The Lie of the Land

The Lie of the Land Research • Meeting in Pamphill on 25th January 2006
A conversation with Carol Dumbleton, Norma Luther and Jean Smith

There was a thatcher by the name of Ruppy or Ruppley who lived near the Forge.
The Forge is still working today.
They remembered a Percy Ricketts.
Miss V Barrett and Miss E Barrett taught at the school (in the 1950s?)
“They were always elderly, although probably not as old as we thought they were. They wrote beautifully.”
They would play Hockey and Shinty.
Carol won the Roger Gillingham Prize at school. (She has a CD all about Roger Gillingham)
The parents would organise the school fetes and parties for the children. There was a carnival queen and princesses.
….’s sister Catherine was carnival queen one year. He remembers “bird-nesting” for jackdaws in the woods up in the park. “The old Squire didn’t mind.” He also said that he would have to take the cows out to graze on The Avenue or the water meadows but would get out of it if he could.
They remembered a gale when a great elm came down on to a cottage. The occupants were still in bed but they were not hurt.
Miss Rowdell lived by the school. She had a pony and lots of cats.
One day all the bales in the barn had to come out because she was convinced that a cat had her kittens in there.
Carol Dumbleton lived at Cottage 519 (up the gravel track, opposite the front of The Vine, on to Little Pamphill Green). She was there from the age of six months until she married.
Carol is sad that her cottage (519) is not cared for now as it should be.
As a girl she remembers packing primroses into shoeboxes and sending them to Great Ormond Street. They would go on long walks through the bluebells, just to find a white one.
There was a fete and party for the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. There was a fancy dress competition, they went as the people from the Quality Street tin.
In the summer they would make camps and houses in the fern or bracken by clearing a space and bending the tops and tying them together. They would play there all day, taking their meals out there.
They would skate on the ponds in winter.
On Bonfire Night there would be a bonfire on the corner by the school. It would be weeks in the making, they would collect bracken and gorse. There were no fireworks to speak of, not like today, only sparklers. They had a Guy, of course, and the men made them lanterns out of a tin with a rag dipped in oil stuffed in it and tied to the end of a stick. They would walk up to The Green all in a line.
The Sunday School outings were to Weymouth or Sandbanks.
Goats would graze on the Little Green, as would chickens. Carol was butted by a goat.
The boys would play football on the Little Green all day, staying out to all hours.
Carol said that her childhood at Pamphill was “pure magic”.
There was no running water, toilets or electricity. In 1950-55, the men all got together and dug the trench for the mains water. They all helped each other back then. That was the way it was.
Norma Luther lived at Pamphill until she was ten. Her mother is still alive and she is going to ask her for her memories.
Miss Baker was the Matron of Wimborne Hospital.
“My father would ride his bike up to Squire Bankes’ and ask for a donation for the raffle at the school. He (Squire Bankes) didn’t mind and would smoke a Woodbine with him and often he would come home with a pheasant or two. A gentleman, he was, a nice man, not like they say he was at all. You would have to raise your hat to him, though, us kids, that’s what you did.”
“I remember Mrs Bankes, in the back of a Daimler all wrapped up with blankets.”
Jean Smith still thinks of Pamphill as her real home.
“They used to say there was an underground passage from the Manor House to Badbury. There was talk of a ghost at The Manor but we never saw one.”
The old gamekeeper used to say that in his woods, all about the lanes and the estate, in all his time he had never seen anything as ugly or as frightening as himself!
Cricket – all sat around, the cars all around the edge of the pitch. There were no spikes in the ground to keep you off then. These Trust people have spoilt it all with those posts all along the edge. “…lovely sunny afternoons with the cricket.”
Joe Randle lived by the school, he was coming home from The Vine one night and fell in the pond and drowned.

