2013 |
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In association with Fakenham and district Sun - Fakenham's only free paper
Readers of the ‘Fakenham and District Sun free paper’ will be familiar with our regular ‘Local History Corner’ articles which have appeared each month since December 2011.
For those who may not receive a printed edition, there is an opportunity here to view the current article as well as those from previous editions. |
December 2013 |
Fakenham's (Travelling!) Post Office
The Post Office in Fakenham has had at least five locations in its long history! 1. The first record we have of a Crown Post Office in Fakenham was in the fine old listed building on the corner of Old Post Office Street behind the cinema, currently occupied by Butcher Andrews, solicitors. This replaced an earlier sub post office on the site, a glass and chinaware shop run by Martin Bambridge. 2. The Post Office moved to the other end of the Market Place in 1906 (to the premises currently occupied by Belton Duffey estate agents), and our photo shows the official opening ceremony in January 1907, which probably explains the smart turnout! The man in the bowler hat is the Postmaster, Mr. Pengelley. |
A yard at the rear of these premises later housed Fakenham’s first telephone exchange. The snow on the pavement and the well-dressed lady warming her hands in a fur muff also indicate it was taken in winter. Is anyone able to identify the make of the handsome delivery van with its solid tyres, ’ER’ (Edward VII) insignia and early Norfolk ’AH’ number plate?
3. In 1933 the Post Office moved again to a purpose-built building on the corner of Holt Road and Queens Road, which housed a sorting office, telephone exchange and Post Office counter. The building is still the main sorting office for the area and houses a parcel collection office.
4. The building closed as a public Post Office in 1994 (or 1995) and simultaneously opened a Post Office counter in Budgens supermarket (now the Argos store).
5. In 2008 the Post Office moved yet again to its current location, within Forbuoys newsagents in Millers Walk.
Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive
Additional information below, courtesy of Mike Welland.
Elizabeth Markant was the postmistress until the 1830s, succeeded by William Warren in about 1835. He died in 1840 and was succeeded by Charles Lulman who moved to the Bridge Street post office, (recorded as Bull Street) At that time Martin Bambridge had his shop in Oak Street selling Glass and China. Charles Libman later became a newsagent from his property and the post office was taken on by Martin Bambridge. He died in 1895 and I believe was still postmaster at that time.
3. In 1933 the Post Office moved again to a purpose-built building on the corner of Holt Road and Queens Road, which housed a sorting office, telephone exchange and Post Office counter. The building is still the main sorting office for the area and houses a parcel collection office.
4. The building closed as a public Post Office in 1994 (or 1995) and simultaneously opened a Post Office counter in Budgens supermarket (now the Argos store).
5. In 2008 the Post Office moved yet again to its current location, within Forbuoys newsagents in Millers Walk.
Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive
Additional information below, courtesy of Mike Welland.
Elizabeth Markant was the postmistress until the 1830s, succeeded by William Warren in about 1835. He died in 1840 and was succeeded by Charles Lulman who moved to the Bridge Street post office, (recorded as Bull Street) At that time Martin Bambridge had his shop in Oak Street selling Glass and China. Charles Libman later became a newsagent from his property and the post office was taken on by Martin Bambridge. He died in 1895 and I believe was still postmaster at that time.
