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Jack Ayres called it Parrott Wood because half-way up that old ride, there used to be an old cottage and an old lady named Mrs Parrott lived in that, and they reckon she used to entertain the Welsh drovers when they came along. We had the holding fields there, the two fields running parallel with the road that the Welsh drovers used to put their cattle in. That was on the Helmdon end of the wood. There was a gate there. Just inside that we have a man-built pond, what we used to use for the horses and that. There was a big ditch running right from there us to Coldharbour gate. Jack Ayres told me that, not so long ago when we was up hunting. He said he used to have to keep that ditch clean so the water run into this man-made pond. We used to have to go and pump water from that man-made pond because we had so many ponies and horses there, over a hundred horses in that wood Some of them used to be sold for remounts for the army. Uncle George used to break them in for remounts. Gerry Wilson said to me one day, “I’ve been up there, and there’s all those horses everywhere.” When I had my pony, it was one from up there. Frank Humphrey chose it for me, which one I should have, a chestnut one.
The wood was fenced, with a hunting-gate into Whistley Wood, and at the bottom a dew pond and a hunting-gate, and then across the centre there was this big stand of trees, oak mostly, all along between Coldharbour big gate and Whistley Wood gate. There were some horse chestnut trees up that side. I don’t know if they’re still there or not. It used to be very boggy there. From the stand of big trees, before it was so grown up, you could see Stowe Monument, every so plain. You could see that from the Warren too, from the bedroom window.
Shortgrove or Parrott Wood was owned by the College, but I don’t know which college. Then when Gramp Turnham died it reverted back to them. That was 1937. It was 108 acres and two holding fields running parallel to the road. The horses never used that, because they’d got all the wood. It was all primroses, white with anemones, and bluebells. And there was always two men up there, cutting bean-sticks and pea-sticks. They were up there all the summer. Hazel nuts ….. The two men that worked up there were Joe Geary and Dick Blackwell from Crowfield. They used to cut all the hazel down, coppicing it. They always had a proper timber wagon there. They used to stack it on all ready and the horse our Poppet used to go and take it round the different villages. She brought my Gramp’s coffin to the church. George Seckington drove it, on the timber wagon.
My life changed completely then when he died. He was at the Warren then. He’d farmed from the old farm before that, what the Harrises call the Stable House at Falcutt. He moved to the Warren in 1922. He had it built. You could see it being built from our house (Field View). You could see the poles going up and that. They used to say, “That’s Granny Turnham’s house being built.’ But my Granny only lived about three years afterwards. She died in 1925….. of a broken heart: she lost three sons in the war. I was born just after my Dad died you see. My mother lost a husband and son within two or three months of one another. And them Gramp marries Miss Emerton from Astwell Castle. My life changed when he died. Uncle George Turnham was up there then.But before. I was always up there weekends, riding the horse, named Brownie. The Grafton Hounds used to meet on a Friday. When I used to go up on a Saturday, well Friday night. Gramp used to say “The hounds were up there today. You better go up in the morning and see if they left any gates open for the cattle.” So I used to have to get on Brownie and go up there, riding bareback. Sometimes the cattle were right out in the field belonging to Coldharbour, right down the house, sometimes, and the horses, so we had a god job getting them back. They thought it was wonderful getting all this grass, between in the wood they was all the time eating – well, anything. There was masses of hazel bushes there. I imagine they would eat some of that. One horse got staked. It had a stake right up its foreleg. They had to have it back up at the farm and have it on a sling for ages. The horses were a bit wild as well. I had my pony from them. That was a a bit wild as well. My Gramp give me a chestnut pony from there. It was broken. Before it was broken we kept it up by Sulgrave bridge, in the field my grandfather Arthur Humphrey owned, the other side of Peter’s Farm Bridge. We used to take food for it, the hay. We had another horse up there, named Fly. Bob Buckingham had from us. We had George Seckington working for us. Babs Cleaver and Ayreses. And Cleggy Cleaver, Jean Brookhouse’s Dad, and old Mrs Cleaver Finch. She used to come and do the washing. And Jack Ayres used to work for us when he was a kid.
Mary Turnham
(As told to Jean Spendlove, 2004) |