Delivering milk in a cold 1950s winter

Post date: Thursday, December 3, 2020 - 17:20

The January picture (above) in the Reepham Life 2021 Calendar shows milk being delivered on Dereham Road in a very cold winter in the 1950s, with the house now known as Tyler’s Mead in the background.

A photograph (below) from the Reepham Archive in postcard format shows the house in the early 1900s.

In the 1901 census, Edward Le Neve is registered as living in the house with his wife Florence.

They were married in August 1900 in Oxnead parish and in the register Florence’s maiden name is given as Browne with her father named as Charles Edward Browne.

At the time of the marriage, Charles employed 10 men in the milling business and a further 10 on his 250-acre farm.

The card is postmarked 1907 and addressed to Mrs C. Browne in Marsham. Although the signature of the sender is not clear (it may have been a family nickname), this information allows us to assume that the writer was Florence since the message begins “Dear Mother”.

Edward Le Neve was the local registrar and relieving officer for the Aylsham Union – Reepham was part of that union at the time.

The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act introduced a national welfare system of poor relief with administrative areas called “poor law unions”. Each union was run by an elected board of guardians.

The relieving officers had to identify the poor and needy in their district, visiting applicants in their homes to assess their health and living conditions, and offer appropriate financial relief and medical help if necessary.

By 1907 Edward and Florence had two children, Florence and Arthur. Arthur was born in 1902 and is probably the child in the second photograph. He attended Reepham National School (St Mary’s, Norwich Road) until July 1915, when he is recorded as “transferred”.

The family presumably moved to Aylsham as by 1920 Edward is found in the town’s electoral roll.

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is normally open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. For more information about current services during the coronavirus pandemic, please email

To buy the Reepham Life 2021 Calendar, click HERE

Panic arose when pop idol opened fête in Reepham

Post date: Monday, January 13, 2020 - 18:17

Billy Fury, who visited Reepham in the summer of 1964, was a pop idol at the height of his fame and often dubbed “Britain’s Elvis Presley”. No doubt this was because they shared a similar hairstyle and a certain expertise in hip gyration.

The Reepham Fire Brigade was planning a fête on Stimpson’s Piece on 13 June of that year and wanted a celebrity to open the event and judge a beauty competition for “Miss Fire”.

Billy Fury was appearing in Great Yarmouth at the time. June Betts of the Reepham organising committee wrote to Billy’s agent, Larry Parnes, inviting him and Billy to the event.

They were pleased to accept and made no charge for the appearance, although they did require transport to and from Yarmouth and some stringent security arrangements, including a suggested 12 police officers for crowd control at the fête.

The late Vernon Whall was the designated driver on the day, according to Mrs Betts (although Evelyn Whall says the driver was Herbert Vout). He collected Billy and two minders, but they mistakenly believed they were only travelling the few miles to Reedham.

Panic ensued when they realised they had a much longer journey to Reepham. Vernon, however, calculated that the return journey could be achieved within the timeframe if the contest could be held immediately on arrival and if they could return to Yarmouth soon afterwards.

Fortunately, the timing and security arrangements worked well. Reepham only had two police officers at the time, but the desired number was made up by smartly uniformed fire officers.

There were around 10 contestants in the beauty pageant, most, but not all, from the Reepham neighbourhood and they paraded within the high fencing of the tennis court. A good crowd of spectators milled around outside.

Billy wasted no time selecting “Miss Fire” and a couple of runners-up. A newspaper photographer was on hand to capture the moment when Billy kissed the winner (below) and presented her with a white satin sash.

Billy was presented with gold cufflinks as a token of thanks. He greatly enjoyed a circuit of Stimpson’s Piece on a fire engine before rushing back to Yarmouth for his next stage performance.

The fête continued after Billy’s departure and, although it rained, a good time was had by all and an impressive £145 was raised for the Fire Service Benevolent Fund.

By Merilyn Meads, with thanks to June Betts

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email: reephamarchive@gmail.com

Non-conformists in Reepham

Post date: Thursday, October 10, 2019 - 21:55

In the 1920s, as well as the two Anglican churches in Reepham, there were three Methodist chapels, as well as the Salvation Army and the Plymouth Brethren.

Buildings in use at the time included the Wesleyan Chapel on Station Road, built in 1817.

The picture (above) of the 1910 circuit meeting in the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar for November shows the chapel before the schoolroom was built.

An earlier picture (below) from the Reepham Archive shows the chapel with the old schoolroom entrance on the east side coming right down to the road.

