Aspiring To Great Heights (27 May 1977)

I am sorry to read that Hanslope spire is in trouble, but glad that the parishioners are determined to raise the £13,000 needed to repair it.

In my wilder moments I have hoped that the new city might at some time build something mainly for the purpose of announcing itself, like the tower announces Blackpool, the crooked spire, Chesterfield, and so on – anything to overcome the present anonymity of the place.  Then I have thought that the Hanslope spire would do nearly as well, for although it is not in the city, it is at least in the borough.

But I am in some doubt about the height of the spire.  The Gazette story of the trouble gave the height as 120 feet, but some old notes of mine say 180 feet from the summit of the spire to the foot of the tower on which it rests.  They also say that the spire, which was stuck by lightning in 1804, was 20 feet higher than the present one, making 200 feet all told.

However that might be, one good story has come down from the days of the old spire.  It seems that in the reign of George II (1727-1760) the weathercock on top went out of order.

This was a serious matter.  Weathercocks were more important than they are today, though the winds blow just the same.  Accordingly, the churchwardens advertised for a steeplejack to repair it.  The advertisement was answered by a man named Robert Cadman, who in due course arrived at Hanslope.

Strangely enough, he had neither ropes nor ladders with him.  Even more strangely, he did have a side drum hanging from his belt.  Ignoring all questions, he set about climbing the spire using the stone crockets on the angles of the spire as his only means of progress.  The crockets were three feet apart and the villagers watched in terror as he climbed steadily and nochalantly (sic) to the very top in that way.  Then having reached it he turned the villagers’ fright to amusement by beating the drum.  Finally, he repaired the weathercock and then climbed down in the same way.

But that was not the end of the story.  After reaching the ground he was generously entertained at the local inn and was becoming very merry when somebody asked him to play his drum again.  At this his jaw dropped.  He realised he had left his drum at the top of the spire!

He became very excited and wanted to go up again at once, fearing that somebody else might climb up and steal the drum during the night.  However, he was eventually persuaded not to go up in the darkness, especially in his present state.  But early the next morning he climbed the spire once more and recovered his drum. . .

And now for something rather different.  In fact, a note on the origin of the name Warren Bank – or more properly Warren’s Bank – at Simpson, a reference to which I saw in a recent issue of the Gazette.

The large former house at the foot of the bank was occupied for a good number of years by the scholarly Mr Warren Dawson, who was awarded the OBE for his services to historical research.  Writing to the Gazette in 1947 on the somewhat macabre subject of burials he had this to say:

“Finally, I may mention Mr Charles Warren, of Simpson, who in 1828 built the house in which I now live and who died in it in 1872.

“For many years before his death he kept in the barn a set of oak boards, cut, planed and ready to be put together for his own coffin.  When Mr Warren died, these boards were made up into a coffin according to his desire by Thomas Matthews, carpenter, of Simpson.

“I had this information in 1936 from the later Mr Frank Howard, of Fenny Stratford, who as a young man frequently worked for Mr Warren and had often seen the coffin boards in his barn.  Mr Howard is remembered by many people in the district.  He died at the great age of 90 on the 19^th of January, 1940.”

This note should, I think, clear up the question of the name’s origin.  It had nothing to do with conies.  And it seems to have been sheer coincidence that the house’s later occupier, Mr Dawson, had Warren as a forename.  He himself is commemorated in Dawson Road on the Mount Farm industrial estate.

The Mr Matthews to whom he refers would have been an ancestor of the present Bletchley undertakers of that name.

As to Mr Frank Howard, we have lately been mourning the death of his son, Mr Frank Howard, junior, at the almost equally great age of 88.  He provided me with much of the information that has appeared in these articles from time to time, and I regret his passing more than I can say.