Nuneaton Common Local History Group - A prospectus
The Common covers a large area from Ansley to Galley Common and Chapel End, almost into Nuneaton town centre, then across to Heath End where it peters out into the dark woods of Arbury.
It is one of those enigmatic places about which little has been written and where research has been carried out on a very limited basis. It has a lot of history packed in to it, mostly untapped and unexplored.
For example, has anyone heard of Thomas Pinkerton, William Dorsey, Walter Handley, David Wheway, and Caroline St. Barbe Williams, a noble lady who lived on the common in the early part of the 19th century, yet was related to almost every crowned head of Europe? Has anyone seen the house she occupied – Haunchwood House – a mansion of some size that survived up until the early 20th century only to be demolished and apparently unrecorded for posterity?
The Common was a patchwork of fields and hedgerows, littered with clay pits, dozens of sunken coal bell pits, brick kilns, lonely beer houses, tumble down cottages, hovels, sheds, seemingly sprinkled about with gay abandon.
There are roads and trackways with names long forgotten, Sea Lane, Swan Lane, Black-a-tree Gate.
Mighty industries, which superseded crude surface workings such as Stanley Brothers. Haunchwood Brick & Tile. Large collieries such as Nuneaton Colliery, Stockingford Colliery, Ansley Hall Colliery, Haunchwood Colliery.
Forgotten tramways, which once shifted the coal from colliery to canal wharf, and railway lines which, penetrated every colliery and brickworks, gone and forgotten.
The aim of the Nuneaton Common Local History Group is to provide a forum whereby this lost history can be discovered.
The primary place to record this history will be the Internet, and the following things are priorities for us:
1. Create a permanent and upgradeable web site
2. Produce a newsletter
3. Meet fairly regularly to network, exchange information, explore the area, and record our findings
4. Set up an archive
And lastly and importantly, raise modest funds to finance these activities.
As a result there is always a need in any society for people who:
a. look after our finances
b. process the paperwork
c. organise meetings and events
d. liaise with members
e. create a web site
If you can help from a-e please let me know, particularly which activities interest you. Remember its not the role, it’s the legacy we leave.
Peter Lee
RETURN TO RAPPER’S HOLE
By Peter Lee
I cannot think of a locality in the Nuneaton area that has generated more interest than Rapper’s Hole!
What is it about this place that has captured the public imagination so much? After all it was just a short terrace of four terraced cottages, and two (or more?) separate houses some distance away. It must surely be the setting? You cannot imagine a lonelier spot in the whole of the Nuneaton area. It was deep on Nuneaton Common remote from the built up areas of Stockingford. In a woody patch on a lonely miry path; accessed over a wooden boarded crossing of a secluded industrial railway branch line. Lets face it a trip to the corner shop was more than a brisk walk It must have been a morning’s stroll for the lonely “Rapper’s Hole” housewife. One can easily imagine the location on a dark winter’s night, misty, frosty and remote. The flicker of candles or oil lamps glimpsed through tawdry net curtains hiding the modesty of the residents behind the cottage windows. To add icing to the cake the spot was said to be haunted! I have read several mentions of the “Rapper’s Hole Ghost”. Few local people would dream of setting foot along the narrow stony path to this spot at the dead of night.
On a warm summer’s day in 1962 I set off on my bike with a pal to look at the grass grown tracks that then stretched along the abandoned track bed of the Stockingford branch railway to Ansley Hall Colliery. We crossed the tracks and up a pathway found a row of Victorian terraced houses incongruously positioned remote from all habitation around it. It was an odd spot, and reflecting back now often think I might have imagined it. It was as though somebody had lifted the end off a row of houses up the ‘Ford and planted them in amongst a few trees in the middle of a field. Something that did stick in my memory though was what I always knew as “Rapper’s Hole Bridge”. I always thought that the bridge itself led to Rapper’s Hole, but no, this was some distance away. A little further along the railway there was a level crossing and that led to the cottages. The track way, which went past the cottages, had passed an old blue brick yard leased by John Parker then forked into two. The one to the left climbed a hill to Hill Farm and led away across the fields and came out near Haunchwood Colliery and the other emerged in Plough Hill Road. It was quite a substantial walk over the fields.
What makes it more difficult to visualise it today is the fact this whole area has been built up with housing estates. Just knowing where the track way ran is very difficult to work out. The old railway formation is a footpath but the former track way to Rapper’s Hole has been altered due to housing being built up to the bed of the old branch line.
A review of the households indicates that there were far more families living there in 1841 than houses which appear on the later maps. Could it be in the intervening years some of the cottages were pulled down?
Rapper’s Hole Residents, Head of households
1841 census
Stockingford Farm House
(W)rapper’s Hole
John and Ann Dagley
John and Maria Jeffcott
Mary Jeffcott
William and Hannah Grimes
William and Sarah Jeffcote
William and Mary Bown
William Jeffcote
William and Sarah Bayliss
Joseph and Sarah Jeffcote
Charles and Maria Harrison
Richard and Jane Jeffcote
Hannah Hinks
Catherine Dormer
John Orton
John and Mary Bindley
1901 census
Joseph Jeffcote
George and Sarah Hancock
Mary Hancock
James and Elizabeth Brindley
James and Elizabeth Harold
Charles and Emma Bindley
Later the little terrace of houses known as “Rappers Hole” was called “Drinkwater’s Cottages”. The Drinkwater in question must have been Henry Drinkwater who occupied one of them. He was a railwayman, an employee of the Midland Railway. Mr. Drinkwater was born on 28th October 1868 and started his railway career as an engine cleaner on 3rd October 1889 at Heaton Mersey engine shed. In 1890 he became a fireman and was then transferred to Belle Vue shed Manchester on 21st November 1890. He passed out as a driver at Belle Vue with the salary of 33 shillings per week on 20th October 1899. On 10th October 1908 his salary was advanced to 39 shillings per week.
Just prior to this in March 1908 he suffered a nasty accident at Stourton sidings where he had several toes severed and cuts to his head and face. Luckily it was not more serious. However, he had to be moved to lighter duties and was sent to the then newly opened Stockingford engine shed where he was given the job of storekeeper on twenty-two shillings per week plus 8s. 6d per week compensation. In 1910 he was promoted again taking the night foreman’s job at the shed following the transfer to Coalville depot of his predecessor at Stockingford, William Hames. The Foreman’s job was better paid at 30 shillings per week but his compensation was reduced to 7s. 4d. a week. He worked during the railwayman’s strike of 1911 and was paid a £2 bonus for his trouble crossing the picket line. The following year he lived in Church Road, Stockingford. Sometime afterwards he moved to Rappers Hole. One old timer told me that his son, Charles, was living at the cottage between the wars, and had the regular habit of leaving a basket of home grown vegetables by the crossing gate for the enginemen who traversed the branch. In return a few lumps of coal were left in exchange. .
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Nuneaton Common
Local History Group
Researching the heritage of Stockingford
Galley Common, Chapel End and Heath End
Membership Application
Name:
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Address:
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Tel:
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EMAIL address:
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If you do not have an email address do you have a family member or
friend who would receive emails on your behalf and would pass them on?
If so could you give their email address:
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Your NUNEATON COMMON research interests:
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Membership: To be agreed later
v Monthly research evenings
v Dedicated web site
v Quarterly newsletter – “The Ford”
v Annual Local and Family History Event
v Presentations
v Building an old “Nuneaton Common” database.
Contact details:
Peter Lee, PO Box 2282, Nuneaton, CV11 9ZT
Email:
Tel: 02476 381090
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