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"Out of the Long Ago" by Maud Milgate |
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Shardelow
By this time I was spending my holidays in Palgrave Mr. Fitch at the Park Hotel had died and although his widow carried on for a while she eventually sold the hotel to people who turned it into a chromium plated all mod cons sort of place who cut down the trees and built a ballroom and car park. Not the sort of place I liked or could afford. When I first knew Mrs. Coleman she lived at Orme Villa in Palgrave but when the tennis court at the Vicarage came up for sale, the Colemans bought it and had built a nice bungalow for themselves and as this was almost opposite their garage it suited them much better than Orme Villa. Mr. Coleman’s cousin Alan Murton and his wife look over the villa and Mrs. Coleman persuaded them to take me as a paying guest. The Murtons were Norfolk people and retired farmers and this was just what I wanted to hear the Norfolk dialect spoken. to learn their ancient history and to get altogether nearer to the heart of the country life they led. They made me very welcome and accepted me for my Norfolk ancestry which they said was in my blood. Soon after we had found a definite Shardelow connection in our search at Kenninghall Mrs. Coleman one day went through her telephone directory to see if any one of that name was living in Norfolk. She found only one and that a chemist. Shardelowes Ltd. in Halesworth. She gave me the address and after some time I wrote to them stating what I was doing and asking them if they had any ancestors of the name I was seeking. I had a very cautious reply back from a Mr. Wilfred George. He said Shardelowe was the name of his grandmother and he had chosen to call his business Shardelowe because he thought the name had died out in Norfok. He further said his father had been interested in tracing the history of the Shardelowes and at his death he himself had carried on but he was a young man and had many other in interests and only added to his file if any item of interest came his way. A correspondence started up between us. He told me of the contents of his father’s file which did not help me much but I usually wrote or phoned him after I had done a search and told him my findings. Therefore one autumn evening I rang him up from Mrs. Coleman’s kitchen I loved her kitchen but the only thing I remember of it was its warm which wrapped round me like a blanket on a cold night SIte lad a Rayburn. On the phone that evening Mr. George suggested to me I write a letter to the "Eastern Daily Press" enquiring for anyone having Shardelowe ancestors. I had seen similar letters and it had given him the idea. I agreed but asked him to draft the letter as he had a better idea what to say. I He was willing but replies were to come to my Ramsgate address because he had not the time to attend to them. We duly put this idea into practise and I received a number of very interesting letters as a result. One particular lead to the meeting of Mr. Francis Blunderfield who had a Shardelowe grandmother and had also done some ancestry research. but more particularly on the Blunderfield side of his family. He had an extremely interesting ancestry and had done a lot of work on it. We corresponded for a considerable time and I had some very informative letters from him. When he learned I was going to Palgrave on holiday he said he and his wife would call on me and take me out. I caught the 9 o’clock coach to London on a beautiful sunny morning in late September. A blind man with his luggage was put on our coach at Ramsgate by a taxi man. who told the coach driver to put him off at a stop in Lewisham. This he duly did and the blind niaii tapped his way to a wall and assured the driver lie knew where he was. He looked as if he hoped someone would meet him. but nobody (lid and the last I saw of him he was groping along to his own. At London Coach station I minded a case for a blind lady. while she went to the toilet and later her daughter bought me an orange drink They seemed amazed I was going to Norfolk alone but what right had I to be troubled when these brave blind people were tackling journeys, often atone. In London the weather changed and going through East Anglia we had a terrible thunderstorm and was nearly washed off the road. That set the pattern for the week. Floods were everywhere. However Mrs. Colenian met me and a lovely wood fire greeted me at Orme Villa. Mrs. Murton had a hot meal for me and there was an electric fire on in my bedroom and I soon felt nice and cosy. A letter awaited me from Mr. Blunderfield saying lie and his wife would call for me the following morning. When I told Mr. and Mrs. Murton this they looked concerned. She was a tall big woman, very capable and she looked at me very straight "Don't you know him" she said. No I replied "It’s a blind date’’. The next morning I was upstairs in my bedroom getting ready. when glancing out of the window I saw Mr. and Mrs. Murton pottering about iii the front in but thought nothing of it at the time. Presently she came to mc and said "guests guests have arrived. the look nice." Mrs. Blunderfield told me afterwards, that they had been vetted by the Murtons as to their suitability to take me out. We had a good laugh over this: the Murton's were evidently not taking any chances and I thought this very sweet of them. I came down and found the Blunderfield's in the siting room. Francis Blunderfield was a man of middle height, clean shaven, in early middle life. He told me later he was a male nurse in charge of a mental unit. His wife Phyllis had also been a nursing sister but was now retired. I liked them both and of course I was as strange to them I wondered what they made of me After some talk about their Shardelow searches they suggested we should go to Thompson Church where some early Shardelowes were buried, and look in at Kenninghall Church on the way. This pleased me very much as these places were inaccessible to me without transport Arrived at Kenninghall we decided it would be a good opportunity to make another search of the registers and accordingly I went to the Vicarage for permission.
