From the autumn term 1942 to July 1943 (when we were in the top class). Raymond Oliver and I had the job of winding the School clock every Monday morning. We were delighted, because Monday morning was the time the Vicar, or the Curate, came to take the Scripture lesson. We took as long as we could going up the ladder to the clock tower […]

On Saturday morning, Mr Head, steward to Lord Grantley, was sent to by the wife of James Edwards, the gamekeeper, saying that she was uneasy, as her husband had been out all night, which induced Mr Head to ride out in search of him; on passing the lock near the back of Bramley-street, he saw something in the water which he thought was a sack, […]

Bramley is a Saxon name meaning a clearing in the broom. Birtley to the south is also Saxon and means a clearing in the birch. The wider area had been settled before the Saxons arrived. The builders of the Iron Age fort at Hascombe (in use from c.200 to 50BC) probably included farmers from the Wintershall and Thorncombe Street areas of present day Bramley, but […]

Four centuries with no record of feminine cricket intervened until the year 1745. Then, a year after the publication of the first agreed code of rules, and, as it so happens, in the self-same week in which the Young Pretender landed in Scotland, there took place the first recorded women’s match. “The greatest cricket-match that ever was played in the South part of England was […]