Totally lazy contribution this week...

The famous Spalding festival.  Hendrix and Cream in the bulb auction hall, strange but true...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/lI8yz4yLR6S77_OLO7H6eQ

A bucket of dripping

The following is a genuine correspondence, held in the Lincolnshire Archives, following the storm surge on the East Coast in 1953.  The participants are the Clerk of Lindsey County Council and  Mr LD Henshaw Esq. proprietor of the 'Wizard Café', Trusvillle Holiday Estate, Mablethorpe:

       8 June 1953

Dear Sirs,

As a result of the flooding, earlier in the year, 414lb of dripping was taken from me in order to be inspected by the Sanitary Inspector. You will appreciate that this was well over three months, and I feel it is high time that, either the dripping be replaced or I be compensated in cash.

I should appreciate the return of my white enamel bucket which is valued at 16 shillings.

Yours faithfully, LD Henshaw

12^th of June 1953

Dear Sir,

I have your letter of the eighth instant with reference to dripping removed for inspection, etc, which is receiving attention. It would be of assistance to me if you would let me know to whom your bucket was lent.

Yours Faithfully, Clerk of the County Council

        15^th of June 1953

Dear Sir,

I am in receipt of your letter of the twelfth  instant, and in reply would inform you that the enamel bucket in question was taken away by the same man who took the dripping to Great Steeping airfield.

Yours faithfully LD Henshaw

17^th of June 1953

Dear Sir,

Floods on the Lincolnshire coast, Condemned Dripping etc

With further reference to your letter of the eighth instant I understand that two condemnation certificates were sent to you from Great Steeping and that on 12th  March, 1953, your manager Mister Hoyland, signed and returned one surrendering the 414lb of dripping to which you refer in your letter. I would therefore suggest that you submit a claim to the Lord Mayors and National Flood and Tempest Distress Fund for the value of the dripping as part of your stock in trade to the Mablethorpe and Sutton Flood Distress Relief Committee, Council Offices, Mablethorpe, sending the certificate retained by you for the information of the committee. If the certificate has been mislaid, a copy of it can be obtained through me.

I have also ascertained that your enamel bucket is still at Great Steeping aerodrome in the care of Mr Thompson and will be delivered to your café the next time transport is in your vicinity, unless you have arranged for its collection in the meantime.

Yours Faithfully, Clerk of the County Council

Sandhills

In Lincolnshire ‘sandhills’ are what most geographers and scientists refer to as sand dunes. The sandhill landscape of the Lincolnshire coast provides a unique natural habitat:
(Lawrence Chubb of the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England, 1931)

In the opinion of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England... the Lincolnshire sandhills constitute one of the most important stretches of coastal scenery of the kind to be found in Great Britain. There are other strips of sandhills of a similar nature elsewhere but none which stretch for such a distance as those which extend from The Wash to beyond Saltfleet. As a feature of scenic interest they are therefore unique... the Lincolnshire sandhills constitute a supreme example of a particular sort of scenery that ought to be protected.

 The long line of sandhills... is the most important stretch of sand dunes to be found in any part of the country. Parts of the area are famous as the breeding places of many migrants and other birds, and it is generally admitted by all who knew the area that steps ought to be taken to preserve it just as it is in the interest of the nation.             (Letter from Eric Scorer, Clerk of Lindsey County Council  to the Pilgrim Trust, May 1931)

