Mrs Maybrick’s Preston Scrapbook (1953): Part one
When writing the history of Preston was just a twinkle in one’s eye, I mooted
the idea to two Preston ladies in a cottage beside Preston Green.
Somewhat sniffily, the reaction of one was, ‘Why would you want to do that –
it’s already been done’. She was right. Mrs Ann Maybrick (shown right)
lovingly compiled a scrapbook history of the village in 1953.
I feel a certain affinity with Anne. Her husband, Frederick Maybrick, was the
tenant of Preston Hill Farm and employed my father in the 1940s. Ann and
her husband moved into what is known today as Reeves Cottage which had
been Mum and Dad’s home for almost four years – and where I was fleetingly
bred. I had already seen and photographed a poor duplication of the
scrapbook at Hertfordshire Archives and Record Office (HALS).
There, I also found a news report about its publication which is here
reproduced
The history of Preston and Langley has been put on record – mainly thanks to the efforts of one
woman.
Pictured here, with the unique village book she compiled in 1953, is Mrs Ann Maybrick of Crunnells
Green, Preston. Mrs Maybrick was asked to produce the book for a competition held by the WI to
mark the Coronation – and was very surprised at the time when it beat all the other Hertfordshire
entries!
Since then, the book has become a treasured possession in Preston. It has been in such demand that
four copies have been made and the villagers take it in turns to look after the original. ‘It is
enormously popular’, admits Mrs Maybrick, ‘It has been round and round the village’. This isn’t
surprising, since the work is a readable and fascinating account of Preston and Langley village life
from Domesday times (when Preston was called ‘Wedelee’) until 1953. It uses paintings and drawings
done by people in the villages, old maps carefully copied by Mrs Maybrick and old photographs.
It’s beautifully bound with leather from Russell’s tan
yards in Hitchin – and an inscription records the
fact that Russell’s also supplied the leather used to
bind the Queen’s Coronation prayer-book and
Bible. ‘I went to see Mr Percy Russell and asked
him for some leather’, recalls Mrs Maybrick. ‘He
said I could pay him later – and he never sent us
the bill’.
Mrs Maybrick started writing and compiling the
book during the Second World War. ‘I used to sit in
the old village farm office by the phone on fire-
watch,’ she said. ‘There were always several
people with me who had lived in the village and I
used to pick their brains for information.’ Compiling
the book also meant trips to St Mary’s Church in Hitchin where Mrs Maybrick would spend hours in a
‘little dusty room’ looking through parish records.
Some of the photographs in the book are old postcards copied at the old Andrew’s Chemists in Brand
Street and others were taken later. All the Coronation festivities have been faithfully recorded on
camera – there’s the wonderful photo of all the Preston village people gathered around as the
Coronation sapling was planted on the village green. The ‘sapling’ is of course now a large flourishing
oak tree opposite the Red Lion pub.
The book also tells the story of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee – held on June 22, 1897 when a
total of £31 18s 4d was collected from which a mug, an orange and a bun was presented to every
school child. Records like these are supremely important to a village like Preston where many of the
older people find that village life is declining. Mrs Maybrick is very sad that the WI exists no longer – it
closed a few years ago as there was no-one left to be on the committee. But Mrs Maybrick can rest
assured that she has provided her village with something that will always remain.”
(Above) The crocheted cover and leather binding of the Scrapbook
(Above) Title page and preface beautifully drawn and penned by WM (Billy) Moffoot
Preston in times past was known as Wedelee.
It seems to have been tied up with the manor of
Temple Dinsley and was presumably the village
part was mentioned in Domesday Book, but all
under the heading of Deneslai. "Nineteen
villaines, seven cottagers and two mills. One
meadow, common pasture and wood to feed
300 hogs." Which left the Manor, "Seven
borders, six servants and one French
Almswoman of the King."
The first mention of Preston as such was in the
time of the Knights Templars and there is an
unsubstantiated theory that the priest in charge
of the Chapel of Ease attached to Temple
Dinsley may have had a house in the village -
the Priest's Tun or House. Cussans in his
History of Hertfordshire says, "at Preston there
formerly existed a chapel of ease to the church
of Hitchin, served by chaplains from the
monastry of Elstow.
