A Continuing Tale of Rectory Folk

So, back to my detective work on the Rowden family.  We left them in 1841, having identified the eight year old Ellen as being the Reverend Edward Rowden’s daughter from his second marriage to Ellen Trenchard, but still musing on the others listed as being resident on the day of the census return: the seven year old Elizabeth, six month old Margaret and 25 year old John Rowden.

It turns out that you can’t always trust online census material.  I can’t be sure as some of the facts don’t quite tally but it seems likely that the names are incorrect, that it was not Elizabeth, Margaret and John Rowden, but rather Elizabeth, Margaret and Sophia Robinson who were staying in the Old Rectory on that day.  

Sophia was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Edward and his first wife, Elizabeth. She was married at 19 to the Reverend Francis Robinson, Rector of Little Staughton in Bedfordshire. The wedding took place in H________ on 10^th September, 1831.  Her new husband, Francis, was the son of Thomas Robinson, who was Mayor of Oxford between 1817 and 1818 and, rather remarkably, he went to Corpus Christi College in 1819 at the tender age of 14.  It’s a story that would make the tabloids nowadays (and, come to think of it, probably the broadsheets as well!) but I’m not sure if it was a more commonplace event in the nineteenth century – yet another fact to check. 

The large family thing was obviously in the genes as Sophia and Francis lost no time in having numerous children:

Francis Edward was born at Begbroke in Oxfordshire in either 1832 or 1833.

Sophia Elizabeth Rowden (who is the Elizabeth of the 1841 census) was born in 1834 at Stonesfield in Oxfordshire, where her father was the Rector from 1834 to 1882.

Thomas Auriol was born at Stonesfield on Christmas Day, 1835.

Georgina Margaret was born at Begbroke in 1837.

Walter Croke was born at Stonesfield in 1839.

Margaret Maria (who is the Margaret of the 1841 census) was born at Stonesfield on 3 December 1840.

William Henry Carns was born at Stonesfield in 1842 and died one year and five months later in 1844.

Ellis Ashton was born at Stonesfield in 1845.

Ellen Mary was born at Stonesfield in 1846.

Charlotte Barbara Spooner was born at Stonesfield in 1850.

Ellen Trenchard Goodenough was born at Stonesfield in 1856.

This is a picture of Francis, the eldest son, who took over as rector of Stonesfield from his father, just as his uncle, Edward, took over from his father in H_______.

This family don't seem to have been very imaginative with regards to names.  A mother and daughter with the same name is not that unusual but it’s a bit odd, having two daughters called Ellen.  Sophia obviously had a good relationship with her stepmother! And, of course, she also had a sister called Frances and a brother called Francis so could probably see nothing confusing about having two daughters with the same name.  Names seem to have been a bit limited in those days.  Had no one thought of Chardonnay or Troy?  But it was OK because the first Ellen was handily known by her middle name of Mary. Which begs the question why not just call her Mary in the first place?  And similarly with regards to the daughter named Sophie but apparently called Elizabeth.  So, a grand total of eleven children for  Sophia, beating her mother’s record by one and, moreover, managing to stay alive during the process! 

At the time of the 1841 census, the Reverend Francis (the father, not the son depicted above) is registered as being at Stonesfield with Thomas, then aged five, Georgina, three, and Walter, aged two.  The family moved to 24 Beaumont Street in Oxford, shown below, around 1881 where Francis died in 1886 at the age of 82.  Sophia died in the same house four years later on 7 December 1890.  She was 78.

Oh, and I should point out that there were also seven servants listed for the Old Rectory on that day in 1841.  They were Mary Knitts, aged 20, Sarah Barrett, 35, Ann Poole, 25, Sarah Morse, 20, Mary Peopall, 15, Daniel Bond, aged 30 and Frederick Green, aged 15.  And I should point this out because we somehow manage with no servants.  And when I say 'manage'...

Still Sanding After All These Years...*

*Sung to the tune of 'Still Crazy After All These Years' by the immortal Paul Simon.

The Fernery

My brother came to visit at the end of May and helped to start the fernery in the bed outside the Rector's Study.  The bed is to the side of a pathway with the house on one side and a tall wall on the other, so it's very shady.  The perfect place for a fernery, a specialised garden for the cultivation and display of ferns, according to Wikipedia.  And, obviously, in this particular case, it is far from specialised.  But give us some credit for at least trying to cultivate and display them!

The big fern in the centre was brought to us from Northumberland, courtesy of my brother.  It doesn't seem very happy about that so far.  I think it's a polystichum setiferum (so much for 'specialised'!).

