ANNE STUDLEY AND SYLVIA DAW TALKING TO ALASTAIR WHEELER IN SOUTH PERROTT ON 21ST APRIL, 2022 ABOUT THEIR LIVES IN THE VILLAGE
TRANSCRIBED BY SALLY WAKEFIELD MAY 2022
AW = Alastair Wheeler
AS = Anne Studley
SD = Sylvia Daw
AW Good afternoon. It is the 21st April, 2022 and I am Alastair Wheeler from Beaminster Museum and I’m here in South Perrott meeting with two ladies who have both, between them, got many years of history and experience of the community here. So, if I can ask you to introduce yourselves……………….
AS I’m Anne Studley (dob 14/12/1934) and I came to South Perrott when I got married in 1966.
AW And how do you spell that surname? (Mrs. Studley spells it). And what was your name before you got married?
AW Anne Davey and I came from Devon in a little village called Luppitt.
AW Where’s that?
AS Near Honiton.
AW Oh, right, so you ended up over here. And we’re also hearing from……………………….?
SD Sylvia Daw. (Spells it) (dob 26/07/1939)
AW And you’ve always lived here Sylvia?
SD I have. I was born…………….. I’m still living in the house I was born in. Winton Cottage in South Perrott.
AW And your family had been there …………….?
SD My four times great-grandfather established the business in 1795.
AW What business was that?
SD A building business. And he built Chedington and Mosterton churches. He never served an apprenticeship or went to school for one day in his life but he was able to build two churches.
AW And those were new churches being built for the new population. No rebuilds…………………
SD No. And he was a wheelwright as well and a blacksmith. Well the whole family just turned their hands I think to do most things.
AW That was really skilful then.
SD Yes, it was.
AS And also funeral service.
SD Oh yes, that’s right. They did. They did funerals as well, yes.
AW So everything they could do to contribute to the community.
SD That’s right. Yes, it was. I suppose that’s what happened then in those days, that you sort of managed between you didn’t you, in villages, to help one another.
AW And you Anne. You moved here from Devon? What was the family that you moved into and what did they do?
AS Well, my husband, he was a farmer in South Perrott, one of three, and he……………. the farm had been in the family for a good many years. They bought it in 1849 and in 1865 the farm had to be sold because of death duties but the Studleys stayed on as sitting tenants. Then they bought back the farm again from Sir Henry Peter who lived at The Court in Chedington and the farm, when he bought it back, had 148 acres and they kept sheep and a dairy. So it’s always been in the family for a good many years.
AW So you know it well.
AS Yes. But he knew it a lot longer than I did.
AW So there must have been quite a lot of changes in farming in this area over the years?
[00:04:15]
AS Oh definitely. The thing was, there were three main farms in the village and, of course, traffic increased and farm machinery got bigger and it was a job to drive the cows from three directions to their feeding fields.
AW Because the road through South Perrott is still notoriously narrow and lorries are not supposed to come here………
AS At that time the lorries weren’t very big. I mean they are enormous at the moment but the thing was, the cows – people talk about cows being stupid but I don’t think personally any animal is stupid. They used to pass each other at a certain point where it’s very narrow but they knew exactly where to go to be milked. But eventually the farms had to move out of the village so the three farms were on the boundary of the village and now I don’t think either of those farms, nobody is milking cows now. Which is rather sad.
AW Cow milking has become quite big business hasn’t it.
AS Yes, it has. It’s altered altogether. You’ve got big parlours, etc. and what we used to do years ago, milking in the buildings here in the yard, I mean you used to get a stool and sit down and get underneath and get pulling on the teats and get the milk out. So things certainly have changed.
AW So we’re sitting here in part of what, historically, was your husband’s family farm Anne but you remember milking the cows by hand?
AS No, that was a good many years ago. They weren’t doing that. But they were were milking in the cow stalls here and they had a parlour outside in the yard and then of course the cows used to go across the road to get to their fields and our fields are all the other side of the road. So every day, twice a day, they had to come from the lane into the yard which is quite impossible today with all the traffic and so my husband took the idea that he would build new buildings up Lecher lane and that was the best thing that we ever did.
AW Where did the milk go? Was it centralised or was it just sold locally?
AS When there was a lot of snow about in the winter – we had one or two really bad winters – people used to come up with their little cans and ask for milk but otherwise it went to a depot. That I believe was down near Beaminster I think and then eventually we had big tankers that used to come in and collect it.
AW Because there was a milk factory in Beaminster wasn’t there?
AS Yes there was. No, certainly things have altered and machinery has got enormous. I can’t see it getting any bigger because I don’t think the roads would ever take it, especially the lanes. The verges, they can’t help it, but the verges do get damaged. No, certainly things have changed.