The sandhills are not just a unique physical space in terms of their scenic qualities, but also provide an important habitat for flora and fauna and serve as part of the east coasts flood defence, a natural barrier against high tides and flood. A sense of the undeveloped sandhill landscape can be gained from the photographs included here. These demonstrate the heights to which the sandhills can rise and their characteristic vegetation cover of sea-buckthorn. The sandhills are home to a diversity of plants including the marsh orchid, to birds including reed buntings, snipe, hen harriers, and at Rimac they provide the home for the only Lincolnshire colony of natterjack toads. The sandhills also provide a location in which both common and grey seals pup, particularly at the area around Donna Nook. The stretch of land between Mablethorpe and Skegness is also unique in having only a single line of sandhills and a comparatively narrow stretch of beach, elsewhere the dune system is more complex and the beach considerably wider. The conservation and retention of the sandhills as part of flood defence has been a constant source of concern to local authorities; this landscape can be extremely vulnerable, as has been evidenced throughout the twentieth century when storms have affected the east coast, particularly the devastating flood of 1953. The sandhills can be easily eroded by wind, water and most significantly in this context by human activity, the latter playing a significant role in the breaching of this natural barrier in the 1953 floods.

The move to conserve this unique environment as a habitat for nature was developing apace during the interwar period as is evidenced from the above quotations and the attention of conservationists was drawn to the area as a result of three significant activities that were taking place at the time. The first of these was the purchase of portions of this land by the military for use as training grounds and bombing ranges. The importance of the east coast to the defence of the nation had been proved during the First World War. The second cause for concern was the acquisition of large areas of the sandhills by builders and developers and the third was the role of the public who had free access to much of the area to walk over in order to access the beaches and in some cases as squatters who claimed portions of land and built on them. Whereas the role of the sandhills as a line of defence against invasion and their appropriation by the military was regarded as a necessary evil, the activities of the public and planners were not. Specifically, those concerned with the conservation of the sandhills turned their attention to the activity of those members of the public and planners whose use and appropriation of the sandhills was motivated by the growth of the north Lincolnshire coast as a leisure and holiday destination. Thus the area became one of conflicting interests, primarily between the Lindsey County Council who sought to impose restriction and order on the sandhills in order to conserve them, and those wanting to use them for the purposes of leisure and recreation. The tensions that developed from these conflicting interests reflect in microcosm much wider concerns about the preservation of the countryside and public access to it, the development of ‘plotlands’ and makeshift communities and the associated issues around public health and the role of planners during this period.

Tin tabs and prefabs...

                                                     This cottage used to stand on Seven Mile Bank at West Pinchbeck. I took these photographs in 2008 and there was a demolition notice posted outside the building, I assume that the demolition has now taken place. This isn't one of the sectional bungalows that could be bought in kit form, it would probably be made by a local smith or builder.

The photo below is of a sectional bungalow from the Boulton and Paul catalogue. It was built by James Noble, wheelwright of Gosberton who owned the adjacent house, land and forge (long since demolished). The cottage was built for James' unmarried daughter, Nina Noble who played the organ in Gosberton Church. The cottage was demolished in 2009 and replaced with a brick house.