In 1827, a Baptist chapel was built in Fisher’s Alley, later taken over by the Free Methodists, which amalgamated with another group to become the United Methodists.

This chapel closed when the three main Methodist bodies amalgamated in 1932 and the congregation transferred to Station Road.

The chapel was sold and became a carpenter’s workshop and afterwards was used by the Good Companions’ Club.

It has since been demolished and two houses now stand on the site. It is thought that an upper window (overlooking Fisher’s Alley) in the new houses was one of the stained glass windows from the old chapel.

The Primitive Methodist chapel on Dereham Road was first built in 1847, then rebuilt in 1867. The congregation moved to the Station Road chapel after the Methodist Union in 1932. By 1936 it had become the headquarters for the Reepham Fire Station. It is now a private residence.

In the late 1800s, the Salvation Army established itself in the town by hiring premises in Norwich Road from Sidney Eglington. Two officers are registered in the 1901 census: William Mackenzie, Captain, and Walter Wise, Lieutenant, in a house on Norwich Road, both young and single.

In the same census, an Amelia Hudson in Newland Villas is also named as a Salvation Army preacher.

In the early 1900s, a congregation of Plymouth Brethren was active in Reepham and had premises in a building owned by a man called Jennings at Towns End.

It is called a Mission Room in the 1911 census and is possibly the Gospel Room that stood on the site of what is now Reepham Hair Studio.

(Some information from My Town by Wesley Piercy.)

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email: reephamarchive@gmail.com

A hive of business activity on Norwich Road

Post date: Monday, September 16, 2019 - 21:26

October’s photograph from the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar shows a very quiet picture of Norwich Road, Reepham, in the early 1900s (probably on a Monday, judging by the washing hanging out).

The first building on the right housed a harness maker, John Rooke: saddles and harnesses can be seen draped over the wall. He later moved to Cawston, but kept a shop on the other side of the road, which can be seen on the left in the picture below, taken later.

The railings in both pictures have disappeared, but the holes in the top of the wall, in front of the modern houses, can still be seen.

The ground where John Rooke built his new shop was at one time a garden belonging to Jesse Bircham, the chemist whose shop can be seen in the second picture.

Jesse’s mother Hannah had worked for Thomas Staples, another chemist, for many years and carried on the business after he died in 1858. Jesse joined the business with his mother in the 1890s and continued until his death in 1925.

Further along on the right was the house lived in by the Beaver family. Still called Beaver House, it was bought by Catherine Gooch’s father when she married Arnold Beaver in the 1890s and Arnold ran a grocery and drapery, and also sold household furnishings and tea.

Arnold later became an assessor and collector of taxes and in 1922 was appointed a Justice of the Peace.

Around the time of the calendar photograph, other occupants of Norwich Road included a veterinary surgeon, a grocer and draper, a boot and shoemaker, Salvation Army officers, a plumber, a painter/decorator and later a butcher, whose shop was in the building behind the children.

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email: reephamarchive@gmail.com

History of Hackford House in the 1900s

Post date: Tuesday, July 16, 2019 - 21:33

This year Reepham is celebrating the centenary of the presentation of Hackford House to the town by Samuel Bircham as a memorial to lives lost in the First World War.

Hackford House in about 1906

In the 1920s, the house sustained its original purpose of providing a reading room where newspapers and periodicals could be read, and a billiards room, with facilities for other games as well as the parish library. Rooms were also available for other organisations such as the whist club.

From about 1927 the County Library had a room in what was then called the Bircham Institute that opened two or three times a week, manned by volunteers. Mr Thompson, the schoolmaster, was librarian.

At some point before 1919 part of the house had been used by Wallace King for the Reepham branch of its home furnishings company.

Samuel Bircham probably purchased Hackford House in 1910 from Fanny Spencer, the eldest daughter of John and Harriet Spencer. John Redman Spencer, previously a farmer with land in Guestwick, had died in 1909. A second daughter, Florence, had lived with her parents until her father died. After the house was sold, Florence lived with her sister Fanny in Norwich.

In the 1911 census, the occupants of Hackford House are recorded as Jemima Bruce (widow) and her daughter Margaret, who occupied eight rooms in part of the building. At least one other room was used as a club room by the newly formed Hackford House Troop of Scouts.

The Bruce family had lived on the Isle of Man, but in 1900 Alexander Bruce, manager of Dumbell’s Bank and head of many important Manx enterprises, was involved in the failure of the bank. He had been ill for some time and died before he could face prosecution.

