Thread Topic: Twin Tree Hollow
Topic Originator: Andy Matthews
Post Date July 29, 2009 @ 10:10 PM |
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| Andy Matthews |
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Does anyone remember 'Twin Tree Hollow' which was located somewhere in the fields beyond the end of Green Lane?
I have just spent the evening with my parents who are old Stamfordians (in their 70s/80s) and Twin Tree Hollow came up in conversaion. I asked where this was and Mum began explaining where but my father seemed to explain it slightly differently. However, they both remember that it was somewhere in the fields beyond Green Lane but before you get to the farm on the hill which is between Stamford and Little Casterton. They told me that children from the town would meet there and climb the trees and there was a reasonably sized pond.
These days I regularly take my dog walking in those fields but have seen no pond or 'Twin Trees'.
I would be very interested to know exactly where Twin Tree Hollow was and when it disappeared - or is it still there somewhere and I have just not noticed? Can someone help me out with this one? By the way, Dad tells me that the pond here is not the Brickyard Pond which was further over near Little casterton Road.
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| joan |
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Twin Tree Hollow. I think the trees you are talking about got struck by lightening long ago. And the pond dried up, there used to be a muddle patch there but I think that has gone now.
Does anyone remember the plane crashing down there, about 1951-2, I was sitting in Miss Cropley's class, poetry I think, not paying attention of course, too much coming and going along Green Lane.
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| syd |
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Hi Andy
If you follow Green Lane right to the bottom, imagine a line straight on for about 100 yards over the hedge and about10 or 15 yards to your left, the pond was there. The twin trees were I believe willow trees that leant over the pond to each other and made a bridge over the pond. In the fifties, us Essex Roaders would pack our sandwiches and a bottle of lemonade crystals and spend the whole day and most days of the summer holidays there, many years later, wanting to visit my youth, I went down Green Lane, but, horror upon horror, there were no trees, no pond, all ploughed over. I suppose if it was still there these days, it wouldn't be visited.
Thanks Andy, you brought back happy memories
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| syd |
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I remember the crash, a light aircraft, and I think two people were killed, it was in the field on the right nearing the bottom of the hill, for a few years after ploughing we would go into the field and collect small bits of metal and bits of perspex, nothing much bigger than a shilling, but your standing went up if you found an interesting piece.
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| john freear |
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Now then Syd, you are only a youngster and I still haven't got my cricket bat back!!
The twin tree was in fact a very big poplar which had at some time in its early life divided into two. It was really a very big tree. It stood on the black path at the bottom of the hill, same hill as Green Lane but 200 or so yards to the west of Green Lane.It was struck by lightning during the thirties or forties we used what was left to get our "touch wood" from for our "clay engines".
The black path was the old footway between Stamford and Little Casterton and is still extant and marked on the Ordnance Survey Maps. It still lives within the town. Start at Poacher Passage, Nags head passage, call it what you will it has had a lot of names, cross the rec to the right hand side of the tennis courts, then up the west side of the rec, cross New Cross road keep going straight on untill you reach Essex Road. The last remnant recognisable from here is to the right hand side of Norfolk Sq.(East) after that you use the modern facilities until you reach the fields, then you are on your own with a compass and a map. It is however an awarded footpath and as such a thoroughfare and should never be ploughed over without being reinstated.
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| Patrick |
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Sid is right about the location of the Twin Tree Hollow pond. To us in Northfields it was known as Wheatley`s Pond after Reg Wheatley who lived at Northfields Farm (access off Little Casterton Road) and farmed the land.
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| Clem Walden |
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Hi-Patrick, John Freear is correct the twin tree was a popular and was a great tree for "touch wood" I remember the old clay engines we used to make later on it was "tin cans" with loads of holes in and wire on that we would fill with touch wood set light to and swing round and round. The old pond was one of Tolethorpe Squares play areas in the 40s myself Trot Spencer, Tony Story,Mick Steel,Chas Rawlings,Stuart Walpole,and several others would visit the pond regular. I may be wrong perhaps John Freear can help, I thought the field the pond was in at the bottom of Green lane was on Wooly's Farm land (not sure about spelling) Wheatley's farm land started in the next field? Reg Wyers from Tolethorpe Sq, would go to the pond to catch newt's etc for his tropical fish tanks, As youngsters we spent many happy hours at the pond, green lane was a great area, so was the old spinny, does anyone remember "birds nesting" collecting birds eggs, blowing the same, and keeping them in shoe boxes packed with cotten wool. Fond memories.
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| freear.family@o2.co.uk |
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I too think the pond we are talking about was within the Wheatley farm. I can remember cows from his fields drinking there.
Blowing eggs??? Bernard Bryan from Lancaster Road having pierced each end with a thorn used to suck them!!!
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| Patrick |
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Hi Clem. If you remember as you walked down Green Lane (or `The Drift` as we used to call it) The Spinney was first on the left (once as a ten or eleven year old before the War, I climbed a tree and made cuckoo calls. Someone wrote to the Mercury saying they had heard a cuckoo in the King`s Road Spinney and was it the first of the year!).
Then there were the allotments running across to the Norfolk Square footpath. After that, all the land from the left hand side of The Drift across to Little Casterton Road was farmed by Williamson Cliff. At the end of the lane, the first two fields ahead of you were part of Wheatley`s Farm which ran left to little Casterton Road with a common boundary with Williamson Cliff. On the right hand side of The Drift, apart from two small fields where the Fane School and Queen Eleanor School stand or stood, all the land was farmed by Charlie Woolley of Borderville as far as the River Guash at Ryhall.
Apologies for going on so long but there were few of these fields that I didn`t have a rabbit or two out of and I have been chased across most of them by an angry farmer!
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| Clem Walden |
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Hi Patrick, great to hear your memories about the "Old Green Lane" you must be older than I? I only remember it as "Green Lane" interested to hear you were the "Cuckoo" in the spinney, you may recall the allotments on the footpath from Norfolk Square were to the right of the same, the area to the left was indeed farmed by Williamson & Cliff. within the old "Spinney" there was an undground water tank, and just above the old Fane School on the right hand side of of green lane was a very large water tank standing on a steel structure some 35ft high, Queen Eleanor school at that time was not built, and all the fields on the right hand side of green lane to the River Guash at Ryhall were indeed farmed by "Woolley's" at the bottom of Green lane the wooden fence had a public foot "style" all would climb over to visit the pond. On the extreme left of this style (about 30 to 40 yards was a hedge that I believe was the boundary of Reg Wheatley's farm, I may well be wrong but the "pond" all are refering to was on "Borderville Farm land" Woolley's land and not "Wheatley's" land.
You must also remember the "Pigeries" that were adjacent to the old spinney "long before the pre-fabs" were built, these pigeries remained there until about 1953/4 or perhaps a little longer, Like you myself. father & uncle had a rabbit or two out of these fields, and also got chased, once by Mr Wooley himself who used to have a "Blunder Bus" I never got shot , but do remember my uncle Len shouting to me "run for your life" not really bothered if Wheatley or Wooley owned the land, but are pleased to note we all have fond memories of the old "Green Lane" or the "Drift" as you remember it.
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| Paul Oleksow |
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I think the aircrash mentioned was actually that of a Boulton Paul Balliol T2 from 7FTS RAF Cottesmore on the 28th January 1953. It was seen to hit the ground near Borderville farm, workers from the council house building site rushed to the scene but there was nothing they could do, the pilot was killed. A picture and details of this accident can be found in a book called Wings Over Rutland a copy of this is in Stamford library.
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