Reminiscences by William Makinson 1921 – 2007
William (everyone knew him as ‘Billy’’) was the third generation of his family to farm in Casterton, and had a wealth of knowledge of the village and its people going back to the beginning of the twentieth century.
Part 2
Dictated 2005-2006 to Mrs. Jean Hamlett
The Casterton Hotel in WW2
It was the early part of the war, and it was very mysterious for the people of Casterton because suddenly the Pheasant (which was the Casterton Hotel then) was closed down – no more business, you see. Edgar Hutton was the landlord then – before he was married. Suddenly the hotel was closed down, and while it was closed if you wanted a drink you had to go down to Kirkby. The next thing we knew there was this family moved in and we didn’t really know what it was all about for quite a while. There was the Prince and his wife, and two small children. There was a nursemaid and two other maids, and two security guards. Occasionally Billy Bownass, who had the taxis, had to take some of them to Carnforth Station. They were going to London or somewhere, and he said “Do you know – they all carried revolvers!” and suddenly we found out that they were part of the Yugoslav Royal family.
They would be here – I’m not quite sure but certainly the best part of a year – until America came into the war and then they went to America – they were probably safer there. In fact the only person we really saw was the nursemaid with two small children. I’m not sure whether it was Prince Peter or Prince Michael, but it was one of them. You can understand what a difference it made to Casterton. When all these men carried revolvers, you know…! You see Yugoslavia was in a very peculiar situation – they didn’t quite know whether they would be invaded by the Germans or the Russians, because they were in between, you see, so the Royal family got out. It’s quite a bit of history. Very hush-hush it was, you know.
Landlords at The Pheasant
Before the Huttons (Gavin and David were Edgar Hutton’s sons) the Knowleses kept the hotel. Mr. Knowles was a churchwarden and Chairman of the Parish Council. He was a school manager, a farmer and kept the hotel, and he had three daughters, the Miss Knowleses.
One night in the pub the local men got a bit merry and one of them said that his daughter was going to marry someone – and another said that his daughter was going to marry someone – and then Mr. Knowles said “I’ve got three daughters, and my daughters are all spoken for”, and one of these men said “Well, if they’re all spoken for your job’s getting them ‘livered’ [delivered]” – but the strange thing is none of them ever did get married. One of them was a schoolteacher in the village.
When Mr. Knowles died the three Miss Knowleses came and lived at Caton House. The last one lived there until around 1950.
It was also the George & Dragon originally before it became the Casterton Hotel, and then after that it became the Pheasant. It was a pub and a small farm, you see, as all the country pubs were farms anyway – I don’t know one that wasn’t.
Farms
There were 27 farms in Casterton at one time. There only was one decent-sized farm, and that was Kirfit Hall. All the small farms had an allotment on Casterton Fell – they all kept a few sheep. In Mr. Ewbank’s time there were just enough farms for every window in the church, and it became a tradition that each farm would decorate one for Harvest Festival. At one time the farmers each did a window and then the school did the choir stalls and the pulpit, and George Briggs used to do round the font on behalf of Casterton Hall.
One of the artists who painted the wall paintings in the church stayed in the Casterton Hotel while he was painting them. [The other?] stayed with the Bickersteth family while he was here.
The Bownasses had 12 children at Holly Bush. The youngest, Thomas and Henry, were younger than me and one or two of them lived with their grandparents at Newlands for a while. As well as a small farmer he was a carter, taking things to Kirkby station etc.
(Mrs. Makinson: “Their grandfather and grandmother built Newlands.”)
Rock Cottage – they were carters. All the farms and houses in Low Casterton belonged to Underley.
The family who lived at Lunefield – he bought it from Underley and farmed here for a short time – perhaps five years. He was Harris.
The inhabitants of Cragg House: as far back as I remember there was William Askew; then Anthony Askew (his younger brother), and Edward Askew (Anthony’s son) and Billy Bentham.
Just past Gotts’ bungalow [‘Norwood Fields’ in Chapel House Lane] was Fleet’s Lane. There was a farm down there near the (F— fleet ?). Some of the stone was brought up to build the big high wall at Norwood.
Old Manor Farm. My grandfather had an accident before they came here, but his widow (my grandmother) and family came here in 1901.
(Mrs. Makinson: “They used to collect the rents in this room [at Old Manor]. The farmers used to come and pay the rents here, round the farm table.”)
We were working in the garden one day, when some old ladies who used to go round and have afternoon tea with each other came past and we couldn’t help but hear the conversation, and they were talking about when they’d got married. One of them was Mrs. Bland, who lived where Mrs. Penny lives [Norwood House], and she said that she got married “at a very sensible age”, and the other women nodded their heads when she said she was 26, and they all agreed: “a very sensible age”. The next woman was Mrs. Dean, and Mrs. Dean lived where the Burkes live [Lane End Cottage]. “How old were you?” “Oh, I got married at a sensible age – I was 24.” They all nodded and agreed it was a sensible age. And then Mrs. Clark hadn’t said anything, so one of the women said “And when did you get married?” Nothing was said for quite a while, then one of the women said “I was 17”. So they decided it didn’t matter what age you got married – it was always a sensible age!
In my life there have been 7 barn fires in Casterton: Bensons, Gotts, Makinsons (in Collier’s Lane), Kirfit Hall, Chapel House and now Norris’s. There have been a couple of haystacks too.
Underley etc.
Strange thing was such as Bickersteths, Stackhouses and the other what you call gentry round here – they were only tenants of Underley you know – they didn’t own houses.