November 2013 |
Fakenham Grammar School, 1962 - Staff Photo
This photo shows the staff of Fakenham Grammar School in 1962. We don’t have all the names, so Fakenham Community Archive would be very grateful if you can help fill in the missing people. Front row (left to right): Miss Jessie Cooke (Secretary); Betty Watson (English); Faith Bennell (Cookery and Needlework); Miss Molly Powell (Deputy Head & History); Stanley Eckersley (Headmaster); Mr Robinson (Physics); Miss Barbera Bennett (French); Joyce Balding (French Literature); Mrs Moore ( RE, History, Biology). Middle row (left to right): Mrs Taylor (Secretary) Roger Dixon (History, RE); John Appleton (English); Don Jones (Classics); Mr Sparks (Chemistry); Dr Loose (Science); Keith Balding (French); Walter Barnard (Geography); Celia Needham (PE). Back row (left to right): Mac Moore (French); Trevor Reece (Geography); John Farmer (Music); John Tuck (Woodwork); Ken East (Art); John Smith (Maths); Ronnie (Rowley) Rudd (PE); Frank Lawson (Maths ATC); Rev. Isaacson (Maths) Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive |
October 2013 |
Edmondson’s Garage, Oak Street, Fakenham
This photo shows a row of Fordson Dexta tractors awaiting delivery. It was taken about 1960 outside RC Edmondson’s Garage in Oak Street, Fakenham. This firm was taken over by Busseys in 1995. In the early 1950s Reg Edmondson founded Edmondson’s of Fakenham as a limited company of which he was Managing Director. This was a main Ford dealership and successor to Southgate’s Garage, an old established firm of coachmakers, who had also been Ford dealers. Edmondson’s sold and serviced agricultural machinery and cars and were also a petrol filling station. Their main offices were in the Old Rectory (opposite the library), and their car and agricultural workshops occupied the site of the current Tesco supermarket and car park. Personal car ownership grew rapidly in the 1950s, and with the increasing mechanisation of agriculture the company continued to expand. Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive |
September 2013 |
Maltsters outside the Maltings, Norwich Road, Fakenham
Soon after the Fakenham East railway station was opened in 1849 in Norwich Road, Fakenham the maltings - a factory for converting barley into malt for the brewing industry - was built alongside it by R. W.Dewing. This photo of the men who worked in the maltings – the maltsters - was taken in 1886, at a time when almost all the work was done manually using rakes, shovels, brooms and barrows. On this website you can read a fascinating description of the whole malting process by E. J. Sizeland, one of the men who worked as a maltster, who wrote: ’The maltster’s life was not an easy one - the work was hard, hot and dusty - but most of the old hands I always maintained they would do the same again. The job was secure, and being allowed to go home when the work was done was a great incentive. Working days were always interspersed with lots of laughter and fun, and for the most part everyone was willing to give the others a helping hand'. The building was last used in 1969 and demolished in 1989. The site is now occupied by The Maltings Residential Care Home. |
August 2013 |
An Aerial View of Fakenham in the 1950s
This fascinating aerial view of Fakenham town centre was taken in the 1950s. The most obvious difference between then and now is the huge area of the town that was taken up by Cox & Wyman’s printing works and the cattle market at the bottom right corner of the photo, replaced now by the White Horse Street car park, the Argos store and the Millers Walk shopping arcade. The other large buildings seen in the centre of the picture are the corn store sheds behind the Sheringham & Overman seed merchants’ offices in the Market Place (now the Warehouse Shop and previously the Woolworths store). One of these grain store sheds remains, while the Bridge Street car park occupies the rest of the site. There are many more interesting and detailed photos of Fakenham and the surrounding villages on this website together with a wealth of information, personal memories and links to other local websites and publications. Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive |
July 2013 |
Boating on the Wensum
This lovely photograph captures the atmosphere of a happy and carefree summer’s day boating on the River Wensurn in Fakenham, a popular way for people to spend a day off from work. We’re not sure of the exact date, but the costumes suggest the photo was taken in Edwardian times. The little boathouse and landing stage were situated just upstream of Goggs’ Mill at Hempton, when the river was a lot wider, and the background view is over the meadows towards Sculthorpe. Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive |
June 2013 |
Fakenham Carnival and Fun-day in 1988
This eye-catching photograph (kindly donated by Zena Haws) is if a float called' desert Island Shipwreck' and was entered by Sculthorpe Pantomime Players in the Fakenham Carnival and Fun-day in summer 1988. The Carnival featured over 25 floats and marked the sixth anniversary of the official twinning of Fakenham with Olivet in France. A party of about 100 people travelled from Olivet for the event, and several thousand people turned out into the streets of Fakenham to watch the parade. The town bands of both Olivet and Fakenham played stirring music both at the front and the back of the procession. Appearing in the picture are from the right: Jackie Barnes, Unknown little girl, Anne Playford, Linda Smith, Victoria Playford, Heather Pearce, Susan Playford, Zena Haws, Unknown, Amanda Banham, behind the masks are Joanne Haws and Sarah Haws. Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive |
May 2013 |
A School Photo from 100 Years Ago
This photograph of a class of schoolgirls with their teacher was taken around 1918 or 1919. We’re not sure where the picture was taken, but the age of the girls suggests that they were some of the first pupils to attend the new Fakenham Council School on the Queens Road site, which opened one hundred years ago this month. Fakenham ]unior School, as it is now, will be holding its centenary celebrations at the end of May, including a display of photos from the Fakenham Heritage Group at an exhibition open to the public on Tuesday 21st May from 3.20pm — 6.30pm and on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of that week from 3.20 - 4.30pm. One of the pupils in the photo is Margaret (Peggy) Andrews, the mother of local historian Dr. E. M. Bridges, who himself began his schooling on the Queens Road site in 1936. After a career lecturing and researching in soil science and geography, Dr Bridges returned to Fakenham in retirement, where he’s Chairman of the Trust which runs Fakenham Museum of Gas and Local History. Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive |
April 2013 |
Hula Hooping in Holt Road
This photograph of happy children playing with their hula hoops in Holt Road, Fakenham was taken in the 1960s, when the hula hoop craze swept the nation. Do you recognise anyone in the picture? Please contact us at Fakenham Community Archive if you can! ARTICLE UPDATE
Former Holt Road resident, Wendy Clark kindly contacted us recently with the names of some of those present in this picture. Wendy wrote:- 'The girls I know are, Jean Hodges, Alma Hall, Barbara Best, I think a girl Betts? Barbara Warnes who lived over the back of me and standing at the back with the other boys are; Tony Watts and his brother, they used to call 'hubby' Watts - Please could anyone fill me in with others'. |
March 2013 |
Fakenham Market Place, a century ago
This early morning photograph taken in the Market Place in 1913 reveals many changes not least in the pace of life. The old pump and watering trough was a popular meeting place for local characters and is host on this particular morning to its first arrival! The Old Market House from which Henry Bowles and his wife Edith ran their drapery business is seen at the corner with Bridge Street together with ’Ladies Fashionable Tailor' C W Gostling, who occupied the adjacent property. In the early 1920s part of the Market House was transformed to accommodate the National Union Bank, while the rest was combined with the property next door. From the 1920s, E G Saunders continued the tradition of ladies and gents tailoring there until late 1970, after which the National Westminster Bank was further extended to occupy the remainder of the former Old Market House. Though sadly unoccupied today, the 17th century Crown Hotel has of course seen little change externally. |
February 2013 |
High Terrace
was a row of 40 Victorian terraced houses built back-to-back in the l890s by the splendidly named local house builder William Orris Ebbage Utting of Lichfield Street, who built many other dwellings in the Queens Road and Church Lanes areas of Fakenham. High Terrace extended northwards from the junction with Claypit Lane and Grove Lane, which is to the north of Fakenham town. Only a small part of these back-to-back terraced houses remains today, still called High Terrace. Most of the houses in High Terrace were demolished in the mid l970s, as they had no bathrooms or inside toilets and would have needed new roofs and first floors to bring them up to modern standards. They were replaced by 36 new dwellings as part of a new housing scheme by North Norfolk District Council - the current Silverlands Close. Chris Chalk, Secretary, Fakenham Community Archive |
January 2013 |
Tractor Driving as it used to be...
Throughout the autumn and winter months our fields are tuned brown by the hugely efficient machines that we see working in our fields today. Our January picture looks back almost 60 years to a time when that process was very different in many ways. This picture, donated by David Overson of Helhoughton shows his father, Harry, working a Caterpillar D4C (Diesel4 Cylinder Crawler) and three-furrow plough on Raynham Park during the winter of 1945/46. With no protection from the elements, this poor chap is understandably 'rugged up' against the cold. Though numb with cold he still manages to till the land without the aid of a satnav system, and he's not even wearing gloves. The open top crawler was originally imported from America to aid the war effort and belonged to Dick Joice of Hall Farm, East Raynham. In the 1960s, Dick Joice became better known as a popular local TV presenter on programmes such as 'Farming Diary', 'About Anglia' and 'Bygones'. |
© 2011 Fakenham & District Community Archive.
Created in-house by Fakenham & District Community Archive
Created in-house by Fakenham & District Community Archive