AW Was it a farming background you had in Devon before you moved here?
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AS Yes. We had Greenway Farm in Luppitt, that’s where my mother had a farm and I went to Agricultural College when I was, left school. But actually I studied poultry. So it’s quite a change, poultry to cows.
AW But you were used to agriculture and farming…………..
AS Yes, I loved the outside, and I still do, but you get older and you can’t do quite the same as you did when you were about 30. Good healthy life and my daughter, she loved animals. Helen. She loved animals right from when she was a baby. Never wanted a dolly, always wanted an animal and she married a farmer and she was so keen on the cows. It’s a lovely life.
AW So where does Helen live now then?
AS She lives at East Chinnock.
AW And still farming? With her husband?
AS Yes. So it’s been carried on. And my son’s not interested at all. We brought him a calf when he was young and gave it to him. We took him up several months afterwards and said ‘Now where’s your heifer?’ ‘Oh,’ he said ‘I’m not really interested’ and he didn’t even know which one it was. But there we are, that’s life.
AW Sylvia, your family clearly………….. the range of things that they did, or taught themselves to be able to do, that did pass down several generations by the sound of it?
SD Oh yes, it has done. They did all sorts of repairs, they did lots of work for the farms and always making gates and things like that and doing repairs on the farm itself. And, of course, naturally in the farmhouse as well. Also, as we mentioned before, they were undertakers. That carried on for a number of years.
AW What did being an undertaker in a small Dorset village actually mean? Presumably you have to do everything?
SD Well yes, that’s right, they did. Make the coffins – and my mother used to make all the little tiny cushions she made on her old sewing machine to line the coffin. My father would have the same material to line it inside and inside the little cushions the sawdust they put from the timber and everything they had. That all went in to make the cushions soft as well and my father had to bend the wood to make the coffin the shape. Had to have hot water and of course there was no means………….. no electricity or anything like that…………………… he had an old primus, it was called……………….. do you remember? He would have the kettle on the top of the primus to heat the water and then somebody or other, sometimes I did it as I grew up, would hold the kettle and pour it slowly over the wood and he’d already cut little grooves in the wood……………..
AW On the inside to be able to bend it?
SD On the inside and then he was able to hold it at a certain angle and bend it to get the right shape. While all this was being done my mother was inside busy on the sewing machine getting all the little cushions made.
AW And he used to go out and collect the……………………..
SD Oh yes, he’d go out to wherever the person had passed away. He only had a motorbike and on the side, instead of a fancy sidecar, he had a long wooden box which he put the coffin into to take it out to to the house and would quite often leave it overnight with the family and then he’d go back the next day and collect it and bring it back. Then he followed through. He’d get someone to dig the graves for him – certain people, perhaps very often it was the farm workers that would come of an evening, or weekend, and dig the gtrave.
AW Digging a grave is quite a skilful job isn’t it?
SD Yes, that’s right, it is. Very much so. And, also, if you’re lucky to have quite good soil and things its, you know……….. but if it’s a place that has stony ground it takes much longer to do.
AW And were they burials mainly here in the churchyard?
SD Yes, in the churchyard mainly, it was. The service you know, quite often in the church first of all, and then burial in the churchyard.
AW And that would be quite quickly in those days after somebody had died?
SD Well, yes, I presume it was. Fairly quickly. And my four times great-grandfather, who had built the church (we were saying about building the churches at Chedington and Mosterton) he is buried in our churchyard here in South Perrott.
AW Is he? What was his name?
SD He was Ellis Daw, Ellis or Elias, it’s come down over the generations. My father was Elias but it started off as Ellis Daw. (spells it)
AW Because, of the two churches that he built,one of them, has been taken out of use as a church hasn’t it, and sold, in Chedington?
SD Yes, that’s right, made into a house.
AW Mosterton is still going strong. And they’re building new houses in Mosterton at the moment so, hopefully , the church will be able to continue.
SD Yes, that’s right. Seems to be a lot of building happened over the years in Mosterton but in South Perrott here very little has there, really.
AS Yes, we had Parrett Mead – that was developed which is right in the middle of the village where actually, one of the dairies were, that was built in 1988 and then Manor Close opposite that was where another dairy was that was built, I believe, roughly about the same date. But, apart from that we haven’t had any more building.
AW So that was just two small patches of new housing. have you seen changes to the existing housing? We’re sitting here in a lovely modern house but which used to be part of the farm buildings so there must have been a lot of improvements over the years.