The Rev. Bridges was gardening but he very willingly came back to the church with me and there met Mr. Francis Blunderfield who had brought with him a very old book. In it it stated that the chancel of the church had been built by John Mylgate or Millgate the last Prior of Bokenham (Buckenham) whose arms were to be found on the brickwork on the south side of the church We found this, three scallop shells with this motto under them. "Perpet uis annis M ilgate Memento Johannis." TIle Vicar was very interested and asked to borrow the book. He walked round the churchyard with us and pointed out the old headstones in three neat rows, the ground levelled and the headstones now readable. They were of a great many Pilgrims going back as far as 1742, but I was no longer looking for this name. After taking some photographs we did a two hour search but found nothing more than I already knew. Margaret Shardelawe had undoubtedly lived at Kenninghall and her children had been born there but she had not married John Pilgrim there nor been born there, herself We tried to get a meal in Kenninghall but could not as they had recently been severely flooded by the recent bad weather and had lost all their food. We were no more successful in Attleborough. They were that day being converted to North Sea Gas and could nor cook so after a scratch meal we pushed on to Thompson.
The church was right in the wilds of Norfolk in an area given over to army training and gunnery practice. Many roads bore a "No Admittance" sign and some were blocked permanently. After some maneuvering we arrived at the church which the Blunderfields had seen be fore and said they had found it in a terribly neglected state with the birds able to get in and out at will and bird lime over everything. However since then it had been cleaned up. I was struck by its bare, solitary wilderness It was cold, very very old and belonged to something long since past. It had a three decker pulpit. and in a plain glass window above a chantry were the arms of Shardelowe three arms crossets. Below in tile stone floor of the Chantry were the vaults of the Shardelowe's but so old as to be unreadable. In the choir were four of the original misereirie seats. These bore the arms of Shardelowe and one the beautifully carved head of a Nun there was a church in Thompson in the 11th century and in the 12th century the Shardelowes built a church which remains to this day as a monument to their piety and munificence.
The founder of the family was one Robert de Shardelowe - probably from Shardlow in Derbyshire who early in the I 3th century had made a reputation for himself as a lawyer. He was chief justice of Ireland and died there about 1255. The family later held lands in Cambridge Norfolk and Suffolk. Two brothers Johannes and Thomas Shardelowe built a Clergy house or College at Thompson and upon the death of Johannes his wife Joanna became a nun there in 1369 and died there and this is the face carved in the miseri seat we see today The remnants of the college are built into an old farmhouse in a nearby field. In taking a number of photographs I left my shooting stick in one of the old horse box pews, a thing very easy to do. This was not discovered until we were nearly back in Attleborough and it meant retracing our route. This proved to be a problem. we could not find which way we had come. It all looked alike. Now and then across the flat countryside we caught a glimpse of the church tower, but we had to make so many detours we lost it again and it loomed up in another direction. There was no one to ask, so many roads were sealed off, it just meant riding round and round until we struck the right direction. An odd experience. We came back through Old Buckenham but its fen like village green is so large it is difficult to realize one is going through a village.