His wife Jemima and three daughters left the Isle of Man and in 1901 the two older daughters, Margaret and Agnes, were living in the Old Brewery House. Agnes would later (in 1903) marry Francis R. S. Bircham, Samuel Bircham’s only son.

Jemima Bruce remained in Reepham for some time, living in part of Hackford House with her eldest daughter Margaret and later moving to Norwich.

(The initial connection between the Bruce family with Reepham and Samuel Bircham remains a mystery.)

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email: reephamarchive@gmail.com

Whitwell Street pub well known for selling vinegar

Post date: Thursday, May 9, 2019 - 20:56

In her publication Fifteen Locals, Joyce Cox writes: “The Star [pictured in the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar for June], once known as The Cock, was very old-fashioned with sand on the floor.

“There was no bar counter; all drinks had to be brought up from the cellar. It was also well known for selling vinegar.

“The last landlord, William Morris, had been a ‘clicker’ (he hand-cut shoes) in a Norwich shoe factory.

“Henry Hawes writes of its Whitsuntide Tuesday sports. Whitwell Street was used for races and a small field belonging to the pub for a ploughing match.

“The Star closed in 1935 and is now a private house known as the Old Star – but no longer permitted by its deeds to sell vinegar!”

Census records tell us that it was a beerhouse or pub in 1841 with John Rayner as the victualler. In two censuses it is called the Cock Inn, but reverts to The Star by 1878.

Frederick Watson was the licensee from 1896 till 1905. He was also a house painter but must have enjoyed life as a publican as in the 1911 census he is recorded as the landlord of the Sun Inn with his wife Ellen and sons Stanley and Clifford.

Frederick carried on working as a painter and decorator as well as running The Sun. His son Stanley was apprenticed to Edward Gibbs, ironmonger, continuing to work for Gibbs for a number of years.

His second son Clifford took over the licence in 1922 and is well-remembered in Reepham, as is his wife Violet, who continued running The Sun after Clifford’s death in 1962.

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email: reephamarchive@gmail.com

Musical events raise community funds

Post date: Thursday, April 11, 2019 - 20:32

In the late 1800s and early 1900s musical events were a common occurrence in Reepham and were often given to raise funds for more street lighting, church repairs, and other charitable concerns.

Concerts in St Mary’s School were given each winter to raise money to supply a quantity of coal to the poor of the parish.

Major outdoor celebrations, such as Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 and Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and the coronation of Edward VII in 1902, would call for the band of the 3rd Norfolk Rifle Volunteers.

Various musical groups were formed in Reepham in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, including the Hackford Glee Singers, Hackford and Whitwell Musical Society, Reepham String Band, Reepham Handbell Ringers and Reepham Troupe of Black Diamonds.

Pictured in the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar for May, the photograph (above) of Reepham Orchestral Band taken in 1910 includes familiar names like Edward Gibbs Jnr; James Dixon from the shop at Towns End Corner; James Wasey, tinsmith; F. Hurn, who later worked for Gibbs; and George Juby, tailor.

Arthur Lubbock, on the left of the back row, was a gardener and groom for Reverend Lanchester at Salle Rectory.

Next to him, Harry Youngman was a railway clerk and son of Reepham’s stationmaster. In 1915 he enlisted in the British Army while working as a railway clerk at Stratford goods station.

In 1916 Harry had spent two months in hospital at Church Stretton in Shropshire recovering from wounds in the head and neck, but a year later was reported missing and later presumed dead.

He is commemorated on the World War I memorial tablet in St Mary’s Reepham, and also on the Cambrai Memorial in Louverval, France.

The photo below shows the band of the 3rd Norfolk Rifle Volunteers, established about 1860. Seated, front row (left to right): Thomas Pitcher, William Huggins, Henry Hawes, James Wasey and John Flatman (drummer). Standing, back row (left to right): Alfred Barber (conductor), a visitor, Thomas Morris and Fred Hudson.

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email

Farm life in Salle Street

Post date: Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - 17:44

In the mid-1930s the terrace pictured in the April photo of the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar of eight homes in The Street, Salle, were the homes of the families of Barber, Stearman, Arthurton, Hardesty, Clements and Mallett.

Going back through the years some of these names, like Stearman, Barber and Clements, appear in earlier census records. Further back we find the Gladden, Page and Allen families living in The Street, and in 1871 the name Timbers appears in four of the cottages.

Through all the censuses most of the occupations, naturally, were related to farm work, cattle and horses, along with a regular blacksmith. Occasionally we find a carpenter, a brick-makers’ labourer, a shoemaker and a fish jobber, and, according to the 1851 census, in the middle of The Street lived a rat destroyer with his wife who was a fortune teller!

