Visitors’ Book

Robert Hall lent us a photograph of a record breaking bell ringing peal in 1956. knowing he would be interested, I emailed the details to Roger Savory, not realising what he had been through with Hurricane Sandy. What is particularly remarkable is, that a couple of days later, Roger sent us a fascinating email giving the background of everybody in that photograph. Badsey bells must seem very remote from his current predicament!

As you have probably realised, we have a transcription of Badsey baptisms, marriages and burials on our website - and also the same for Wickhamford. But I know there are times when you want to see the originals. These are kept at the Worcestershire Record Office which has recently moved to the Hive - the new library centre in Worcester. You are normally expected to look at the records there on film readers, although they do have the originals in their store.

You may be interested that in a few weeks time, we are launching the Badsey Society archive website. This will allow you to look at images of quite a few original documents such as old parish magazines. But unfortunately, parish records are not included in our plans at the moment.

Many thanks for your email regarding the Halford family and, as I am helping Tom Locke with the Wickhamford section of the Badsey website, and lived at one time in Wickhamford, it has been passed to me. Joyce Franklin married Tom Jones and had one son Neil. Joyce and Tom have passed on but Neil still lives in Wickhamford and he supplied us with the photo of the young Rose Halford stood outside the family home on Pitchers Hill. June Franklin married Vic Cull and had two children Vicky and Scott. June died some years ago but Vic is still alive and lives next to his daughter in Bowers Hill, an area not far from Wickhamford.

With regard to your father Walter Owen, if you look at the home page for Wickhamford and go to the article on the men who served in WW1, scroll down and just below No 15, you will find an article that appeared in the Evesham Journal about the five Halford boys serving in WW1 together with a photo of each one. Scroll down to No 18 and you will see an article about your father. Tom Locke would be interested in receiving further information about him to add to the article plus any photos you might have of him in his uniform. Scroll down to No 59 and you will see an article on Gilbert Franklin.

We are also trying to obtain photos of people who are on the 1911 census. If you look at Portraits of people who were living in 1911, you will see more photos of the Halford family.

There are no Halfords left in the village. The last one George, the son of Charles Halford, died some years ago. His sister Vera is still alive and living in Willersey and she has supplied us with a couple of photos. I have also been to see Carol, the daughter of Melvia Halford, who lives in Evesham and she supplied us with a photo. Brenda, the granddaughter of Allan Halford, also lives in Evesham.

We are really pleased that you have discovered the website. A lot of effort has gone into it and it's nice to think that people are looking at it. If you have any old photos of Wickhamford or any that you might think would add interest to our site we would love to see them.

We have got records of the School Admissions Register for the period when your father was at Badsey Council School (these are not on the website because of possible Data Protection issues as some of the pupils may still be alive). I see that your father enrolled at the school on 5th September 1932, aged 10; his address was given as 6 Council Houses, North Littleton. He left on 24th March 1937. I can see from Ancestry that he had an older brother as well as an older sister, but neither of them attended Badsey School, although they were all born in the Evesham area (presumably, North Littleton). Badsey School had a very good reputation and children were known to travel some distance to get there. I can’t find any record of Jack Harrison or Johnny Careless attending Badsey School, so perhaps they were Littleton friends. It’s a real coincidence that there was also an earlier George Bell who was a school manager but, as your grandfather was Australian, there does not appear to be any connection with the other Badsey Bells.

Marion has sent us several photos for our picture archive. These include a picture of Frank Amos with two large fish he caught.

Thanks for an interesting letter. In fact there is a little about the Robbins family on the website. For example, George Robbins appears in a 1937 coronation photograph. Do have a look at the name index and see if you can identify others that are yours. As long ago as the eighteenth century there were people called Robbins in Wickhamford.

I am helping Tom Locke with the Wickhamford section of the Badsey website so was interested to read your email regarding the Robbins family. My grandparents Charles & Annie Mason lived on Pitchers Hill and my father Fred Mason was born in 1910 in Wickhamford and also attended Badsey School. On leaving school in 1924 my father worked for Mr Lees-Milne in the gardens of Wickhamford Manor and then left in 1927 to join his father market gardening. They worked land on Pitchers Hill and also at Whitfurrows. I remember your uncle George and his wife living next to the Halfords on Pitchers Hill and also their son George and his wife and family living in Sandys Avenue. I have looked in the index and the families with the surname Robbins appear to have lived mainly in Badsey. There was a John Robbins and his wife Elizabeth and family living in Wickhamford in the early part of the 19th century and Mary Robbins married Gerard Stevens in Wickhamford church in 1697. The latest census to which we have access is 1911 and George Agg and his family are living next to the Halford family on Pitchers Hill so presumably your grandparents moved to the house after that date.

