Articles

Monthly articles for the parish magazine, "The Diary"

The parish magazine is part of village life and an important way of communicating news and events. This is a collection of some of the articles that have appeared in the publication.

The Balding Family

The Balding Family
The Balding Family The late Georgian house on the corner of Royston Road and the High Street in Barkway is known as the Flint House, but for most of its life was known as the Chestnuts. It was built b...

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Dorothy Bond nee Thrussell

Dorothy Bond nee Thrussell
Barkway memories from the time of the First World War from an interview with Dorothy Bond nee Thrussell in 2002. Born 1911, died 2006. Spelling and arithmetic were the most important items in Barkwa...

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Robert Dimsdale Part I Boyhood Memories

Robert Dimsdale Part I Boyhood Memories
Robert Dimsdale Part I – Boyhood Memories Notes from an interview with Robert Dimsdale, recorded in 2007. I was born in Barkway House, and I was baptised in the sink. I was not necessarily expec...

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Robert Dimsdale Part II Boyhood Memories

Robert Dimsdale Part II Boyhood Memories
Robert Dimsdale Part II Boyhood Memories Notes from an interview with Robert Dimsdale, recorded in 2007. The garden at Barkway House seemed to have a lot of people involved, most important of which wa...

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Robert Dimsdale part III Boyhood Memories

Robert Dimsdale part III Boyhood Memories
Robert Dimsdale III Further memories of life in Barkway House from Robert Dimsdale's oral history Another feature of living in Barkway House is that it backs onto Church lane or it sides onto Chu...

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Archaeological Dig

Archaeological Dig
Our First Archaeological Dig Saturday the 16th of July saw our group carry out our first archaeological dig. With the kind permission of Nicholas and Meriel Tufton, we dug two test pits in their groun...

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THE CLINTON VAULT

THE CLINTON VAULT
In the graveyard of Barkway church next to the boundary hedge to the east, by the Barkway House boundary, lies the Clinton vault. It is surmounted by an enormous stone slab of around 4 metres square....

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The Barkway Roman Hoard

The Barkway Roman Hoard
A hoard of Roman articles were found by a worker digging in a quarry in 1743 about 300 metres to the north east of Periwinkle Hill. The items clearly originated in a temple or shrine for though of mod...

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DR THOMAS DIMSDALE OF HERTFORD

DR THOMAS DIMSDALE OF HERTFORD
The Diary recorded the death of Robert Dimsdale who was born in Barkway House. Robert was a direct descendant of Dr Thomas Dimsdale of Hertford (1712-1800) and had been working on a biography of this...

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Barkway Farms and Working Yards

Barkway Farms and Working Yards
Since time immemorial farms have formed a key part of village life. The 1891 census for Barkway, shows that 25% of the working male population listed their occupation as agricultural labourers. One bi...

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Newsells Estate in barkway - PART l

Newsells Estate in barkway - PART l
Newsells was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 and has been a major manor within Barkway over the centuries. The estate was in the possession of the Scales family for a long period in medieval tim...

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Newsells Estate in barkway - PART ll

Newsells Estate in barkway - PART ll
The article in the January diary referred to the gift to the village in the 1630s of land for a school and meeting room. The owner of the manor of Newsells at the time was Frances the Dowager Duchess...

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Barkway School Memories

Barkway School Memories
Barkway school memories from 1930s onwards; notes from an oral history interview with Geoff Whitby, recorded in 2007. Barkway School. In the Infants we had Miss Parker. We started at 5 years of age, i...

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Fire Insurance Marks

Fire Insurance Marks
Fire insurance marks are metal plaques marked with the emblem of the insurance company which were affixed to the front of insured buildings as a guide to the insurance company's fire brigade. The...

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The Saltonstall Family

The Saltonstall Family
The Saltonstall family had an important association with Barkway in the 1600s. Richard Saltonstall came originally from landed estates in Yorkshire and was a key figure in London during Queen Elizabet...

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The Burrs of Barkway

The Burrs of Barkway
The Burrs of Barkway In the early 1800s Samuel Burr was baking bread in Widford. One of his sons, William Day Burr came to Barkway, and started a bakery business here. Throughout the 19th and into the...

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Royston Road old chapel site

Royston Road old chapel site
The small graveyard beside the Royston Road is the site of a mid-Georgian chapel built around 1770. On the Newsells estate maps of 1780 it is shown within the existing plot and identified as a Presbyt...

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Barkway Ravaged by Fire

Barkway Ravaged by Fire
In the year 1748 on August 18th, part of Barkway was ravaged by a fire. A total of nineteen households submitted claims for lost household contents to local relevant charities. Existing records show t...

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Medieval Woodland in Barkway

Medieval Woodland in Barkway
Medieval Woodland in Barkway In this area we have a number of ancient woods. They are usually characterised by having within their precincts plants such as bluebells, dog mercury, and wild garlic. In...

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Memories of 1920 Barkway

Memories of 1920 Barkway
Memories of 1920s Barkway From an Old Resident The High Street in the 1920s was more busy with farm carts than motorised traffic and my memories of pre-school days was of sitting in our window (then a...

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Windmills in Barkway

Windmills in Barkway
Hertfordshire as a county is relatively rich in river systems, so that water mills are common. However, Barkway was one of those places in the higher north of the county which employed wind power. The...

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