Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Herts at War - A Digital Legacy


Tunes from Tring Schoolboy's Music Book (1866) being performed

Aylesbury March
It us just over a year since Beth Atkinson kindly donated William Henry Ewer's music exercise book, which records the music he was taught at Prospect House School, Tring, in 1866. The whole book can now be viewed online. While most of the pieces are well know. I have so far been unable to find out anything about one local piece called the "Aylesbury March" reproduced above.
A number of the pieces, including the "Aylesbury March" have been adapted to be played on handbells by the Tringers - a small local group of amateur handbell ringers - who will be playing it, and several other pieces from the book, as part of the Family Fun Day at  Tring Parish Church, organised by FOTCH (Friends of Tring Church Heritage) on Saturday, May 6th. A number of different music groups, including several primary school choirs, will be in the church, and the Tringers are scheduled to play at 11.00 am.
The Tringers performing in Tring Church for the FOTCH Family Fun Day in 2016

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

The Cricketers Public Houses of Hertfordshire

Noeleen has written to say I found your site via Google after I could not read an address in a census. It turned out to be ‘The Cricketers’ in Bennington. In 1851 and 1861 census  Frederick  Parkins was the Victualler and a Shoemaker with his wife Sarah. He was just a Shoemaker in 1841 census. In 1861 it is listed as Cricketers Public House, Bennington Road. By 1871 and 1881 census he is Publican and Shoemaker at the Green Dragon in Waltham which his wife Sarah was head of as a Widow in 1891 census. I hope this is of interest to you and I loved the addition of a shoemakers occupation plus I enjoyed reading about Cricketers Pubs on your site, something unknown to me in NZ.

I have added her comment to the page on the Cricketers pubs I first posted in 2006, together with some relevant news items from the British Newspaper Archive.

Cricket
In addition I have added an advert relating to the Cricketers public house in Hitchin from 1836 which records that the associated cricket ground was well established at that date. I have also added a Licencing Day report for St Albans for 1884 which mentions The Cricketers in that city (which unfortunately no longer trades under that name).