No trace of this building now remains, but in its
place is a plain brick edifice which was built by
the late Thomas Harwood Darton Esq. Divine
Service is held in this chapel every Sunday by
a curate from the mother church. On weekdays
it is used as a school for the benefit of poor
children living in this outlying district of the
Parish of Hitchin." This building is still used as a
school by the children of Preston and Langley.
Preston grew from the small hamlet of
Domesday times until, in 1894, an old map
shows it as a complete village with its own
church-school, miller, bakehouse, butcher, two
shops, a tailor, a wheelwright, a carpenter, a
carter and several flourishing farms.
Names of families still in Preston appear in the
Churchwardens' Overseers' books of
collections of rates for the poor law as far back
as 1714 when a Burr is mentioned. In 1821
when a census of the village was taken, there
were 70 dwellings and among the occupants
were Currells, Walkers, Dartons, Jeeves,
Palmers and Sharpes.
The people of Preston were employed in the
village, at Temple Dinsley and on the farms and
the women supplemented the wages, in 1884,
10/- a week for a farm labourer, by plaiting
straw for the Luton Hat Industry and picking
stones off the fields for the farmers.
Within living memory, the village has changed a
great deal. Ease of transport to Luton and
Hitchin killed the local trades and the only
employer of labour was the Lord of the Manor
once again.
At the beginning of the century a great many of
the cottages and also two of the farms were
pulled down, and it is only recently that more
people have wanted houses in the village when
it is possible for them to get work further afield.
Since the war, a row of Swedish timber Council
Houses have gone up and several new houses
have been built privately.
The Village Green
The centre of village life. Here was held
annually, on the last Wednesday and Thursday
of October, a Sheep Fair and the many paths
across the Green are said to have started as
sheep tracks.
The fair developed later into a purely fun fair
until it stopped at the beginning of the first
World War. The men of the village today
remember their zeal in picking up acorns to sell
to the pig-keeping villagers to gain a penny or
two to spend at the Fair.
The Well on the Green was the gift of William
Henry Darton, son of the Thomas Harwood
Darton, who had built the school. It was dug up
in the hot dry summer of 1872 when most of
the ponds had dried up. It was bored in the rock
226 ft. down.
Before that all the water in the village was
drawn from the many ponds by the side of the
road. The stones used in making the roads
acted as a filter and the water was said to be
always clear.
The pond at the edge of the Green when
cleaned out was discovered to be so deep that
to anyone standing in the bottom the chimneys
of the Red Lion were not visible. There are
other stories of dead kittens floating in ponds
from which water was being drawn to boil the
cabbage but no one seemed any the worse.
The water from the new well was considered to
be very good. One young man, ill in Hitchin
Hospital, asked his old father to bring some
water from Preston as he could not drink the
Hitchin water. His father spilt it on the way
down so filled up his can in Hitchin, never
thinking the son would know, but when he
drank it he just turned over and died!
A map of 1884 shows the position of houses
now demolished and gives an idea of the
village activities. The bonfire site was on the
Green opposite the present Preston House.
The Carpenter's Shop was used for concerts by
the young Pryors.
Mr. Smith, the carpenter, owned one of the first
threshing and dressing machines in the district.
When the engine drawing the machine was on
the road, it was preceeded by a man carrying a
red flag.
The straw plaiting schools were kept by a Mrs.
Peters and a Mrs. Stratton. Here, the children
were taught the different types of plaits, after
school hours, and were very strictly kept to their
work, though they were none of them very old.
Tom Sharp, the butcher, killed pigs for the
villagers and also cut their hair. Mr. Robinson,
the tailor, lived almost next door to where his
daughter, Mrs. Harry Worthington, lives today.
The Proprietor of the Red Lion also extracted
teeth.