This one below is quite pretty in a fern sort of way with its bronzed tips.  A dryopteris erythrosora perhaps.  Sounds like some sort of dinosaur.

This one below is ... well, to be honest, I've got no idea and I've lost the receipt. Note the artful bark (the remains of the chopped leylandii) and slate.  I wasn't going to mention it but I was worried that you wouldn't notice.  It looks nice but Sprocket keeps chasing the squirrels up the wall and cares not a diddly-squat (or a squirrely-dot) that he then shoots the bark all over the path.  So it's a daily job keeping it looking like this.  As if I haven't got enough to do.

And this is a rose - for those not up to plant spotting.  Wedding day.  The rose, that is.

This is the reluctant immigrant from Northumberland, trying hard not to enjoy itself in its new southern fernery.  I bet it wasn't planted in anything as grand as a fernery when it lived up north.  But you know what northerners are like.

And these are californian poppies that bloomed for ages to the side of the fernery, preventing me from extending it as far as I wanted because they looked so pretty.

Oh, and that reminds me that I didn't show you the meadow when the daisies were in bloom.  It looked lovely in the sunshine.

Crazy Paving

We had a lovely day on Sunday, working hard in the garden and watching any planes that happened to fly overhead from the local air show.  (This included the wonderful Vulcan, which S used to fly.  Quite a sight, albeit at a distance, and a nostalgic one as it will fly no more after this year.)  The weather started off overcast but cleared to a cloudless blue sky - and it was warm!  And it turned out to be one of those days that goes on much longer than seems possible and enables us to achieve so much.

I don't think I've mentioned that I'm from mining stock.  Well, it must be in my genes because look at the path that I am making by the shed.  With no idea if this is actually how you make a path.  But it's going to be crazy paved with the remnants of the Church wall.  And it leads down the side of the shed to the compost bins, which are now behind it.

I've lined it up quite well with the back door, I think you'll agree.

And I also managed to flatten out the embryo vegetable garden too.  It's starting to look like I imagine it to be.

We had peas and potatoes from the garden for dinner, grown in the raised beds.  Served with Greek salad and lamb cutlets, they were delicious.  Then fresh berries (red currants, blueberries, raspberries and cherries - all from Waitrose!) for dessert with thick double cream.  Yum!

But before dinner, S strimmed the meadow and we made hay while the sun shone.  The garden looks so different without it, much bigger somehow.  Oh, and he took out the gooseberry bush too.  Nothing is safe when S gets a cutting implement in his hands.  It's a good job that I'm so good natured.  And that I kept the dog well out of the way.

And then I watered the plants.  No idea what these are as my mum ordered them from somewhere or other but they are the most fantastic colours and seem to just flower and flower.  One to note for next year.

And here's Sprocket posing by the chimney pots full of begonias.  These were courtesy of my mum again.  I'm more of a cottage garden type.  Begonias are a bit too municipal park for me.

And a pot full of geraniums with the daffodils that we had scenting the house in the spring and reminding us that there is life after winter lurking beneath them.

The hostas are doing well this year.  Here they are, grouped around the bird bath and just starting to flower.

And, following that little interlude, admiring the plants, that wasn't all.  S is nearly finished on his study window.  It's been a learning curve and has taken some time but he has now mended it and draught proofed it, which is not as easy as it sounds, involving using a big machine to cut a groove to stick the draught proofing stuff in.  And he undercoated the window sill.  It will be interesting to see what difference this makes to his study, which is usually freezing cold.

And we had a poor yew tree, sitting forlornly by the door to the Rector's study, waiting to join the five others in the 'formal garden' (which is actually a pile of rubble with five yew trees and four pear trees planted amongst it).  But the remains of the sycamore that we had to cut down following the fallen wall (how that keeps cropping up) were in the way.  So we spent some time removing them - oh, and I forgot to say that we started the day by  removing the massive root that was blocking the perfection of my path to the compost bins, as pictured at the start of this rambling rubbish.

And here is a foxglove in the gin terrace garden, which took my fancy.  But I have aimed the camera carefully as the rest of this garden is a mess again. But next year it will be a lovely lemon and lime garden.  (A lemon and lime garden next to the gin terrace - wonderfully romantic or simply pretentious nonsense?  Answers on a postcard please.)

And then this evening after working hard all day and following my workout with my personal trainer, aka Sprocket, my mole-like tendencies came to the fore again and I started work on my next path.  There's no stopping me now.  I will be burrowing throughout the garden from now on.  It's those genes.

Off Topic

Not exactly the subject of this blog, I know, but can't resist including a picture of my lovely, beautiful, funny and now officially very clever daughter, H aka Minnie, who graduated with a BA (Hons) from the University of Manchester last week.