With thanks to Sandra Read
Meppershall is a linear village of approximately 1.25 km in length, in Mid Bedfordshire. The village is on a spur and rises to 85m OD at the church and Motte and Bailey castle remains.
From pottery evidence, the centre of Meppershall has been in continuous occupation since the Iron Age and the recently excavated site in the centre of the village [now completely buried under the new development] was stated to be a Romano-British ‘farmstead’. Further excavation indicated that at one time in this
period the spring on the site had a religious purpose and high quality pottery was recovered from there. At this time Meppershall would have been known for its skilled craftsmen as very delicate bone working and evidence for a kiln was found on the site. These people did not have the parish boundary we now
know and the Roman villa and cemetery nearer Campton would have been part of their everyday life.
By the time of the Domesday Book, Meppershall was an agricultural village, though not always a peaceful one. In the fourteenth century King Stephen stayed long enough to write several historical charters here. Unfortunately, one of the de Meppershall family was considered to be a problem and the King
was here to besiege the Motte and Bailey. After this, Meppershall seems to have settled down to its quiet agricultural life again.
Records show that it was a virtually crime free place, the workers being well looked after by their employers. Some prospered well and were able to have their own flocks of sheep in their employer’s fields.
Life went on well until John Leventhorpe inherited the manor in the sixteenth century. On a quiet Sunday after the church service, the parishioners and the Rector left the church and found nine men, led by John Leventhorpe, in Church Lane with swords and hooks “arrayed as men of war” who attacked them.
The villagers fought and fled protecting the Rector from John and for weeks they were not allowed near the church and the fields around the manor were not tended. Even the men with leases from the manor dared not enter their land.
The only craftsman known from this time, because he had to pay tax, was a carpenter and it wasn’t until 1603 that the village had a forge that was independent of the farms. This blacksmith’s son, John Robinson, went to America as a teenager and became one of the founders of Exeter, New Hampshire. He prospered until he was shot by Indians, and some of Robinson’s New World descendants have visited the village recently.
Meppershall was a parliamentary village during the Civil War. Life went on much the same although there was dissent because the Rector, Timothy Archer, was put in the Fleet Prison for the duration simply because he met King Charles when he graduated from university. His family fled to Maulden, except for
one daughter, Rebecca, who went to live with her uncle in London. Rebecca married a Mr. Vaughn and became the first woman alchemist in the country. When she died her body was brought back to Meppershall for burial.
Meppershall has had some exceptional Rectors. Thomas Salmon, who succeeded Timothy Archer, published many works on music and his two sons Nathaniel and Thomas were also authors whose books are still quoted today. James Webster, who built the present day rectory in the nineteenth century, was a highly respected, fair and considerate magistrate though he did refuse to enter into the register the births of the girls born to the Lord of the Manor by his housekeeper and the clerk had to do it. He became their guardian a few years later and was well loved by them. This was fortunate as their other guardian was John Field of Polehanger. He was always being brought before the magistrate, Samuel Whitbread, for cruelty to his workers and even caused one to die for which he was imprisoned. When he complained to the magistrate about someone he was sent home each time. He was the only bad master in the village to be found
in all the records, though it seems to have been due to a quick temper as, for each case, he gave more in compensation than he was ordered.
Life was easier in the eighteenth century for the villagers than in the nineteenth century, though the farmers went to extraordinary lengths to help the local poor. In the middle of the nineteenth century Meppershall was enclosed, all the open field systems changed and each farm was given land in a block as we know it today. This meant that the workers lost all their rights to wood, fruit and herbs from the hedgerows and had nowhere to graze their animals as even rough land was included. Like many good villages Meppershall did provide some allotments in Hoo Road to help alleviate the difficulties. Even gleaning, the way most people in the village got their supply of grain, was technically illegal. The farmers in Meppershall decided to allow it — but regulate it to be fair to all — and gleaning could not start until the school bell rang. This was not indicating that the children were in school though; all hands were needed to get a supply for the family.
Throughout the nineteenth century, even after schooling became compulsory, the school records show children absent because they were working in the fields or kept at home plaiting. Straw plaiting was the only way the villagers had to increase their income and the smallest child knew “Over one and under two, pull it through and that will do”. Some tiny children are listed in the early censuses as straw-plaiters. The beginning of compulsory education later in the century led to children being listed as scholars but that didn’t reflect the reality of their lives as families could not manage without the extra money. When the
weather was bad the school was even known to shut because the children were unable to get there, as they had no shoes.
On the whole, Meppershall was quite a healthy place to live but the division of some old cottages, to cope with the growing families, led to overcrowding. In 1875, a housing report was undertaken. One cottage in Sand Lane [Fildyke Road] had six adults and four children in two small rooms. Many cottages were
overcrowded and the newly built houses were considered to have privies too close to the wells. Inevitably, the school records start showing cases of infectious diseases caused by these contaminated wells.
There were 42 wells in Meppershall, some houses having to get water from nearby homes. The bakery, started in the late 1840’s by James Roberts, then followed by his son Ephraim, had a 100 foot deep well. In 1902 Ephraim noticed that his well cover was off and looking down saw his wife a long way down, stuck by her
petticoats. One of the bakers, James Bluffield, with the aid of a rope managed to get her out and later received a Royal Humane Society Award for his bravery having “so gallantly rescued her’.
In the twentieth century Meppershall was known for its fourteen glasshouse enterprises. Acres and acres of glass produced cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce to send to London. As fewer farm workers were needed on the land, this became the major industry and employment in the village. In 1917, a glove factory
was started in Hoo Road making gloves for the armed forces with eight machine workers. This moved to the building beside the Chapel and was soon employing sixty girls. This factory closed in 1963.
Today few villagers work on the land. Farms now use sophisticated machinery and the cheaper imported vegetables made the glasshouses unprofitable. The majority of villagers work elsewhere.
