Where's Waresley?

WARESLEY

Huntingdonshire

2000 AD

Founded 975 AD

242 souls

of which 39 children

oldest resident 96 years

youngest resident 3 months

102 dwellings

church of St James the Great

two burial grounds

six farms

public house Duncombe Arms

garden centre

Not an enormous place then. And not one that you're likely to go to unless you're visiting the garden centre. I live less than ten miles away and I'd not been before, but Les and some friends went to buy plants there last week and reported that it was a pretty little village. So we'll start at the garden centre then....

This lively statue was on display. I'm not sure if it was for sale, but British garden centres sell most things these days - plants and garden furniture of course, but also toys, books, BBQs, cakes and there's a café here too.

Just a short distance along the road stands the church of St James. We'll get to that by-and-by but, as it's not raining at the moment, we'll look around the village first.

A row of thatched houses stand opposite the church. They are not quite as ancient as they look, dating from the mid nineteenth century. That's later than you'd expect for buildings with thatched roofs, though it doesn't make them any less attractive.

The building above is the village pub, the Duncombe Arms, also dating from the mid nineteenth century. Sadly, like many village inns, it closed down recently and now stands empty. Pictures online show it decorated with hanging baskets of flowers and looking very welcoming. Lets hope someone rescues it.

Just outside the former pub there's a very ornate wrought iron lamppost, commemorating the sixtieth year of Queen Victoria's reign.

A little further down Manor Farm Road are two more mid nineteenth century cottages. Like all the other buildings I've shown you these are Listed Buildings of historic and cultural interest. The official listing notes that the tiled roof is a modern addition, so maybe these were once thatched too.

A few more steps brings you opposite another thatched house.

We're soon at the corner of Manor Farm Road. This style of sign was common not long ago but most have been replaced by more modern forms.

By the entrance to Waresley Hall you can find the village water pump. Again it dates from the mid nineteenth century - just what was going on here in the 1850s that meant that so much building was taking place? We'll make our way back towards the pub and the church, then we'll turn down Vicarage Road where I'll tell you all about it.

So here we are - and guess what we're looking at? Yes, more mid nineteenth century work echoing olde English styles of domestic architecture, this one with the addition of a straw fox standing proudly on the roofline. That garden wall is worth a closer look....

There's been a village here since at least Saxon times and probably longer. From the Middle Ages until 1930 the whole of the village belonged to a single landowner, with everyone who lived here working on the estate. In the 1830s it was bought by Charles Duncombe, 1st Baron Feversham, who passed it on to his youngest son, Octavius. It was Octavius who built much of the village we see today. He passed it on to his children till the land was split up and sold off in the 1930s.

If you were a working woman or man in Waresley (or in many other similar settlements) at any time in the past ten centuries your quality of life depended largely upon the character of "the lord and lady at the big house". A heartless and ruthless one could turn you out of your house and job, leaving you and your family destitute. On the other hand a generous, forward-thinking landowner might invest in your village, raising the standard of housing and infrastructure.

Even if your local lord was of the generous sort, you'd still work very long hours for very little pay and you'd live with the threat of eviction always a possibility. Surprisingly though, men and women like Octavius were not all that rare and "estate villages" like this exist all over the country. Showing off ones estate - the house, parkland, gardens, local church and also the housing provided for workers - was how these people enhanced their reputation among the constant stream of similarly wealthy visitors they welcomed to their homes. It was when they lived at a distance from the lands they might have owned, holdings in such places as Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, the colonies or the mining areas of Britain, that the real trouble started.

And we'll leave you with this little soul, grazing in a meadow opposite the church. We'll have a look at the church in the next post, though you'll probably have guessed by now that that was paid for by Octavius Duncombe too. 

Take care.