Evening Clouds

Just a few pictures from sunset this evening.

© 2014 www.huttonsambo.com

The Boating Party - Huttons Ambo to Kirkham

The Boating Party

On Sunday 22nd June a party of villagers set off from Low Hutton Park for a voyage along the River Derwent in a boat kindly provided by Richard Hopkins and piloted by Graham Milner.  Embarkation was at 11 a.m. from the Park field at Low Hutton and we progressed up river, encircling Cherry Island, as far as parallel with the Low Lane end. 

There we turned and cruised with the current down to Kirkham, viewing the weir and finally tying up for a picnic on the river bank.  Some of us walked up to the pub for lunch.

The weather was perfect, hot and still, and the countryside was lush and green.  The views between Crambeck and Kirkham are beautiful, with barely a building to be seen, until the imposing presence of Howsham Hall and Kirkham Priory. 
 

We saw grey wagtails, chaffinches, swans - unfortunately the motor alerted the shy birds so we didn't see a kingfisher.
 

We were all asked whether we would like to take a turn on the helm and a number of the young and not so young took up the offer.

 

After lunch we set off up river and arrived back at Low Hutton at 2.30 p.m.  A truly memorable day and a wonderful trip - and there is no charge!  Of course we should all be grateful for donations (suggested minimum £5) which will be shared amongst good causes in the village, such as the Village Hall Fund, the Produce Show Fund and the Church.

Very many thanks from us all to Graham. He is quite willing to take another group of villagers on Sunday July the 29th. If you wish to go please give Herbie your donation by July 14th to book your place. Judging from last time places go fast!

Anita Topp

Photographs: Malcom Topp & Michael Sessions

Mobile Fish & Chips of Pickering calling at Huttons Ambo

Commencing Thursday 3rd July, Mobile Fish & Chips of Pickering will be calling at Huttons Ambo

Times are 4.30pm - 4.50pm at High Hutton telephone box every Thursday.

If the village can get behind this service and support it, then a peak slot may be allocated to us. If you can't make 4.30pm you might like to call in please call in at one of their next stops (and let Tracy know you are from Huttons Ambo):

Welburn 5pm-5.20pm
Bulmer 5.30pm-5.50pm
Thornton Le Clay 6pm-6.30pm
Foston 6.35-6.50pm
Flaxton 7pm-7.20pm
Sheriff Hutton 8.05-8.30pm (Castle pub carpark)

ALSO: For our quarterly village pub nights starting in the New Year, Mobile Fish & Chips of Pickering, will be calling outside the Village Hall from 7.30pm, dates to be confirmed.



© 2014 www.huttonsambo.com

Introducing the "Kingfisher K" aka "The Bull Run"

The "Kingfisher K" or"The Bull Run" starts ever Saturday at 10am. It's a fun circuit for runners and walkers, held in the field by the river to the right of swingbridge. Anyone is welcome - families, runners, walkers and spectators - and it's free!

There's a sheltered area for children who don't want to run (monitored by an adult at all times) and the run is 1 km loop around the field perimeter, which makes it easy for runners & walkers to tot up their total distance.

The first run was held on Saturday the 14th June and here are some pictures from the day.

 So why not come along and enjoy the fun!

In event of rain, dedicated runners can meet at the village hall - contact Sarah on 07737785178 to check on the venue.
Pictures courtesy of Andy Clark & Rona Charles


© 2014 www.huttonsambo.com

Life is full of surprises - By Arthur Flounders Brown

Life is full of surprises

by
Arthur Flounders Brown

As many people do nowadays, some 15 years ago I embarked on a search into my family history. Since my surname is the third most common in the UK – after Smith and Jones – I decided that I would pursue my second given name of Flounders which was my mother’s surname.

I knew from my mother that her family came from Scarborough and the area of North Yorkshire inland from there. At the start of my quest, I had no idea that it would eventually lead to Huttons Ambo and Westow and reveal a life so removed from my own. I was a city dweller, born in Bradford, but my antecedents to the east of the A64 (as it now is) were as rural as it is possible to be.

I shall cut the story sideways, so to speak, at this point, as the readers of this story are interested in the history of their own area and only incidentally in elsewhere.

