ESSEX LIBRARIES - INGATESTONE BBC “HANDS ON HISTORY” “TURN-BACK-TIME” – INGATESTONE HIGH STREET – 1900 to 2010 SATURDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2010 – 10.00-12.00 NOTES TO EXHIBITION PLATES PLATE NO:
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NOTES Old cottages, High Street 1950s – old style telephone poles and lamps now replaced by reproduction black lamps. (The late Mr S Filby) Old cottages, High Street 2010 – known as “The Bathing Huts” because of the unusual wooden steps at the front (Ingatestone-on-Sea!) High Street looking towards Stock Lane/Fryerning Lane junction 1950s – taken from outside Green’s food store, now the off-licence. The Morris car going towards London is just passing The Spread Eagle Inn demolished in 1963, now Spread Eagle Place. The Ford coming towards the camera is passing the old cottages that were replaced by the first large food store, now Budgens. (Mr T A Fletcher) High Street looking towards Stock Lane/Fryerning Lane junction 2010. Stock Lane 1950s – the field and horses are on the site of Ingleton House. Opposite, where Sidgewicks house stood, is now Fairfield estate. Beyond can be seen the “new” bungalows in Stock Lane and the first houses built in Pine Close and onwards to Pine and Park Drive. (Mr T A Fletcher) Stock Lane 2010. Scotts cottage, Fryerning Lane 1930s – the shed on the left once held a donkey (hence the muck shovel and broom against the wall?) and was demolished. The two girls look to be sisters or even twins and are holding collecting boxes. It is a shame the photo is faded as it looks to be in style of a staged scene in the manner of Fred Spalding photographer of Chelmsford. (The late Mr S Filby) Scotts cottage, Fryerning Lane 2010. A picture showing Miss Pemberton and Old Members at a reunion in the 1950s. The Boys’ Own Club HQ at 3B High Street was renamed Pemberton Hall a few years ago. My late grandfather George Cox is at her side, facing the camera. (Mrs V M Nolan). Also a photograph showing the Community Club in 2010. A receipt dated 1979 from Ingatestone Bookshop, now The Hourglass. Late 1970s advert for Christian hairdressers – the photo of the IBOC 5 Road Race in 1987 shows Spread Eagle Place with Christian, the launderette and Gordon Powling Furnishings Ltd, the site now occupied by Chelmsford Star Co-op, who moved from the building now occupied by the Chinese restaurant. A late 1970s advert for Atkinson’s garage, over Stock Lane bridge, and one from the early 1960s for H W Ingleton whose office was next to the chemist. An article from the local press in 1978 based around James Wentworth Day’s book (see the receipt above in plate 10) and The Star Inn with two bottle labels from 1970s Ridleys bottled beers. I understand from a member of the Smith family that the dog’s head is now in the hands of the Gray family having gone ghostly walkies! Market Place and the Bus Stop in 1967/68 – the new Limes is under construction by Tom Green builders with Ingleton as architects. Walker’s estate agency was then an antiques shop. This photograph must have been taken from the upper window of The Newsbox, now the dental surgery. The newspaper business at the Newsbox was taken over by Martins and moved into the new building on completion. (See Bettley & Pevsner for comments on this development and the architectural losses in the High Street due to 1960s re-development; personally, I never missed the old toilets) Market Place 2010.
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Ingatestone Market Place with The Limes house 1950s – this old house was judged to be falling over, was later propped up and then demolished for The Limes shops/offices (originally Midland Bank and Martins) and the flats with Patrick Green Ltd on the opposite corner. In the background, beyond The Star, are the old cottages in front of the church, demolished in the early 1960s. (See the 2010 comparison picture in plate 35) (Mr T A Fletcher) Ingatestone Market Place 2010. (See the 2010 comparison picture in plate 35) Ceramic mural by Philippa Threlfall on The Chequers 2010 – completed and erected in 1969 and titled “1969 Peoples Who Used the Essex Road” it shows a Roman foot soldier, a Knight Templar on horseback, Queen Elizabeth I, a Victorian coachman with his horn and sheep and turkey drovers. Why has this never been floodlit? Bettley & Pevsner states that the development is “deplorable” but is positive about the mural. I was present at the unveiling having come down from Ingatestone County Secondary School in Willow Green, opened in 1959, now AES Ingatestone. Aerial photographs taken for the Parish Council 1994 – part of a series taken for the 1994 “100 years of Parish Councils” and to produce a matching photo of one taken in 1934 which had been given to the council. Both photographs were reproduced for sale. Norton Road 1915 – a well known postcard. The figures by the cart at the top of the road look to be in military uniform which would match the date. I have always thought of Norton Road as Ingatestone’s “Coronation Street” with The Crown as our “Rovers’ Return”. (See details of the reverse of this card on plate 30) (Mrs V M Nolan) Norton Road 2010. Congregational Church 1940s (?) – Ingatestone Boys’ Brigade in front of the church. The BB was re-formed in the early 1960s and carried on for some years, being known as Pilots later on. (The late Mr S Filby) United Reformed Church 2010. Post Office, High St., Ingatestone 1943 – from Bob Coe’s postcard book of 1989 (p.10). The Crown, Meadows Cottages, Post Office and Essex Libraries Ingatestone 2010 – Meadows Cottages stand on the site of IML Garage demolished a few years ago and named after its late owner. The library was originally housed in the Working Men’s’ Club (Community Club) up to 1974. In addition, in the 1960s, a small library operated out of Fryerning Village Hall, run up to the date it closed by the late Mrs Edwina Lamb. Station Lane c1910 – taken from an old postcard, this section of road, beyond the level crossing, is now known as Hall Lane. The elm trees were lost in the Dutch Elm epidemic of the mid-1970s and stretched right up to “Windy Corner” and around towards Ingatestone Hall. Station Lane 2006.