It had been a lovely ride and the Blunderfields asked me to spend the next day at their home They lived at Thorpe next Haddiscoe quite a little journey across country and one I could not make without a car. Mr. Blunderfield duly called for me at 10 .30 am It was a lovely day and we first went to Newton Flotman Church to see an old Blunderfield memorial near the altar. It was of three Blunderfields of 1490, 1530 and 1560 as near as could be seen It was a very nice church standing Oil a hill and the Blunderfield arms were Oil the tower. We then went on to Loddon a lovely old church standing back from the road with iron railings all round it. It hooked as if some building which had formerly stood in front of it had been pulled down, this gave one a splendid view of the church. Inside was a very old oil painting representing t he Blunderfields. They took their name from Blaunde Ville in Norilland’,- aild Ilad come over with the Conqueror. The name was then Blaunde Ville corrupted as time went on to Blunderfield We went on to Thorpe, it was a glorious autumn morning and we went in the Church were Mr. Blunderfield played the organ for the Church services. In the churchyard were 5 graves in a row, all with a brownish stone kerb and headstone. They were all sisters named Shardelowe and had lived at Thorpe Hall a long low pink-washed house we had passed on the right coming up the hill to the church I think these ladies were aunts or great aunts to my Mr. Wilfred George of Shardelowes the chemist in I Halesworth they were some relatives anyway, but were not related I think k to Mr. Blunderfield. A mile further on we came to Willow Cottage on the edge of a marsh where the Blunderfields lived. It was a fascinating place especially the garden which was mainly Phyllis Blunderfield's work. From neat lawns and lovely flower beds we passed over a stream which divided it from what once had been an orchard, and was now a wilderness of dead fruit trees and wild rushes. It had been destroyed in the terrible floods of 1953 when the sea broke in and rivers overflowed their banks, flooding the land with sale water which killed the fruit trees. But it was a lovely place with a beautiful view over miles of marshland with grazing cattle.
Phyllis Blunderfield says she often went down into the marshes to collect fresh mushrooms for a meal. They had a summer house in their wild orchard and spent all their summer free time there. They said it was glorious in the Springtime too, with primroses and bluebells and every wild flower that grew. We had a lovely lunch, Mrs Blunderfield had gone to a great deal of trouble and the roast chicken and gooseberry pie and cream made me so sleepy it was hard going for me to appreciate the literary fare which followed the meal. They had some very long pedigrees and wonderful coats of arms painted by Mr. Blunderfield's father. He must have been a very clever man and his son took after him, with a strong literary bent. There were a wonderful collection of books and I did not see a quarter of all there was to see. There was not the time. We went out for another ride to St. Olaves, Somerleyton and Fritton Lake and back for a lovely tea. It was then I saw all their cats, eleven of them when they all turned up for a meal. There were cats everywhere, apparently Phyllis Blunderfield could not send any stray away and said she spent more money on vet's bills than she did on herself. There was "Penny", "Twopence", and "Threepence", "Little Woman", "My Daughter", "One Eye", "Weezy", "Anodder One" and three others whose names I cannot remember. She took them for a walk every evening down to the dead orchard to pay theie calls.
They took one back to Palgrave after dark in pouring rain We went over two Bailey bridges where the proper bridges had been damaged by flood, the river was very high and water lay in the fields I got in at 8.30 pm and Mrs. Murton was beginning to wonder where I was. At 10 o' chock she said "I should have rung the police!!
| Owner of original | Maud Milgate via Gerry Langford |
| File name | shard/myfolio_02/12_chapter.html |
| File Size | 16.19 KB |
| Media ID | 1361 |
| Dimensions | n/a |
| Folio version | v13.0.0.22 (28 Mar 2021) |
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