Whymarks Of Little Cornard

A Memory of Little Cornard.

Over 70 years ago, when I was about three or four years old, my parents and I would travel from Luton to see my maternal grandmother, Kate Whymark, who was the widow of Ernest Whymark. I never met Ernest, as he fell off a ladder at Burnt House Farm and was killed in 1931, Nan ( Kate Whymark )lived at Little Hitches, in Upper Road, Little Conard. I remember there was a man called Vince who lived next door and had an alsatian dog which was chained up outside, I was told never to go near the dog. The One Bell pub was just across the road. This was in the late 1940's
Years later, in the early 1980's, my husband and children went to Little Cornard, as I had started researching my family tree. We visited the church where my parents were married in Little Cornard, and Walnut Tree cottage in Upper Road where my mother was born, it was the end one of four cottages, my dad being born in the other end cottage. My uncle, Leonard Whymark, built a bungalow in Slough Lane( or Slushy Lane as my dad called it) possibly in the 1930's, as my mother was living there before her marriage. I believe the bungalow was asbestos, but when we visited in 1982 it had been altered a great deal. I always remember Spout Lane and the pill box on the right hand side from my childhood, and also, what was the village school that my mother attended at the bottom of Spout Lane. My grandfather, Ernest Whymark, was the seventh child of the twelve born to David Whymark and his wife, Harriet Rayner, so I expect the village school had a lot of Whymark pupils. Whymarks have lived in Little Cornard from at least the early 1700's. I have lovely memories of Workhouse Green, Little Cornard, but, like everywhere else it has changed.

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