Well I am finally getting to grips with making the site a useful resource for local history and genealogy.  I have made some progress but there is still a lot to do.  I have sorted out a number of mistakes on the site and worked out how best to manage the images so they don’t get lost if the site gets hacked or whatever.  Most of the the images are going to be stored on Flickr and linked to from the WordPress site.  Being on Flickr also potentially allows many people people so see them and link back to the Common Stream website.  I have also set up a Common Stream Facebook page which should also reach another, perhaps different audience.  On the site itself Facebook ‘Like’ and Facebook and Twitter ‘post’ icons have been added to the content.

Still having problems with the logins though!! … ok back to the code!

I was out cycling yesterday morning and couldn’t resist taking this shot of the Dovecote with rising winter easterly sunrise behind it. Lots of kids and parents taking the shortcut to Foxton Primary School

A great little application that allows you to create little planet views of locations in Google Maps! Do you recognise the places?

I have many memories of Foxton as it was when I was growing up. In the beginning when I lived at WhitegatesI remember my step-grandfather (Alf Lyons) taking me when he delivered milk in the village. He lived at Foxton House and had a small dairy and delivered milk in the village. I was about 3 then. Whitegates was the poultry farm and Ithink the house was new however the chicken house caught fire and burned down I think about 1939 and we had to move .. I remember going over to The Bury and watching Mum and Daddy play tennis with Mr & Mrs Stevens Their lawn was the tennis court. A short time after we left The poultry Farm we went to live with Granny at Foxton House.That was war time. One of the things that comes to mind more than anything is people getting their water from the pump by your house. There were two pumps that supplied the village the one by your house and the one at the other end of high street. The people had water carts they used to fill. It was all done by hand no motorized ones. Also most of the farming was done with Horses. I think Mr Stevens was the first to get a tractor and Mr Smith was the last to have horses They were beautiful big Shire’sand were in the field across from the Press. There was a blacksmith shop not far from the Black Boy on the other side of the road and when I was growing up the blacksmith came from Harston once a week to shoe horses etc. and would let me work the bellows sometimes I realy enjoyed watching him work and the smell and the fire. As the horses became less he only came once a month.Now the building is long gone. We had a Post office in the cottage across from the War Memorial which was run by Mr & Mrs Cole they had sweets and a few other things also there was a store at the other end of the village with more groceries owned by Mr and Mrs chamberlin. Everthing else was delivered the baker and the butcher from Melbourn and Johnny Hall had a grocery shop at Barrington. He came on Tuesday for the order and delivered it on Friday.
During the war we had films shown in the village hall once a week and we had a youth club which Nicola’s Mum Joan Nisbet ran. we also had a concert party Fred Lowe Johnny Hanes and I cant think off hand who else we went round to other villages and did concerts Fred played the piano.
The seat was a big part of my life and my JG are there somewhere!! the clunch wall and all that was written on it I know is gone I know. The public footpaths were also great are they still there? One of the people that seemed to know a lot was Eileen Looker. Did she pass her knowledge on?

Rowland Parker – Author.

Rowland became an author as a result of his research to find the history of his cottage. He hand-wrote his notes to make them readable for family and friends, but it was his teenage daughter who wanted him to become a published author. She sent off for self-publication literature and eventually talked him into going ahead. He lost his money (!), but retrieved the typeset, which through Don Challis, he was able to pay Burlington Press to print. ‘Cottage on the Green’ sold well, and The Common Stream, and his other works followed.

Rowland Parker – Younger.

As a young man, Rowland was determined to use his talents. The family farm was not big enough to support all the brothers, and he did well at school. He worked hard and won a scholarship to Nottingham University. His undergraduate studies in modern languages opened his horizons and he decided to become a teacher. He was a keen cyclist and rambler during those years. He also competed as a cross-country runner, representing his university – at least once successfully, judging by the trophy he is holding!

Rowland Parker – Sketcher.

It was during his University years at Nottingham, Rowland had his first sketch published in the local newspaper. He had an eye for detail, and his best line drawings were of buildings and bridges. Wherever he went he would record things that caught his interest in his sketchbook. He would then work these into line drawings, often on a winter’s evening, sitting by the fire smoking his pipe in The Cottage, with a small glass of whiskey on the table beside him. Just before he died he began to experiment with oil paints, which was something he always wanted to do, but never had time for.