John Walker was born and married in Westow, just down the road from Huttons Ambo. Over the course of time he became a very comfortably off yeoman farmer, owning property which he put out to rent. In the course of his first marriage he fathered 10 children. Shortly after the death of his first wife, he married for a second time. This marriage did not last long, as his second wife died two years later, I suspect, in childbirth. During that marriage, John fathered upon Mary Harrison of Westow in 1793 a female child who was called Charlotte. (I have not been able to certify whether Mary was a servant in John’s household  or “otherwise”) The Poor Law at the time – in place since 1601 – stipulated that the father, if known, should not only acknowledge the bastard child as his, but provide for the expenses of the birth and for the upkeep and education of the child. I have a copy of the Bastardy Bond sworn and witnessed which John Walker had to sign.

However, upon the death of his second wife, John made an honest woman of Mary Harrison who outlived him by many years after his death in December 1814 at the age of 84, his last child being born of Mary earlier in the year. Can’t blame the old feller for trying; he fathered 22 children in all. His Will, a copy of which I have, makes interesting reading, as it shows what wealth in cash, land and property he had accumulated in the boom years if the Napoleonic Wars. In addition to bequests to his wife and legitimate children, John Walker bequeathed a cottage to Charlotte and, with her half-sister, a half share in another cottage. In addition, Charlotte received £20, the equivalent of £1000 today. This was a fortune when one takes into account how agricultural wages in the early 19th century scarcely made two figures.

The Walker family were indeed prosperous in 1814, but the depression in agriculture in the 20/30 years after the end of the Napoleonic wars very nearly destroyed the industry.

Thus by the time of the first real Census in 1841 we find Charlotte and William Hepton 55, widower of Charlotte’s half sister, living in High Hutton together with Charlotte Hepton (Harrison) and 4 of Charlotte’s illegitimate children i.e William 20, EMMA 15, Hannah 10 and Maria 5. Charlotte has married her deceased half-sister’s husband. (This marriage did not offend the church’s rules concerning Consanguinity)

In the 1851 Census William is described as an Agricultural Labourer and is aged 80. Yes, I know he has aged 15 years in 10, but Census enumerators took their evidence by word of mouth and did not question it. Also in the home were Charlotte Hepton 56, EMMA  Harrison Unmarried 26 and William Harrison 3.

1861 shows at 5 unnamed dwelling – Charlotte Hepton, widow, labouring woman; Emma Harrison, daughter, unmarried 35, born Hutton, labouring woman; Charles
grandson 8 b. Hutton; ADELINE granddaughter 1 born Hutton

1871 at 1 cottage Emma Harrison 30 General Servant born Huttons Ambo; ADELINE 11 born Huttons Ambo.

Charlotte had died in between the 1861 and 1871 Censuses.

I have capitalised Emma’s and Adeline’s given names, as they are my maternal/maternal grandmother and grandmaother. Charlotte was very cavalier with the naming of her children as regard surnames; she uses Harrison and Walker indiscriminately at their baptisms etc. I have a Bastardy Bond for her first child – William – but the Elizabethan Poor Law was repealed and replaced by the Workhouse System and the weight of upkeep was shifted from the Parish to that system. Fathers were no longer recorded on the new Birth Certificates. Their absence from these documents told the tale, however.

I am not sure of Emma’s situation at 1881, but I have a likely candidate in the household of Richard Lawson of  Bulmer and Stillington. Emma Harrison Servant 60 born Hutton. Adeline is nowhere to be found as yet. The young children in the household at Hutton after the death of William Hepton are Emma’s no doubt.

The story of  Emma ends sadly, as she developed dementia and was first admitted to the Workhouse in Malton and then in 1892 to the North Yorkshire Asylum at Clifton, York, were she was incarcerated until her death in 1909.

My grandmother, Adeline, aka ADA, married my grandfather, Thomas Flounders of Scarborough, in the church at Bulmer in October 1885, my Aunt Beatrice, my oldest maternal/maternal aunt, having been born in the Autumn of 1884! So my “chequered” ancestry was – at last – legitimised and Flounders became my middle name to preserve that line in me as the only male child of my mother’s family of 6 brothers and sisters.

I have visited all the places found in this account of my connection to Hutton/Westow and taken photographs. If you attend the church in Hutton, you will see, every time you enter, the font where my grandmother, Adeline, was baptised on 6 April 1860. You can stand at the altar in Bulmer church where she was married to Thomas Flounders  in October 1885. You can see - what is left after the Victorian depredations of the church at Westow - where Mary Harrison and Charlotte were baptised.