A survey of Wickhamford churchyard has been undertaken by Peter Stewart and is on the Wickhamford section of the website. I note that John Robbins was buried in 1942 and his plot is opposite the church door. You say that Tom Robbins is buried opposite the church door. Is this the same man? I was interested to hear that Robin Cottage was named after your family.

We are always looking for old photos or documents relating to Wickhamford and their residents and wonder if you or any other members of your family have anything that may be of interest to include on the site. Many thanks for your email. It's nice to know that people are looking at the website and I hope you have found it interesting.

We now have a new article Robin Cottage and the Robbins family.

Very many thanks for your kind comments and the extra information. I shall put the additional facts into the article and arrange for an amended version to be put on the web-site. If you could send me a photo of the Meritorious Conduct Medal, I will include that as well. If you have a photograph of him in uniform, I would like to add that to the section on him.

I believe they were built not long after the First World War. I have a map from 1930, when many properties were auctioned in the village. The council houses are marked on this map roughly from the Sandys Arms to where the present A44 runs. There appears to be 7 pairs indicated. They were not part of the sale, but are shown on the map.

It is thought that the first Council Houses were ready to move into by the latter part of 1921, thus were still being built at the time of the 1921 census. Seven pairs were initially built (Nos 1-14, present-day Nos 3-31 Pitchers Hill), followed by six more pairs in the 1930s (Nos 15-26, present-day Nos 33-67 Pitchers Hill) after the sale of land by the trustees of Captain J P Lord. By January 1938, with rapid development following the sale of the Lord land, the houses were renumbered to the present-day numbering system (more or less, but some changes must have occurred in the 60s or 70s higher up the hill). Who was your great-grandfather?

Here is the article about Eliza Stanley, midwife.

Can anyone help Jeanne? Reverend Allsebrook appears in a group photograph taken at Seward House reproduced on page 90 of A Brief History of Badsey and Aldington. Did you know Allsebrook Gardens is named after him?

All four members of the Allsebrook family are interred in Badsey churchyard. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, the vicar William Allsebrook did not fill in the burials registers from 1936 to 1945. He did not record the christenings over the same period. His son William James Basil Allsebrook died in 1938, aged 24. He is not recorded in the burial registers and there is no known plot number for him in the churchyard. There is also no known plot for the Vicar, William Carmont Allsebrook, who was buried in the churchyard on April 18, 1947, aged 79 and his wife Evelyn Kate who predeceased him and was buried on February 19, 1932, aged 67. His daughter did not marry and lived as a recluse in Bengeworth, Evesham. She died in 2002 and was buried in the churchyard on June 26, 2002. I numbered her plot as Section A, plot 82. Her parents and her brother were said to be buried nearby but nobody knows exactly where. William Carmont Allsebrook married Evelyn Kate Hands, of Badsey, at Solihull Parish Church on Thursday June 24, 1909 and I am attaching a copy of the photographs of the couple that appeared in the Evesham Journal for June 26, 1909. Also see my book on the churchyard where I have included a detailed obituary for William Allsebrook.

You are indeed correct that the Reverend W C Allsebrook had two children, neither of whom married. We are fortunate that The Badsey Society was donated an archive of papers relating to the Allsebrook family following the death of Evelyn Allsebrook in 2002. The papers include papers relating to Allsebrook’s career in the church and documents about the Hands and Payton families (he married Evelyn Hands in 1909, whose mother was a Payton). This information will all be available online by the end of this year, as we are developing a special Badsey Archive and Museum website, so please keep checking our website later in the year for news of the new website. You might also like to look at a copy of “Another Self” by James Lees-Milne, which is his autobiographical memories of growing up in Wickhamford, the neighbouring village to Badsey, where Allsebrook was also Vicar, and is mentioned in the book. I think it is still in print; I’m sure you should be able to get it on Amazon or borrow from your local library.

Tom Locke has now produced a revised version of the Wickhamford Mill article using some of the new information John gave him.