Memories gathered with Pamphill residents while looking at a map in January 2006

“Growing up here was pure magic, we were very lucky.”
“It’s not our village any more.”
“We don’t want holiday homes at £1100 a month.”
“Father said they’re not National Trust – they’re MISS-TRUST.”
“There was a refugee from Czechoslovakia.”
“In World War Two there was a US field hospital at Kingston Lacy.”
“We used to play cricket here.”
“We swapped eggs with Jean’s aunt for goodies.”
Kingston Lacy.
Abbott Street.
Mr and Mrs Harvey lived at Home Farm.
The Leggs.
Mr and Mrs Deverill – “miserable old fool.”
“Jean Smith lived in Bournemouth but came here for holidays, aunt and uncle were Bill and Beat Budden, Grandfather was the smithy for Kingston Lacy.”
“Bill was the local coachman; he used to pick up all the local kids – he was also miserable, he threw kids off the bus if there was any trouble.”
The Gardeners’ houses – “Mr and Mrs Thick and the Cheesemans.”
“Our mothers were all born in Shapwick. They had three girls – Beat, Freda and Marge.”
“The cows used to wander up and down the avenue twice a day. They made a track.”
Pamphill Manor – “ It was haunted – radios were turned off. The women land girls in World War II were billeted here.”
“There was an exorcism of poltergeists, they were shut in a room by the Reverend Roten-Lee. The National Trust opened the door and released the ghosts. Diane Nolte told the ghosts she was going to live there now so they could behave themselves or get out.”
Pamphill Green – “It was a cricket pitch. We once sabotaged a football match with a tractor – it was common land.”
“There used to be a pond here where someone drowned.”
“John used to collect car numbers – five in a day!”
“We used to play football here.”
Oak Avenue – “There was a torch procession down the avenue on November 5th.”
“John’s job was to take the cows up and down the avenue when he was a lad, that’s if they could catch him, because he liked to go off and play.”
St Steven’s Church – “It’s the centenary next year in 2007. It was given to the village in 1921. I remember the Coronation.”
“Goats used to chase Jean when she was aged 11 -12 .”
“John Whittle – 50 years at the farm. German POWs worked in the garden.”
Cottage 539 – Marge Cherrett lived here all her married life, 51 years. She grew up in the Boyt family.”
The School – “In the 80s when the school was threatened with closure, Vera and three others went up to Westminster. It was part of the community. Tom Chissell who lived in Cowgrove Farm went up with two District Councillors.”
“They tried to close it in the 80s when there were 18 children.”
“Two sisters, Big Fanny and Little Fanny, were teachers, Misses Barrett. One rode a bike to school and the big one had a taxi. They lived in Redcotts Road, Wimborne. They taught the basics.”
“Granf’er used to cut gorse bushes for the bonfire. We dragged them up the hill with our bikes.”
Miss Rodell lived in the Alms Houses. She had a pony called Bob which she kept inside.”
“There was somebody by the name of Forward, a builder, he fixed bikes, did a bit of poaching, used to pinch John’s eggs.”
“John now lives here (between the Vine and the School) for 40 years. He used to play cricket on the green.”
“The Vine was originally a mill house. The Ricketts lived there.”
“The Yanks used to drink there in World War Two.”
“Norma thought the fir trees were creepy.”
Little Pamphill Green.
Cottage 519 – “Carol Dumbleton moved here from Shapwick at six months old.”
Cottage 522 – “The Buddens, Tom. Bill’s brother was in the butcher’s Something Different.”
Cottage 523 – “Norma Roper, now Luther, grew up here until 1955. She now lives in Holtwood. Norma says “There was no fear at all then, all were out and about.”
“John Whittle – billionaire accountant.”
“Farr’s House had refugees from the towns in England in World War Two.”
“Wayne and Debbie Miller’s house for 18 years, born in The Broads estate by QE School in the 1950s and ‘60s.”
“Pamphill played Cowgrove at cricket but they burned the five-a-side cricket bails to make ashes.”
Chillbridge Farm – Jill and Wendy Richards.
Boyt family – “Nine of them, Marge and Carole grew up here. The cottage burned down.”
Cowgrove Farm – “Bridget lived here from 1958 to 1994.”
Cowgrove Pond – “Vera said it is being restored now.”
Poplar Farm – “It was always called Smugglers’ Cottage. Smugglers brought whiskey in barrels up river and stored them here.”
The Old Dairy – “There was a female ghost who walked through the bedroom with no feet.” (Vera Ricketts)
The Court House – “It was haunted too, with dangling chains.”