ARCHIVE : ACTION #1
Archive: a collection of records of a place
Action: the process of doing something
In July, we asked if we could borrow, scan, photo or otherwise copy, any photographs, documents or artefacts that would represent Geddington’s history over the centuries.
Our aim: to create an online archive of our village.
We have been amazed with your response and we have many people to thank for all the material that we have received so far. In fact we have enough material to have a very interesting Archive Exhibition, which is taking place on Saturday 1st November in the Village Hall. We will be starting our time line from the Domesday Book, working forward to 2014, so plenty of scope!
We have divided the material into categories and, as a means of catching your attention, we will be putting a weekly article here to show the sort of thing that you will see at the Exhibition.
Our first article will come from the category of:

BUILDINGS
41 (and 43) Queen Street,
also known as Apple Tree Cottage.
The build date is not known exactly, but could be around 1837 and it was thought to have been built by Boughton Estates (this is to be confirmed, see our comment in the last paragraph concerning research!). What is known is:
- 30 June 1933 the land, comprising 2 roods and 7 perches and all the 4 cottages, 1,2 3 and 4 Queen Street, erected on that land, shown on the plan in pink, was sold to Edmund John Pycraft for £500. The conveyance was made by John Charles Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry KT, Lord George Scott and Lord William Scott, and Boughton Estates Ltd. (The 1901 census shows Edmund living in this cottage with his father, mother and two sisters, Florence & Ivy. Edmund was 10 years old at that time. In 1911, their neighbours were a family by the name of Raby.)
- On 12th October 1934, Edmund Pycraft took out a mortgage from the Nottingham Imperial Order of Oddfellows Friendly Society. The Trustees’ names on the Conveyance Deed are Alfred Salsbury, Factory Manager of the Derby Lace Company and George Reeder, a Colliery Deputy. The amount borrowed was £250, for a period of 10 years and was paid off by 15 July 1944.
- 12th August 1968 Edmund Pycraft died and the property was granted to his sister, Florence Lily Freeman of Weldon, by Letters of Administration as Emund Pycraft had died intestate. By now the numbers had been changed to 41, 43, 45 and 47 Queen Street.
- 2nd January 1969 the property was conveyed to John Albert Francis Ambery and Margaret Jean Ambery of Long Barn Geddington by Florence Freeman and in the document, she was called the Donor.
- 27th August 1969, the two cottages numbered 41 and 42, (the crosshatch shown on the plan) were sold by Mr Ambery to William David Wolstenholme of 9 Grafton Road Geddington for £1750.
- 20th February 1980, 41 and 43 now being one household, was sold to Michael Ian Spencer and Helen Christine Spencer for £35,000.
- 1998 the property was sold to Kristi Marshall (now Nicholls, née Dennis), formally of 9 Grafton Road, and who is the current owner and occupier.
NB During the war years, an Anderson shelter was built in the garden and is there to this day. In 13 May 1975 an extension was built on the back of the property and in 1983 planning permission was given for change of use to a retail shop, which many will remember as The Pot Shop and run by Helen Spencer.
If you have any documents relating to your executive home/house/cottage/hovel, whatever its age, please get in touch as, eventually, we hope to have interesting facts on many of the homes in every street of the village.
The Exhibition is not the end of our Archive Project, most definitely not, it is just the start of what we hope will be an on-going project over the next few years, that grows and grows as more material, and more research, bring fascinating facts to light.
Geddington.net will unveil its Archive area on November 1st.