AS Well I think, generally, it has improved a lot because, for instance, the thatched roofs, people couldn’t afford to have the thatching done so, I think it was in the war I think my husband said, that it was sheeting, galvanise sheeting put on top of the thatch.
SD Yes it was, that’s right, to protect the thatch.
AS People couldn’t afford to do it and generally I think people are looking after their houses more from the point of view of upkeep than they did years ago and people have got very garden minded as well which is lovely I think. So generally the village looks very smart really doesn’t it.
AW Changes must have happened in terms of water supply, electricity?
AS Electricity – no, mains water came about 1953 but I’m not sure about the electricity. That came before I came here.
SD I’m not sure when that came. I haven’t got a date or anything for……………….
AS We had what they called a Reading Room in the village.
AW Was that a sort of a community meeting place?
AS Yes, a little Parish Council meeting I suppose you could call it, people went up there. But it was so damp. It was only one room wasn’t it, Sylvia?
SD Yes, very tiny with a very low ceiling.
AS You came out of the Reading Room straight on to the road and it was really a death trap. Anyway, it was sold, I think it made about £3000, somebody bought it and developed it into their house and the money went towards getting a new hall. We had to raise about £13000 but, of course, we had nowhere to put on events So the Old Rectory put on a lot of different things, and also Hill Farm, to make money ………..
AW What vintage, what decade was that you’re talking about things happening?
AS Well, eventually, the new hall was opened in 1979.
AW Oh, as recently as that!
AS Yes. But it was a job to find somewhere to hold different events to make this money. Anyway, we managed it and we’ve got a hall and it serves its purpose. And then the Rectory which served South Perrott and Chedington, I think that’s right isn’t it? And, in 1950 a new, smaller, Rectory was up Church Hill in South Perrott and this was sold in 1987. It became the Hoon House and we joined the Beaminster Team. Then, of course, we had our little school. This closed in 1944 because there were very few pupils.
[00:19:50]
AW The school closed in 1944?
AS Yes and the pupils had to go to Mosterton and I believe you (Sylvia) were one of them?
SD I was one of them yes.
AW Sylvia, you were one of the pupils that had to travel?
SD Yes, I went to South Perrott School only for a matter of weeks. And then we moved to Mosterton.
AW How many pupils would travel from here to there then?
SD Oh there weren’t very many, only just a handful really. We went by bus and it was quite exciting to go to school on the bus.
AW It would be.
SD And it went from South Perrott up to Chedington as well to collect the children from there and then we went along the narrow lanes in the bus which was a bit difficult at times, meeting other sort of traffic. Sometimes we were a bit late arriving at school then.
AW And how big was the school at Mosterton then?
SD I don’t remember how many children there were.
AS Well eventually that school closed didn’t it………….. and they built a new one, must have been 1970 (?) I’m not sure of the date.
SD Yes I think that’s right…………………
AS Of course there’s quite a lot of new people up at Mosterton, I doubt whether the school’s hardly big enough now for the village because it takes in a lot of children from surrounding areas.
AW So have there been changes in the people living here in this village community? A lot? From what you were saying, years ago a lot of people worked on the farms but that farm work has faded out……………..
AS Well, there’s a tendency to have fewer farm workers and have contractors coming in and of course the machinery is so bigger so it gets over a lot more ground. I think it’s all a lot to do with labour really.
AW What jobs do people have around here, are there many people working still in the village?
AS We’ve got a percentage of all sorts, we’ve got OAPs and not quite so many children in the village is there but Westlands I think is quite a big draw.
AW Westlands is the big……………… manufacturing helicopters in Yeovil.
AS Yes, then we’ve got Cronite’s (Cronite Castings Ltd) – I’m not sure quite what they do but they employ quite a lot of people in Crewkerne. But years ago, you see, South Perrott was more or less self-sufficient.
AW Yes. Did you have village shops?
AS There was a baker’s wasn’t there, laundry, post office, school ……………..
AW Where were they? Were they down in the centre?
AS Down the bottom of Church Hill was the Post Office, Mr. Baker over at Hunter’s Hatch just across the road from here.
SD He was called Mr. Baker as well………..and he was a baker.
AS And then there was three pubs in the village at one time. Now, of course, there’s only one at the moment. things have changed and I can see in the future things will still be changing.
AW Has this village been affected much by holiday homes – I know in the last ten years, even five years or so, Devon and Cornwall in particular have been affected by people using homes that they’ve bought to let out for holidays. Does that effect this bit of Dorset?
AS I don’t know, not so much – it might be on the coastline perhaps a bit more and I know Chedington have got a lot of holiday homes but we’ve been quite lucky here.