The Parish Meeting
The Preston Parish Meeting was constituted under the Local Government Act (1894). The Meeting
first assembled on December 4th 1894, when Mr. MacMillan was elected chairman and it was
decided not to apply for the status of a Parish Council. The Meeting was at that time responsible for
appointing a representative of the hamlet on the Rural District Council and Mr. R. de V. Pryor was
elected to that post. The upkeep of the roads was also the responsibility of the Parish, and in March
1895 Mr T Ashton and Mr Henry James were appointed Overseers and Mr Charles Davis,
Waywarden. It is of interest to note that, in 1898, it was decided to refuse an application by the
county council to make that part of the road from Ley Green to Gosmore passing through the village
into a main road.
The Chairmanship of the Preston Parish Meeting was held by:
Mr. Frederick O. MacMillan 1894 - 1897
Rev. Bamlet N. Switzer 1897 - 1900
Mr. Frederick O. MacMillan 1900 - 1901
Mr. Ralston de V. Pryor 1901 - 1915
Mr. Reginald J. W. Dawson 1915 - 1937
Mr. Frederick O. Blanchard 1937 - 1945
Mr. William Darton 1945
Mr. Frederick B. Geidt 1945 -
Under the Local Government Act 1894, a joint Burial Board was established for the parishes of
Hitchin, Preston and Langley. Canon Hensley was the first representative of Preston and
subsequently the village was represented by the vicars of Hitchin. When St. Martin's Church was built
at Preston in 1900, burials of all denominations took place in the graveyard attached to the Church
and the yearly fees to the Board became a burden on the village. Not until 1951 was an order made
by the Hertfordshire County Council excluding the parishes of Preston and Langley from the area of
the Hitchin Burial Act's Joint Committee. In 1895 a 1/- rate realized £359 4s 5d.
Under the Education Act (1902), the parish was asked to elect one of the School Managers and in
1903, Mrs. Barrington-White was elected, being followed by Mr. H. E. Seebohm, The Hon. Mrs
Fellowes, The Hon. Mrs Douglas Vickers, Lt. Col. Ian Denistoun, Mrs. H. E. Seebohm and Mrs.
Puxley. Under the Education Act of 1944, the school was given the status of a Controlled School and
in 1947, Mr. Derrick Seebohm and Mrs. F. Maybrick were appointed the representatives of the parish
on the Board of Managers.
In 1928, the thanks of the Meeting were conveyed to Mr. Douglas Vickers for the gift of a field to be
used as a Sports Ground. It was agreed that the cost of upkeep should be charged to the Parish, but
a Trust was formed, placing it under the control of the Hitchin Rural District Council (RDC). In 1945
Mr. Blanchard resigned the Chairmanship of the Meeting as a protest against the action of the
Housing Committee of the Hitchin RDC. No Chairman was elected in his place so a Special Assembly
had to be convened by Mr. F. Reynolds, as the Parish Representative on the Hitchin RDC. Mr. W.
Darton was elected but as he left the village on short notice, the same procedure had to be followed
in the same year for the election of Mr Geidt as Chairman.
One of the features of the village was the five elm trees which stood on the Green . Certain of these
trees were reported to be in a dangerous condition but it was decided that it was unnecessary for any
of them to be felled. The Green was vested in the Lord of the Manor who was represented by the
Trustees of J. Barrington-White (dec’d) with whom and with the County Surveyor and the Clerk of the
Hitchin R.D.C. Much correspondence followed.
On January 30th 1946, the County Surveyor
wrote, "I am not aware there is any
suggestion the trees should be felled" .
Before that letter was delivered, the first tree
had been felled. Great efforts were made,
without success, to stop the senseless
destruction. The Chairman, by accepting full
responsibility, was able to delay, for a few
days, the felling of the historic "Maypole" tree
in the centre of the Green which had been
planted to commemorate the Coronation of
George III.
As a result of this disaster, arrangements were made to purchase from the Lord of the Manor all the
land which was still vested in the Lordship - the Village Green itself, Crunnell's Green and the verge
between St. Alban's Highway and the east boundary of Temple Dinsley. The price paid was £5.
A public subscription list was opened and, acting on the advice of the Conservator of the Forests of
the City of London, lime and thorn trees were planted to replace the elms on the Green.
One woman’s history of two villages (North Herts Gazette: 23 August 1979)