Rowland Parker – Thinker.

Although a very practical person, Rowland liked to mull thoughts and ideas over and philosophise. Once he hit upon a theory he was always right of course! He could be very dogmatic. His friend, Peter Lloyd, has a story of how Rowland decided one of the doors in Peter’s house looked like a church door, and by the next time Rowland showed a history group round the house the door had become a former church door, so convinced he was. Maybe this talent for suggesting – and then believing in – what seemed right to him is what enabled him to create the magic of The Common Stream.

Rowland Parker – Archaeologist.

A passionate amateur archaeologist, historian and a natural teacher, Rowland wanted the things he discovered to be available for people to see and touch, so that they could connect physically to the past. He regularly took his ‘mobile museum’ to history groups and schools where he would give talks. He donated some important items to Royston Museum and to The Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, but he kept the things that would end up in a storeroom at home where they could be cherished. Holding a roman pot is an amazing experience!

This is a picture sent to us by Vicky Herod (nee Hardman).  It was taken on the 12 of September 1933 and shows Vicky’s mother Ivy Coles (who would become Ivy Hardman) with Eliza Coles.  The little dog was called Mitzy!

We are having wonderful weather in Foxton and elsewhere in the UK – enjoying record temperatures for the time of the year. The sky is so clear I just had to take this shot of the moon.

Gordon

Another photographic post card most likely taken by Robert Clark in the 1900′s – looks 1920/30-ish to me. In the zooms you can see the covered well from side on and there is something written on it. I think I can make out ‘Foxton’ but that’s about it!

Gordon

Born in 1912, Rowland was the son of a Lincolnshire farmer. He attended Louth Grammar School before gaining a scholarship which enabled him to go to Nottingham University where he read French and modern languages. He then trained as a teacher. He was a keen cross-country runner, walker and cyclist, as well as being a talented artist. In 1935, he got a job teaching French at the Central School – which later became the Boys Grammar School – in Cambridge, where he stayed for 37 years until he retired in 1972.

In 1940 he joined the Royal Artillery and spent his war years as he used to say ‘following round in the wake of the action’. He went to North Africa, Italy, Egypt, Syria and Palestine. During this time not only did he make some life-long friends, develop an interest in history and archaeology, learn how to strip a lorry engine, but he also started writing a journal.

After the war, in 1946 his search for a house brought him to Foxton, where he bought Cottage on the Green. History and archaeology gradually became passions that changed his life. He was an expert gardener and grower, and was instrumental insetting up the Foxton Gardens Association. He was also a keen Youth Hosteller and Rambler and was involved in securing Houghton Mill as a Youth Hostel.

When he started to research the history of The Cottage, he unearthed the history of Foxton at the same time. It took 13 years of research to achieve this. After writing his book ‘Cottage on the Green’ and publishing it himself, he wrote ‘The Common Stream’, followed by ‘Men of Dunwich’, ‘On the Road – the Papworth Story’ and ‘Town and Gown’. He also wrote several pamphlets including one on the ‘Cartruts and Temples of Malta and Gozo.’

Although he could appear quite stern and serious, he was actually good fun and loved talking to people. He was a keen chess player, and loved to do crosswords. Once he retired he began to go into local schools with some of the artefacts he had found to give talks ‘on real history’ to the children, and he also gave guided tours to groups walking round Foxton. He enjoyed holidays in France, home produced food, good wine, smoking his pipe, and a glass of whiskey in the evening before going to bed. He died in 1989

This is a photographic postcard, most probably taken by Robert Clark, that I found on ebay and kickstarted my interest in local history. It had been posted to Dresden in Germany in 1906 and found its way back to Foxton in 2006. It survived two world wars! The zooms show a recognisable little girl smiling or the camera and a group standing by one of the village wells. It show that the well had a wooden structure built around it and a roof! There are two men with shiny sliver buckets and to their left some well dressed children, what I assume must be the driver of the horse and carriage.

Gordon