SD Yes, we haven’t got many here
AW So there’s still a definite community feel here.
AS Oh yes. We do have lots of things going on. We have a village fair in August, we have different events in the village hall. Trying to keep the community together and getting to know new people because a lot of the houses have changed hands in the village and I don’t really know some of them now. I think most villages have suffered with change-over of houses. It’s a job to catch up with everybody and then, of course, we have Covid as well so we’ve lost two years really.
[00:25:04]
AW What has Covid been like in this village? What have the last two years meant for you both living through it?
AS It was all right for a time but the last, say, six months Covid has been quite rampant in the village but luckily I think most people had their injections and haven’t had to go in to hospital. They’ve been able to cope at home.
AW So the second wave of Covid which began, really, Autumn 2021 really affected people but, by then, the innoculations meant that not many people got it really seriously.
AS No, that’s right. But it’s still about in the village.
AW Because for a while people were in lockdown weren’t they? So you must have been made to stay at home were you?
AS Yes and I think that’s where I’ve felt that I had the garden which helped me to sort myself out.
SD Some people haven’t got a garden…………….
AW What did you do Sylvia to pass the time?
SD Well, I was the same as Anne. I love gardening anyway and I like to be out in the open air and my garden is ideal at the back of the house away from the traffic as well. And it’s quiet. If you want to sit in the garden and enjoy listening to the birds it’s a nice quiet area. Of course there wasn’t the amount of traffic anyway through the village then. You did notice the amount, considerable amount of lorries and things, had disappeared.
AW So you noticed that it was beautifully quiet?
AS You missed the company of speaking to other people, which I found difficult. I do like my own company but it’s nice to have a little chat and cup of tea with somebody else.
SD At least we had the telephone, we could keep in touch by telephone but it’s not the same, like you say, having a cup of tea and a chat with someone.
AW Sylvia, you must remember when you were very very little difficult times during or after the war. Can you remember that far back?
[00:27:31]
SD Talking about the war when we had to go, and go in the cellar down at the Old Rectory – they opened up the cellars……………………………….
AW Was that because it was a large, solid building?
SD That’s right yes. And my parents used to put me in the clothes basket because there was no such thing as a carrycot then and they’d put me in the old wicker clothes basket and take me down the road and down into the cellars. Then I started having an awful cough, a croupy sort of cough, and taking me out in the night air doesn’t do me any good and it ended up we had to stay at home.
AW But was the village affected at all. Because you’re here in Dorset countryside?
SD Yes, not too badly really. No, we were one of the lucky villages I think really that didn’t have much problem at all.
AS There were a few bombs dropped……………… they reckoned they were dropping them off before they went back across to France and Germany. We used to have, so I’m told, there used to be a Home Guard in the village as well.
SD Oh yes, my father was in the Home Guard but I don’t know very much about it because I was so tiny anyway, I was in the clothes basket.
AW In the clothes basket, keeping safe!
AS My husband would have enlightened you a lot more. But, there we are………………………..
AW Have you any particular abiding memories of things that have happened? Significant events?
SD Well I think one of the things in the village was having the hall.
AW So the hall was the really big deal. A big impact.
SD Yes because it brought everyone together.
AS That’s true.
SD We only had the tiny Reading Room. It wasn’t big enough to do, put on functions and things, not to sort of get many people in anyway.
AW What sort of organisations began when you had the hall?
AS Oh, we’ve got yoga, keep fit, steel band, there’s dancing which comes on a Wednesday I believe, Big Breakfast, all sorts.
AW A lot of things for different people to keep them occupied. It sounds a really lovely place to live.
SD Oh it is. Yes.
AS Wouldn’t want to leave it now.
SD When people come, after they’ve been here a while, they all say how lovely and how welcoming everyone’s been to them and they wouldn’t want to move out again.
AS The population actually, in 2019, was 222 and in 1901 it was 242.
AW So it’s gone down fractionally?
AS Well it’s not far off.
AW But you do have the advantage of being not far from Crewkerne with facilities……………..
AS Three miles from Crewkerne.
AW And a railway station.
AS Yes, that’s very helpful. Mosterton, they’ve got a little Spar shop up there so if you run out of something that’s only what, a mile, mile and a half, up to Mosterton. We’re quite well set up really.
SD Oh yes, we are really. Some people if they want to have a walk, they’ll walk to Mosterton now and get their food, not to carry too many things home, but get a few items and then walk back home again. As their exercise.
AS And footpaths are kept open which you can sort of cut across the fields and up to Mosterton pretty quickly.
AW So there are still active footpaths in the area?OK, well thank you both very much indeed for sharing your thoughts.
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