The Font, St Margaret's Church, Huttons Ambo

Nace & Aisle, St Mary's Church, Ebberston

The Font, St Mary's Church, Ebberston

You can even go to Ebberston, on the road between Pickering and Scarborough, and stand at the altar where my paternal ancestor, John Flunders of Hinderwell married Rachel Hick of Snainton in February 1753. Their first child was born 3 months later! That, however, is another story which coincides with the one you have just read, at the marriage of Thomas Flounders and Adeline Walker/Harrison in 1885, 132 years later.

Arthur Flounders Brown
February 2014

Editor's Note:
Aurthur contacted me last month and asked if we would be interested in his family story and of course we said yes, so he very kindly wrote this article for us and supplied pictures as well.

If you have any links to the family mentioned in the story or know anything of the locations mentioned and can provide more details we'd love to pass them on to Arthur, so why not get in touch via email or use the contact form on the right of the main website page.

After the Storm

Perhaps it's tempting fate to say it, but we've been quite lucky, while the rest of the country has seen hurricane force winds and torrential rain, we've just had a bit of a storm.

Even so there is a bit of damage, on a bright breezy Sunday morning I found this fallen willow, full of catkins, blocking Rake Lane.

Fallen Willow, Rake Lane (click to enlarge)

A little further up Rake Lane a hawthorn has bitten the dust.

A Hawthorn bites the dust, Rake Lane (click to enlarge)

Moving further up into the field next to the A64 the mature ash in the cattle pen has snapped and lies in ruin across the broken top rails of the pen.

Broken Ash (click to enlarge)

It's sad to see established trees go and we should appreciate the ones we have left, here fresh spring sunlight picks up the subtle red and green tones of bark and algae and near Keeper's Cottage conifer trunks lurk in dark green gloom.

Study in colour and shade (click to enlarge)

Conifer trunks (click to enlarge)

Here some of the smaller trees have been thinned out and snowdrops are pushing up around the fallen trunks.

Snowdrops promise spring - I (click to enlarge)

Snowdrops - II (click to enlarge)

 Snowdrops are everywhere now, this carpet of white is next to the track that winds up the hillside track back to Herbies:

Snowdrops - III (click to enlarge)

Spring is on its way! Hooray!



All material © Philip Stone 2014

Village Show Quiz Night - Pictures

VILLAGE SHOW QUIZ NIGHT

Thanks to all who attended the Quiz Night in the Village Hall on 11th January, in aid of the Huttons Ambo Village Flower and Produce Show.  There was a fantastic turn out and it was a hotly-contested competition.

‘The George Team’ (hang on, who's that on the right?) - Photo courtesy of Michael Sessions

Eleven tables of between 4 and 6 took part, and the eventual winners were ‘The George Team’, comprised of Alison Burns, Maurice Dobie, David Green, Sara and Pete Swindells and Alison Hewitt.

Better luck next time Herbie! - Photo courtesy of Michael Sessions

Sarah and Andy Clark served a fantastic meal in the interval, and funds raised for the Village Show were in the region of £275.

'The Choir' team (hang on, I've seen that face before...) - Photo courtesy of Michael Sessions

Many thanks to Liz Ellis for all her hard work organising the event. Thanks also to everyone who donated raffle prizes.  The Quiz Night may become a regular event on the Huttons Ambo social calendar, so watch this space for future dates.

Allison Hewitt

Huttons Ambo on Flickr!

We've got more pictures taken around the village than we can possibly show you here, so we've set up an account on the photo-sharing site flickr

Click here to see the pictures organised into albums

Or click here to see the whole photo stream

Philip

St Margaret's Church - Black & White

It's been a quiet few weeks on the village website  so I thought I'd share a few photographs I made of St Margaret's Church and the surrounding churchyard. I made these for a black & white photo project about four years ago and showed them in the village photography exhibition, so apologies if some of them seem familiar.

Click here to see these and more on our village Flickr page

At the gate

Pulpit

Luminous Lectern

Vicar's View

Hymns Ancient & Modern

Leaf and Petal

Monkish Outlines

Organ Pipes

Autumn Berries

Looking Back

All material © Philip Stone 2013