The
Fathers family lived at Roundhill Farm on High St throughout the 19th century and for more than half of the 20th. By tradition they were graziers and butchers in the old rural way of butchers raising and slaughtering their own meat, and were typical of many such farming families in the parish over the same period. Reeve
Fathers who was born in 1878 and died in 1963 is remembered in St. Marys Church as a churchwarden. Indeed there is a beautiful carved tabled near the font given in his memory. But the span of his particular life in this particular family gives an interesting window into the kind of people who lived throughout the coming of the railway and two World Wars.
William
Fathers was the butcher at Roundhill Farm when his son
Reeve was born in 1878, the youngest child of the eight who survived infancy. The eldest,
Harriet was already 19 when
Reeve was born, and the other brothers and sisters who greeted his arrival were Emily, Polly, Caroline, William, Joseph and Henrietta.
Williams wife was Caroline
Tarver who came from the Home Farm at
Compton Winyates, but his own forebears were local. One of
Williams great grandmothers was a Tew (there were Tews at
Woodford |Manor and at Tew's Farm on High St) who had married a
Seaton from Ivy House Farm in Farndon.
Caroline
Fathers - Reeves mother was a kind and patient lady who in later years found herself called on to help with a particular local problem. The local landowner Caroline Hunt became rather eccentric and difficult in her declining years but would always respond to Mrs
Fathers' gentle presence. So Caroline spent many hours with the old lady at her home on Parsons St., a short step away from Roundhill Farm.
At one time Roundhill Farm had been associated with the Round Hill fields to the east of the Eydon Rd, still known as Bottom, Middle and
Upper Round Hill. They lie next to the lane known as Roundhill Rd which runs from Eydon Rd to the top of
Woodford Hill one of the original roads laid out at the time of the
Woodford enclosure in 1759. But
Williams grazing land was glebe land on the upper part of Foxhill.
Reeve attended the Church School but when lessons were over he liked to visit William and Anna
Marriott who lived at the original White
Hart, a small thatched ale house on the site of the Memorial Centre. Mrs
Marriott was the beer seller while her husband was one of the village carriers, and it was from him that
Reeve Fathers developed at an early age a keen interest in the kind of general dealing that carriers often did in addition to their purchasing for others.
At home
Reeve helped with the animals and the butchery. As the youngest he was something of a favourite with the grandparents who still lived at the farm after William had taken over the business. He was also very close to his eldest sister
Harriet. Reeve expanded his knowledge of the butchery trade by working for a time with a butcher in Northampton. In 1907
Reeve became the tenant of Dairy Farm to the west of Eydon Rd.
One of Reeve's sisters was married to William Settle, paymaster to the navvies. After four years as tenant of Dairy Farm
Reeve was joined his sister
Harriet who came to be his housekeeper and also by 13 year old Doris seventh child of his sister Caroline. Reeve's sister Caroline as a girl had worked as a maid for the Revd. Harry
Minchin who was vicar of
Woodford from 1867 to 1884. When Mr. Minchin moved on Caroline went with them eventually settling and marrying in
Essex. Meanwhile Reeve's eldest sister
Harriet now his housekeeper had only recently returned to
England from Peru. She married an engineer who was a consultant to the owners of the many large sugar plantations. Sadly he contracted cancer of the tongue. When he died she returned to
England. There was at this time a local singing group called the Christy Minstel Band that entertained around the villages and
Reeve was a member (along with my grandfather Frederick
Sewell)!!!!
Early in 1915
Reeve now aged 37 and still a batchelor went off to war he was wounded and sent home to hospital near Felixstowe. He was sent to Saffron Walden where he met and fell in love with the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, a young lady called Florence Mary Graves. Reeve married Florence in 1921 when he was 43 and she was 28. They settled back at Dairy Farm and had two children
Reeve after his father and
Gwen.
After his family and farm Reeve's main love was the Church where he sang as a choir boy and served as Churchwarden. His name is engraved on one of the church bells.
Reeve inherited Roundhill Farm when his brother William died in 1945, at this time
Gwen was serving in the Land
Army. harriet died at Roundhill Farm in 1955 aged 96, and
Reeve died there in 1963 aged 84. Both had been born eldest and youngest - in the house where they died. Gwen returned there in 1964, and her mother Florence died there in 1969. Gwen and
Reeve (her brother) sold Roundhill Farm in 1978 and
Reeve junior died the following year.
The above taken from "The Story of
Woodford cum Membris"
by Brenda Courtie.
I hope you find the above interesting I know I like to learn of anything at all about the way my forebears lived. My interest in
Woodford Halse is that my Grandfathers ancestors were the Blacksmiths (
Sewell) and my Great Grandfather kept The
Gorse Hotel. Small world eh!
With kind regards.
Denise
Howes in
Middleton Cheney, near Banbury, Oxon.