In 1861, in the middle of the houses in The Street, a William Gladden was running a grocery shop as well as being a farm worker and the parish clerk. In 1881 a few railway workers appear.

The longest-running resident seems to have been Joseph Leeds, born in Reepham in 1801, who ran the White Horse inn at the top of The Street for at least 30 years.

Each publican running the White Horse was also a farmer of between 20 and 40 acres, usually employing one or two labourers.

The surname Leeds was prolific in the Reepham area and it is a difficult task to unravel the various Leeds families since Joseph’s son Stephen William Leeds married another Leeds, Frances Ann, her father being another Stephen Leeds!

Stephen William Leeds became the proprietor of the ironmongery business in Reepham’s Market Place and was living there with Frances and their two children in 1881, selling the business to Edward Gibbs in 1888.

Frances and her mother-in-law Elizabeth lived on after their respective husbands had died, probably in Church House on Church Hill, Reepham, and were still registered there in 1901.

(None of these Leeds was directly related to the Stephen Leeds who owned a tannery and farm at Whitwell.)

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email: reephamarchive@gmail.com

Buy the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar HERE

Varied history for Townsend Corner shop

Post date: Wednesday, February 13, 2019 - 08:50

The corner shop at Towns End (currently V’s Café) has had a varied history. The March photo in the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar shows it when it was run by George Grief, selling radios, televisions, domestic appliances and, of course, bicycles. He took over the shop in the 1940s, moving from Wood Dalling, and lived in Reepham for at least 50 years.

In its lifetime the shop has also been a grocers and drapers. In the 1920S there were at least seven grocery shops in Reepham. Three of these were in the Market Place, one in Back Street, one on Townsend Corner (Frost’s, which later moved to Station Road), one at Station Plain and one at The Moor.

The earliest picture in the Reepham Archive shows the proprietor as James John Dixon, who began his working life as a blacksmith in Wood Dalling, later moving to Reepham as a cycle maker. He was an agent for Triumph and also Humber, who were both manufacturers of cycles, motorcycles and later of cars.

In 1910 he supplied an electrical landline from his premises to Dr Perry’s garden (Eynsford House) to supply lighting on the occasion of a grand garden fete, where a stage was set up and lit for the first performance of Reepham Black Diamonds.

The picture below shows the shop as a grocery store with garage facilities, including petrol pumps for Shell and BP, possibly in the 1920s. The garage building next to it was later acquired by Norwich Corporation Electricity Department.

Correction

The caption for the February picture of the Roger Korval sports shop in the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar should have read 1980s and not 1960s.

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email: reephamarchive@gmail.com

Buy the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar HERE

Ironmonger’s shop open all hours

Post date: Thursday, January 10, 2019 - 20:02

The February photo (below) of the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar shows the Roger Korval Sports shop in Market Place, Reepham, possibly in the 1980s.

Many Reepham inhabitants will remember that this shop was once an ironmonger’s and seed merchant’s store run by the Gibbs family.

When Edward Gibbs took over the business in 1888 it had been trading for many years, previously by Stephen Leeds and before that by the George family, who were running the shop in the 1830s.

The shop front itself remains remarkably similar to the earliest photographs we have (below), including the railings, which are still a feature of several buildings in the Market Place.

By the early 1900s Edward Gibbs had expanded into the building next door and his son, Edward Gibbs junior, recounted in a newspaper article how he had to remove 16 shutters ready for the shop to open at 7 am.

The shop was open until 7 pm every day, except Thursdays when it closed at 4 pm (half-day closing!) and Saturdays when it stayed open until 10 pm.

The article lists items that were once in everyday use: tortoise stoves (so-called because they burned fuel very slowly), larding needles, goffering irons (for ironing frills and ruffles), leather for pump clacks and lamp glasses for oil lamps. A hundred years from today people might be just as intrigued by the objects for sale in Reepham Home Hardware!

Reepham Archive has a small selection of items from the shop, including a selection of kitchen tinware made by James Wasey.

When Edward Gibbs senior retired he moved into The Laurels (previously Veranda House) on Dereham Road.

His son Edward and daughter Marjorie continued to run the business until December 1966. Marjorie is commemorated by the bench that stands near the pharmacy in the Market Place.

Janet Archer

The Reepham Archive is open to the public on the first Wednesday and Saturday of the month from 10 am – 12 noon (or by appointment), upstairs in the Bircham Centre, Market Place, Reepham. Email: reephamarchive@gmail.com

Buy the Reepham Life 2019 Calendar HERE

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