Late 1970s adverts for E N Warder bakers (now the Italian restaurant), Old Forge Engineering Ltd (Avrohurst Ltd) now located at Trueloves, and Period Furniture Restorations Ltd (currently under development behind the Parish Council office for residential accommodation). The photograph is from 1984 showing the Carnival procession coming up past Warders, The Bell, the jewellery works (where Bellmead was created with the New Folly doctors’ surgery) and the old cottages that were once Ingatestone Workhouse (c1784-1835) where my late mother was born in 1933. Another photograph of the 1984 Carnival showing The Crown Inn and an advert from the late 1970s for the then pub owners, the Shutes. The pub was run for many years by the Shuttleworths, a very old Ingatestone family. On the photograph, the facade of IML Garage can just be seen. The reverse of the Norton Road 1915 postcard (see plate 20) showing it as published by Percy Greenfield, the village drapers, who were at the Artemis shop site (now closed) opposite The Star Inn. I am not sure if the spelling of “Ingateston.” is a printer’s abbreviation or some approximation of local pronounciation. The late 1970s advert is for the garages of the IML company who at one time also had a branch in Grays.
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Pte. Len Cox and a telegram from Ingatestone 12 July 1943 – Len Cox was captured by the Japanese at Singapore and nothing was heard from him until a standardised card appeared at his parents’ home in Stock Lane in July 1943. A copy of this message was sent by telegram by the family to Len’s older brother George, then with the RAF in Egypt, to let him know his brother was safe. The newspaper cuttings were taken by Miss Pemberton (see plate 9) and are in her War Records at the Boys’ Own Club.
Len died from cholera on the 25 July 1943 whilst a POW on the Burma-Siam Railway at Bhatona in Thailand, but it was not until September 1945 that the family discovered his fate. A memorial service was finally held in his memory at Ingatestone Church on the 20 November 1945. (Mrs V M Nolan/Ingatestone Boys’ Own Club). Copies of email correspondence between Robert Fletcher and Philippa Threlfall in October 2010 regarding her work on The Chequers ceramic mural. A village map of Ingatestone taken from a Chelmsford Rural District Council area publication from the early 1960s (we were in the CRDC area and Chelmsford Constituency until Local Government re-organisation in 1974). This is before the construction of the Margaretting and Mountnessing by-passes. Docklands is shown, with The Chase Hotel and Tor Bryan, but not their named housing estates which came soon after. The A12 by-pass had opened in 1959, and the Ingatestone road from the top of Transport Meadow (Seymour Field) to The Leas re-numbered the B1002. An information sheet on the parish from a late 1970s map which is an interesting snapshot revealing various matters, including the old “Early Closing Wednesday” and the 1973 rateable value figure. Ingatestone Market Place 1950s/2010 composite photograph – taken on Sunday 31 October 2010 and uploaded on the BBC “Turn Back Time” Flickr page. Bibliography:
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Publications: Bettley & Pevsner, The Buildings of England – Essex, New Haven & London, Yale, 2007 Coe, R A, A Postcard From Ingatestone, Ingatestone, R A Coe, 1989 Drury, J, Essex Workhouses, Felsted, Farthings Publications, 2006 ECC/BBC, Ingatestone High Street Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan, Chelmsford, Essex County Council, 2008 I&FPC/I&FH&AS, A Walk Down Ingatestone High Street, Ingatestone, c1997 I&FH&AS, A Survey of Ingatestone High Street, Ingatestone, 1989 Langford, K, Ingatestone and District in old picture postcards, NL, European Library, 1985 Essex Records Office/SEAX Essex Archives Online: Fletcher, R W, Ingatestone Boys’ Own Club-World War 2 Roll of Honour, Ingatestone, R W Fletcher, 2006 – T/P 760/1 Websites: www.bbc.co.uk/history/handsonhistory www.flickr.com/groups/bbcturnbacktime/pool www.open2.net/historyandthearts/history/highstreet www.philippathrelfall.com All photographs and documents are the author’s own unless stated. The 2010 photographs were taken in October 2010 for the exhibition. Robert W Fletcher /rfletcher189@aol.com/ 01277 354431 02 November 2010
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF: PRIVATE LEONARD COX (1916-1943) AND HIS NEICE JEAN ANN FLETCHER (1933-1960) 3