Village

The Village Sign

The village sign which stands on the green near the Church was painted by Graham Stringer in 1983 and provides insights into Potterhanworth’s history. It consists of two parts: a panel at the front and a panel at the reverse side.

The top left corner of the front panel shows the legend of the Culfrey bell. What is known of the story is based on late Nineteenth century research.

In 1786, and also in 1837, The Culfrey Land Charity seems to have been concealed from the Charity Commission, but the ringing of the bell was continued until about 1890. The legend of the benighted traveller is certainly open to doubt and speculation, but it seems highly likely that the tradition and the charity date quite possibly from before 1600. The date 1616 is the absolute minimum age, since the inscription on the bell rung as the Culfrey bell reads "Feare God 1616".

What seems certain is that the holding which became the Culfrey lands was that typically occupied by a single medieval peasant family, and one of these was probably bought from or donated by one of the lords of the manor or their representatives. Whatever the origin, the Culfrey Lands Charity was in existence by the mid eighteenth century. The Parish workhouse and several other buildings used to accommodate the poor which the charity funded, stood on the land now occupied by the bungalow of Mr and Mrs Keith Redshaw and the immediately adjacent area.

A photograph exists of the "Culfrey cottage" which shows a single-storey medieval crook-built structure with a thatched roof. The earliest detailed Ordnance Survey map of the village shows at least three buildings on the site, reducing to one in the second map of 1905. Both maps also show what appear to be the cottages which were later recognised as the "Culfrey Cottages" on their site adjacent to where the modern Culfrey bungalows now stand. Whether they were always Culfrey property or when they were taken over is not yet clear. The charity has continued from the late Eighteenth century to care for the needy and of the parish until the present day.

The diagonal band of flowers and berries and the large tree below represent the tree known as the "Wild Service Tree", otherwise known as "The Chequers Tree". Before the importing or growing of hops became widespread around 1600, the berries of the Wild Service Tree were used to increase the acidity of the fermenting beer. This enabled the yeast to live longer, converting more sugar to alcohol, and thereby producing a stronger beer with more flavour.

In ancient times before signboards with names became the fashion, tree branches were often used as inn signs, and a landlord who put a bough of a Wild Service Tree outside as his sign was boasting of the strength of his beer. The name of the village pub, The Chequers, bears witness to the ancient origins of the village pub. Wild Service Trees can still be found in the ancient parts of woodland surrounding the village.

In the bottom right part of the sign, the coat of arms depicted (with its twelve Greek crosses and the three greyhounds) belongs to the enigmatic Dr Richard Smith, a physician to the gentry and nobility of London in the late 16th century. There are two contradictory accounts of his affiliation. It is not clear whether he was a clandestine Catholic or possibly an ardent protestant. He is remembered as a man who "walked on both sides of the street" in regard to his religious beliefs. Through the fortune he made in medicine, he was able to purchase the manors of Welton and Potter Hanworth (as the village was then known).

He left his fortune from the income of the two manors to found Christ's Hospital school in Lincoln, to emulate the Christ's Hospital charitable school in the city of London. This later led to the founding of the Christ Hospital Endowment which provides financial support to children. Its main objective is to support pupils with facilities and equipment which the Education Authority cannot or will not provide, like instruments to learn music, tools and equipment for apprentices, grants for specialist books to students who need them at upper school, support grants to secondary and FE students, help to fund pre-school and playgroup activities.

Today funds from Christ Hospital Endowment cater for anything education-related for which young people in the village stand in need. Dr Richard Smith's coat of arms has been unofficially adopted as the emblem of Christ's Hospital Endowment and consists of – as the combined English / French wording says : "On a ground argent, twelve Greek crosses, noir, interspersed by three greyhounds courant, also noir".

The quill on the book in the lower foreground represents quill farms which were said to have existed in and around Potterhanworth "at the Barff". The Barff farm are an isolated group of houses on the road to the wood, to the east of the village. "Barff" is an old Norse word, probably meaning "hillock", or "clearing". On these farms, geese were kept or perhaps geese were caught – as geese were abundant before the fens were drained – and whose feathers were harvested to make quill pens.

The two small walking figures represent the consolidation, clarification and extension of the parish public footpaths which took place in the latter part of the 20th Century.

Potterhanworth's history was dominated by agriculture for many centuries. On the reverse side of the sign ancient farm practices are shown, and also the village windmill which stood north of Moor Lane and was demolished in 1947.

The photographs below show (a) the oldest known Culfrey cottage, the last remaining of a group which stood just north of the main road junction in the village, (b) the cottages which overlapped in time with and replaced the original cottages in the period between about 1880 and 1920 and (c) the modern bungalows which were built in 1968.