PVHG – Packington Village History Group

NEW PVHG Publication

‘Georgian Packington’ by Dorothy Ireland

Inspired by a 1735 map of the village

Available from any Packington Village History Group member- see names below

price £3

Aims

  • To record and help preserve the history of the parish of Packington.
  • To promote an interest in history (especially of the parish) in the local community

Contacts:

Chairman:  Position Vacant
Secretary:  Yvonne Eaton   Tel. 412269

Meetings:

Meetings are held usually on Thursday afternoons about every 4 – 6 weeks.  Dates for meetings are arranged at the current meeting.

Activities:

These are varied and include:

  • research
  • building an archive of written and photographic material
  • recording oral histories
  • exhibitions
  • a calendar
  • various publications (see below)
  • talks

Publications:   Please contact Chairman for purchase

  • NEW!! ‘Georgian Packington‘ with 1735 map of the Estates £3.00
  • ‘Packington Observed’    A photograph based history.   £4.00 (nearly sold out)
  • ‘Royal Days’   The story of village celebrations of royal events.  £4.00
  • Daisy Chains’   A child’s memories of Packington in the 1930’s.   £2.00
  • Where were you in the War?’   Memories of WW2 from Packington residents (past and present)  £1.00 (sale price).  Also on sale at Daybreak Services and Ashby Museum.
  • Notelets.  Pack of 5 line drawings of historicals views.   £1.25  (nearly sold out)
  • ‘History of Holy Rood Church’  £2.00   (also on sale in the church – all proceeds to church funds)
  • ‘HMS Powerful’   The Boer War story of the Ladysmith Naval Brigade.   £3.50 (publication by a member of the group.

Chairmans Report 2014 – 15
During the year we have had seven business meetings and welcomed a new member, Mrs Peggy Pass.

A lot of work has been done on various exhibitions. Early in the year, Wally Instrall led an appeal for artefacts to be part of a new Packington display in the Ashby Museum, as they were putting on an exhibition on the First World War. Notably this material included Trish Swindell‘s original signal relating to a 1914 Christmas Truce which has also been mentioned nationally in a book about the Antiques Road Show and subsequently in one of their television programmes.

The group also helped the museum with a £50 donation towards the publication costs of “Lest we Forget”, a book on the local fatalities in the First World War.

Another exhibition was produced to celebrate the twenty-fifth year of “Open Gardens”. A lot of material, including aerial photographs from 1969 and 1991, were put on show at the second group “Open Day” in June 2014. Despite the weather, this was again successful, bu the group has agreed not to make this an anual event.

Thanks to Yvonne Eaton, we visited “Hall Farm” in August, saw the building and gained some photographs and information on the Powell-Heath family, but nothing particularly relating to Packington. Unfortunately we were unable to establish whether the roadside barn had any remaining posters relating to its use by the Home Guard.

Otehr mysteries for the group have included a Gilbert family bible (no definite connection with Packington has been established) and the question of whether there was ever a “Cherry Tree Farm”, and if so, where?

Our archives have been increased by the exhibition material covering the fifty years existence of the Ladies Group and also the Mothers’ Union records previously kept by the church. In addition, Jim Salter’s widow has given us a collection of material on Packington that he had gathered as tutor of the evening class from which our group developed.

In between these activities we have listened to some oral history extracts and newspaper cuttings, and started a re-run of “Peters Packington”.

Altogether, 2014-15 has been a varied and I hope interesting year that finished in January 2015 with our annual party where we were joined by some invited guests.

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Chairmans Report  2011 – 12

Since last year’s AGM the group has had six meetings followed by the ‘Christmas Party’ in January.

Early in the year the group was saddened by the death of Dorothy Ireland, a founder member, former chairman and a considerable contributor to the groups work.  She had been preparing for possible publication a piece of research based on the 1735 Estate Map and before her death she gave this to the group.  It was decided to continue with its publication and Peter and Wally agreed to complete the editing – a work still in progress.

Sadly, towards the end of the year, the group lost another member when Jessie Bradford passed away.  Though only a member for about four years, Jessie made a positive contribution towards the work of the group including helping to man stal ls, selling books and writing a short article on Holy Rood Church for an edition of the Ashby Museum magazine.

Both Dorothy and Jessie are missed.

During the year David and Paula have carried on recording the inscriptions on memorials in the churchyard.  The 1939 map with the key found by David and the ‘Adopt a Grave’ scheme both proved unsuitable for our purposes so David has developed his own system for a plan of the churchyard and the photographing and recording of inscriptions.

The group also continued to receive and study photographs of the village including a batch from the County Record Office.  Some photographs have been placed in the Packington Post with the identification of occasions or people.  One photograph of Packington House was investigated by Paula who identified the likely time (1880’s) and the family shown (Johnson).

Other topics presented to the group included a study of the ‘Fancy Knitting’ craft which persisted into  the second half of the last century, a parish magazine of 1901 and some of Mrs. Mugglestone’s oral history.  The group also provided materials, including archive photographs and manned a stall at both the Open Gardens in August and a Parish Council open meeting in September.  It has gathered items for revamping the display case in Ashby Museum as the original display has been in place for five years.  How time flies!

Chairmans Report 2010 -11

This year the group has had six meetings plus the annual party.  Early in the year we had a fascinating talk by Robert Eaton on the story of Ashby Cattle Market up until its closure in 1967 and on Stevenson and Barrett.  This was followed up at the next meeting by a look at Stevenson and Barrett’s property ledger for the 1950’s and 1960’s which included details of many sales involving Packington and also a further look at newpaper cuttings from our archives.  Later in the year Wally informeed us that the computer cataloging of items in our existing archive was now up to date, involving about 2,400 entries and thanks are expressed to Keith Haynes for his work on this.

David and Paula continued their work on the churchyardA scheme for proceeding, with photos of gravestones, recording of inscriptions and numbering graves for a plan was agreed, with the material eventually to be put on a disc.

In the summer the group listened to the history of the house and garden of 16, Babelake Street and then enjoyed the garden itself.  Another highlight of this period was Wally’s illuminating talk – given inSeptember to the friends of Ashby Museum and our group and later to the Mens Group – on the history of Packington History Group.

During the year some new photos were added to our archive (eg. Robert Miller in Moldova, houses in Back Lane, school maypole dancing) and various enquiries from the public were dealt with (eg. the 1920’s cricket team, Harry Granger’s war grave, the family of Fanny Smith).  However, regarding the John Flower painting of a church, in the end the group agreed it was not Packington Church.

It was agreed not to pursue a house survey of the village, but a start was made on recording local sayings.

Finally our year ended in January 2011 with our annual party and our thanks go to Robert and Yvonne for their hospitality then and throughout the year.