Epilogue

I am a frequent visitor to Bench Wells, which is now combined into one house. My friends, Mags and Ken, who own it, bought it from Mag’s Aunt Sally and Uncle Ted. They in turn bought it when it was still two properties, being used for holiday lets, back in about 1945. It was they who found the Stone Head in the back garden. Ted answered an advert in the local paper asking if anyone in the area had found Stone Heads, and as a result, archeologists from Manchester University came out to the house, looked at the head, and verified it to be from Celtic times - perhaps 3000 years ago. The main well was across the road from them, and that is where they think the head came from originally.

When Mags and Ken bought the house in 1979 they inherited the head, which they call Fred.  Because they felt that Fred should never be separated from the property, they have had him permanently fixed above their front door. 

I know that Bench Wells was bought in 1907 by Jane Almond because she is mentioned in the deeds for the property which Ken and Mags have. It also states that the owner had to pay a ground rent of £4/10 shillings a year to Lord Howard of Glossop, from whom she was buying the property. This was for the whole house, rather than just half of it. The actual cost of the property or means of conveyancing it was not mentioned. Having found the Almonds on the 1901 census, her husband Edwin Henry, was a barrister's clerk in Manchester, and they had a servant. I am only speculating that this was the family that bought the house, but it seemed the most likely of the various Jane Almond's mentioned.

When I went to Glossop Library to research Lord Howard, I found that in 1925, his son, who had just inherited the title, and no doubt death duties, had advertised and then sold by auction some 1500 acres of land including properties in Ludworth - and specifically mentioning Stirrup Farm of 64 acres (owned in my story by Mr. Salt who didn't want to join the consortium), and Ernocroft - 91 acres. At first I wondered if this was the property originally owned by Hannah and her husband, but then decided it wasn't.

At Marple Library, I found details of Lower Ernocroft Farmhouse, and it is stated on the advertising when it was for sale, that it had been owned in the last part of the 19th Century by Benjamin Harrison. So I presume this is a different Ernocroft from the one sold in 1925 from Lord Howard’s estate.

There was a Queen Elizabeth silver coin from 1568 found in Marple - perhaps 5 miles away, in 1929, and a prehistoric stone hammer head was found in Ludworth in 1935. I just used these two unrelated incidents to give a bit more substance to my story. There currently are many archeological investigations going on in this area.

This book is fiction - but based on a certain amount of historic fact. Bench Wells did get sold by Lord Howard of Glossop, and the buyer was Mrs. Jane Almond, the wife of Henry Almond, one of the characters I said was a friend of Horatio's. I do not know if Hannah and her neighbours,  continued to live in the house after it was sold or not.

I have used the names of the main characters in this initial writing. However, when I get it published on Lulu I will change the names of Hannah, Horatio, Fred and Blanche as the story line is pure fiction, and I would not like to feel that I was ascribing feelings and actions that might not have been at all in character with the persons who were living in this area at that time. 

The details from the pubs are partially true, and partially taken out of date sequence as the ones I used fit in better with my story.

The description of Mr. Joel Wainwright’s house is accurate - and the story about the nightingale was taken directly from his book, Memories of Marple.

Currently, the public houses of Lane Ends, Travellers' Call and Rock Tavern still exist. The property of Woodheys became a restaurant (Aunt Sally worked for them) and still is a restaurant but now called Peruga at Woodheys. And a much enhanced Ivy House still exists.

Speculating on the future of my main characters, I think that Hannah, who was in fact 5 years older than the age given in the 1901 census, died in 1907, so wouldn’t have owned the house anyway. She would have been 42.

Annie, I think married Fred Bennett in 1914 when she was 17. Fred in 1901, aged 14, was a servant on a farm in Charlesworth, so that would make him 21 when they married. Since I would assume that Samuel Hammersley, Hannah’s brother would have taken on the responsibility for her after her mother died, it would be logical that she would marry someone from a neighbouring farm.

I couldn’t find any references to Fred or Blanche Hodgkinson living in that area in terms of marriages. But I did find that a baby boy called Harry Whittington was born in 1910 - whether he is Horatio’s son or not, I do not know.

References and Acknowledgements:

1 Memories of Marple, by Joel Wainwright, MTD Rigg, Publications, Leeds, 1899.

Historic Industries of Marple and Mellor, Marple Branch of the WEA, Edited by Owen Ashmore, 1989

Last Orders, Please, by Jack Turnbull, 1988

The Local Times, by Jack Turnbull, 1992

A History of Marple, by Gladys A Swindells, Marple Antiquarian Society, 1974.

The History of Marple and District, by Marple Local History Society, 1993.

Glossop Library, cuttings of the Howard family.

Ancestor.co.uk

Internet sites, in particular ones for the Howard family, and Glossop and Ludworth histories.

Historical directories – Kelly's Directory of Derbyshire, 1895, 1899, 1912

Old Houses of Interest, loose leaf books at Marple Library.

Old Cookery Books by W Caree Haslett, 1901.