Northamptonshire Photographic Memories

Before the dawn of the railway era, Woodford Halse was a sleepy community untouched by time. With the cutting of the Great Central line through the Midlands towards the end of the last century, the place changed almost beyond recognition. Around the time this photograph was taken, the village station and the line were axed, and a stillness descended on Woodford... [more]

Northamptonshire Living Memories

Church Street and the roads off to the left are part of a grid of Victorian brick, terraced, straight streets. At the end of the street is the Village Centre, a former school, while to its left you can just see the chancel of the medieval parish church. Woodford Halse Post Office has moved to the electricity shop, while Cundy's, the... [more]