The Underley Wild Gardens were in Casterton. Underley had at least two big garden parties a year and raised money for worthwhile causes, and the people from Casterton went down the woods and they had the catamaran from the Casterton side to the Underley side – you went backwards and forwards. It was a boat with chains on it that took the boat across. The Underley Wild Gardens were this side of the river, you know.
Red Bank is the very steep hill down to the river.
I believe that quite a bit of my information about Underley and suchlike I got from Jonty Wilson, you know – and he said at one time they had 33 gardeners at Underley, and a lot of lawns, and the men cut them with scythes, not lawnmowers – a vast estate it was. I believe you could walk from the top end of Dent to Staveley, the other side of Kendal, without going off Underley land, so you see how big the estate was.
During the shooting season at Underley the Prince of Wales (that was Queen Victoria’s son) came for a shooting season – he became Edward VII – and, well, he was staying at Underley. One morning he would go for a walk up Mansergh. Now all the farms up Mansergh were Underley property, you see. The poor fellow wanted to go to the lavatory, so he knocked at the door – of Hot Ridding farm, just off the road going to Mansergh – and said what he wanted. Mrs. Knight said “Yes, down the path” – the earth closet down the garden – and when he came back she thought he was a very select gentleman – very well dressed – she thought he must be one of the Underley agents, so she would make him a cup of tea and bread and cheese, and then off he went on his way and he gave her a visiting card and also a gold sovereign. Now you must realise that a gold sovereign was a tremendous lot of money – it would be nearly half a year’s rent. You see Mrs. Knight thought he was one of the agents they had seen, being very well dressed, and the gold watch chain he had… He gave her his visiting card and this gold sovereign, but her husband was a bit jealous. She knew he wouldn’t like her entertaining a fine gentleman when he was out working in the fields, so she pushed the visiting card and the sovereign at the back of the drawer, and a week later she plucked up courage and told him about this, and he said “Well, let’s have a look at your visiting card”. There it was with the Prince of Wales’s feathers on it, you know – with the Prince’s feathers – and her husband was delighted to get all that money and off he went down to Underley, but unfortunately the Prince of Wales had left – gone back by train – so he wasn’t able to thank him personally. Perfectly true!
He came to Underley probably for a week for the shooting and then in the morning he had nothing to do because the shoot was in the afternoon, and so to put time on he went for a walk, but it was a bit funny that he had to go down the path to the earth closet, wasn’t it? They really ought to have put a coat of arms there after that!
Casterton Woods
When I was a very small boy (I should think perhaps about 3) my mother took me down Casterton wood to see pine martens, because she attended Bronte School when she was a girl and they used to go for walks down the woods to see them. As I remember they were playing about on the ground, and then they disappeared up the tree, ran up the trunk of the tree and in the leaves you couldn’t see them any more. I was talking to George Briggs not long before he died, because he lived down there. He could remember them too. They disappeared soon after I was a small boy. They used to be in the Lake District, but now they are only in Scotland. They’re bigger than a squirrel, but a long-bodied animal. I never saw them after then until I was in my teens and in that time I think they’d gone.
There was a lime kiln down there and they were burning lime regularly, and George Briggs thought that was what got rid of them – but that might be or not be.
(Mrs. Makinson: “There were no pine martens when I came here in 1948.”)
The Village School
I went to the village school. Miss Ebbutt was headmistress and Miss Briggs was the junior teacher who married Edward Askew – she was my infant teacher. At one time Molly Teesdale was teaching, although only a student.
Miss Ebbutt, of course, was games mistress at Casterton School before she took on teaching at Casterton village school.
After Miss Ebbutt there was Mrs. Forbes, and then Miss Hayton. You see the school went a lot less – people stopped having big families. All the society bodies from Kirkby Lonsdale sent their children up to that school. There were 12 of Bownasses and 13 of Teesdales, and 8 of Williams. The young one, Leonard Williams, has just retired as a driver for Bibbys. The Bownass family? Well, there were four boys and the rest were girls, and as well as a farmer he was a horse dealer and the taxi man. He did hire men to drive the taxi because none of them knew how to drive to start with.
With the big families there were a lot of children at the village school. They didn’t go on to grammar school. It went up to about 14 and then they left. Later on they went to the National School from 11–14.
Miss Wright lived at the school house – that’s where they were brought up. She was born before she came to Casterton.
Blacksmith – John Collinson
John Collinson lived at the garage when it was a smithy and small farm. He was a blacksmith extraordinaire. He composed poetry and entertained.
He had some land at Whoop Hall and used to walk down here going to look at his stock. He often used to stop and say “You’ll live a long time, so I’ll tell you how things were” – but when you’re a boy about 7 or 8 you’re not very interested, are you? I thought he was a doddering old fellow. But a lot of his stuff was true – well, probably it was all true…
He was on Casterton Parish Council: he got an iron post to put outside the village shop. (The village shop was next to the church.) There was this iron post there so he could tie his dog to it when he went into the shop. Of course everybody else did too – very useful.
There was an open beck down there. The beck is all covered over now. It went under the main road – I can remember that.
Highways and Byways
Devil’s Bridge to the Low Lodge, Kirfit and up the woods to Casterton. Not the main road as we know it. Tollbar – for the coal carts that came down Colliers Lane. The [top] road is the old Roman road.
Down Bee Nest and Well Hill – they were roads up to the Roman road.
Colliers Lane would come all the way from Devil’s Bridge to the fell. From Devil’s Bridge come up Broken Brow along the green lane – this was Colliers Lane then, past Tollbar (by the golf club) where they paid 1d or whatever it was.
There was no road from the crossroads to Low Casterton until North Heads was built, and then the road was made from the crossroads to North Heads; then a bit later it was made down to Casterton Church. Right through there was a rocky outcrop.
There was next to no traffic.