Humberstone Fitties

The Humberston Fitties Chalet Park is the last remaining (and now protected plotland) on the Lincolnshire Coast, it is an area just outside Cleethorpes that during the early twentieth century was easily accessible by train and motor car. ‘Fitties’ is a Lincolnshire term for a salt marsh and the area of marsh at Humberston was enclosed by the construction of sea bank so that it might be used as agricultural land (common practise on this stretch of coast). This provided a sheltered area immediately behind the sand dunes which by the later nineteenth century was being used as a site for tents and other shelters by holiday makers (Dowling, 2001). The land originally belonged to the estate of the Marquess of Lincolnshire who sold it in 1920 to the Humberston Fitties Company Ltd (sand and gravel extractors) who began the process of selling off plots, eventually coming under the authority of Grimsby Rural District Council. There was, inevitably, an interruption to such activity during the First World War when the coast was inaccessible to the general public but when normality returned in 1919 farmers saw the potential to increase their dwindling incomes by renting or selling plots of land to individuals who then built chalets, huts or shacks on the sites and thus the ‘plotland’ developed (Dowling, 2001; Hardy and Ward, 1984). This is precisely the way that the Humberston Fitties camp initially developed and it is indicative of how similar developments arose elsewhere on the east coast. Unlike many of the other plotlands of this period there is little evidence to suggest that the Lincolnshire plotlands supported a permanent community, forced to live there because of the lack of affordable working class housing post First World War. In his history of the Humberston Fitties camp, Alan Dowling (2001) points out that it is difficult to find the right terminology for the structures that started to spring up at Humberston; ‘chalets’, ‘bungalows’, ‘shacks’ etc all describe such makeshift structures; the fact that some might be constructed out of old omnibus bodies or railway carriages and others might be purpose made sectional wooden bungalows from companies such as Boulton and Paul only strengthened the sense of aesthetic outrage on the part of men like Scorer and Steers. Most makeshift landscapes in Lincolnshire seemed to consist of a combination of both of these types and clearly indicates that those who occupied such plotlands were from a range of income levels and lifestyles. This reflects the kind of divisions that Holtby identifies in her description of the shacks in South Riding, the Holly’s in their converted railway carriages, the Mitchells in their corrugated tin hut. It also indicates that there were some wealthier individuals who deliberately chose to enjoy a holiday in a makeshift environment rather than the more usual seaside accommodation of guest house or hotel, perceiving the lifestyle to be more authentic, more natural and linking to the popularity of romanticised ideals of the ‘gipsy’ lifestyle, a more bohemian experience. This can be ascertained from Dowling’s investigations into the early owner of properties on the Fitties, they included bankers, estate agents, florists, butchers, fishermen, hairdressers and general practitioners. None of the original occupants appear to have been forced there by poverty; rather they represent those wanting to enjoy their leisure time in a coastal environment for the reasons outlined in earlier chapters. Dowling cites an example of this as remembered by one early Fitties resident: 

Servants were brought along if anyone had them. My mother allowed hers to do without her cap when camping. I was never allowed to present anyone with a cup of tea unless it was one a small tray... when silver teapots appeared my father thought it was the beginning of the end...

(Dowling, p.34, 2001)

 

Dowling’s research also reveals that a majority of those visiting the Fitties during the inter war period were relatively local, from Grimsby and Cleethorpes with a few more distant visitors from the industrial midlands. Between 1920 and 1929 the camp expanded from one wooden bungalow to 153 buildings causing Grimsby RDC to impose a planning restriction on the site, by 1939 there were 174 including 54 actually in the sand hills themselves. Such developments lead to a long and complex process of negotiation with the RDC and the eventual adoption of the site by them, it is because of this local authority intervention and the tenacious efforts of several Fitties residents that it is not only still in existence but in 1995 became a conservation area.

Dowling A (2001) Humberston Fitties: The Story of a Lincolnshire Plotland, Cleethorpes: Dowling

www.globrix.com/property/buy/dn36/Humberston-fitties.com 13/09/09

Hardy D and Ward C (1984) Arcadia for All: The Legacy of a Makeshift Landscape, Five Leaves: Nottingham

Holtby W (1936) South Riding: An English Landscape, London: Collins

Mills D (ed.) (1989) Twentieth Century Lincolnshire, Lincoln: Yard

Robinson D (1981) The Book of the Lincolnshire Seaside, Buckingham: Baron

Some comments on Cleethorpes and Skegness...

Drunkenness stalked the street... the tremendous worship of Bacchus at Cleethorpes on Good Friday proclaimed the nearest approach to an earthly pandemonium that I have ever been able to discover...

The Grimsby Observer, August 7th 1878

         Skegness:

...it deserved its ragged-sounding knickname. It was a low, loud, faded seaside resort. It was utterly joyless. Its vulgarity was uninteresting. It was painfully ugly. It made the English seem dangerous. And at last, it made me want to leave – to take long strides down its broad sands and walk all the way to Friskney Flats. But there was no walking here – too muddy, too many of the canals and ditches they called ‘drains’ here, and no path.

 Paul Theroux  (1984)    The  Kingdom by the Sea    p.341