You may be relieved to know that Hanging Ground does not refer to a place of execution. It just means a sloping field, in this case going down to Badsey Brook. Have a look at the notes that Maureen Spinks has assembled about Horsebridge Avenue and you may also be interested in Will Dallimore's history of local Council Housing in one of the Badsey Society books.

It is unlikely that the 'shelter' in your garden is an air raid shelter because the Horsebridge estate was built just after World War 2. Could it perhaps be a market gardener's hut or hovel? If you are willing to let Badsey Society have a photocopy of the map with your deeds, we might be able to discover more.

Lynne has kindly given us a copy of the map. The shelter remains a bit of a mystery. There was never a bus shelter in that position, nor is it an air raid shelter. Terry Sparrow has suggested that it might possibly have been an open sided sided shelter where market gardeners left produce for collection near the road. I have looked at large scale OS maps for several dates but it is not shown. We also have a 1946 aerial photo which shows Horsebridge Avenue as a building site, with the road partly constructed but no buildings in place. I cannot see the shelter on this either.

Will Dallimore suggests another possibility: We have been calling the document a map, when actually it is a plan. A map displays roads, houses, etc. that are actually in existence, whilst a plan displays the architects ideas of what they would like built. What I am trying to say is that the shelter in question was drawn on the plan, but never ever got built. Between the planning stage and its construction the shelter was 'shelved'. Maybe it was because the two 'private' houses' were being built next to it. Or simply because it was sited in the wrong place. Eventually, a brick and tile bus shelter was built, which was nearer Synehurst Crescent than the present one. When the pelican crossing was installed the present shelter was erected to the Evesham side of the crossing. This forced bus passengers to use the crossing.

Many thanks for your kind comments. I started the piece by looking into the background of the soldiers who died and were recorded on the Church War Memorial, but like topsy, it grew ! It's a pity that a lot of the Army Records were destroyed, but I pieced together what information had survived and my friend Val Harman helped in chasing up a lot of the photographs. As you may have seen, we have also done a shorter article on the four men who died in WW2. As of yet, no Army records are available, other than bits of information provided by the War Graves people. Regarding your family, if you have any additional information, we would be pleased to see it. I can always update the article with additional material.

The panel in the church says your Daniel Jones was at Badsey from 1788 to 1808. It is likely he moved on to another parish. Although he is too early to appear in Crockfords Clerical Directory (first published 1858), their website www.crockford.org.uk does have some helpful ideas on tracing clergy before that time.

I transcribed all the parish records for Badsey. Unfortunately I do not know of any surviving bastardy orders/settlement certificates for Badsey. I am interested to know whether your ancestor was known by the name of DAVIS or BOWKER. You will see from my note on the website that I had thought he was baptised JOHN DAVIS, but the IGI has indexed him as JOHN BOWKER. There are a lot of BOWKERs or BOOKERs in the neighbouring parishes of Wickhamford and Bretforton. We may in due course get round to putting the Wickhamford records on to the website, but they are not ready as yet, but I have extracted a list of the BOOKER/BOWKER records (not checked properly). I believe both Wickhamford and Bretforton records have been catalogued on the IGI, but I can’t find a reference to a Robert Bowker marrying an Elizabeth, so probably they were married in a parish which has not been recorded by the IGI; I think the Shropshire record seems unlikely. Did your ancestor remain in Badsey? I see that a John Davis died in 1784, but was he your ancestor?

18 High Street 'The Schumachs' is an interesting old house but sadly today in a poor state of repair. The photograph on the website is about 10 years old and since then the front has been stripped of most of its rendering. There are details in the house to suggest it may be Tudor, but Pevsner puts it as seventeenth century and he is likely to be right. Our oldest map of Badsey is the 1812 enclosure map where the house stands in a plot owned by Joseph Simpson. On the same plot but missing from the map is the house currently occupied by our Spar shop and post office. This must have been built a few years after the map was made. You can see a historical description of the plot written by Maureen Spinks.

This leaves a lot of your questions unanswered. Where did William Harris sell his beer and run his shop? Was it at this same address, that later became a bakery?

I have spoken to Terry Sparrow, village historian, to see if he knew William Charles and Marjorie Knight. He certainly knew William, who was a market gardener down Badsey Fields Lane and was at one time Secretary of the Flower Show. He does not know what happened to William and Marjorie's two children, only that they are not living in Badsey.