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From: GHPIGOTT@aol.com
To: valfiddian@salthousehistory.co.uk
Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 12:52 PM

9th November 2004

Dear Val Fiddian,

My maiden name is Randall and whilst on holiday in August 2003 I visited the exhibiton at Salthouse church where I was bothe surprised and delighted to see several references to my ancestors by way of wills etc and particularly to Randall's folly built by Onesiphorus.
He was uncle to Capt. James Randall the paternal grandfather to my father, Everard Robert James who was born at 'Umgeni' opposite the beach road in Cley next the sea. Many of my father's paternal ancestors, who were Master Mariners, are buried there in St Margaret's churchyard together with maternal (Lewis) ancestors who were also Master Mariners.

At the time of my visit I did leave my contact details with one of the stewards at the exhibition and had hoped to follow up further research into my family ancestry through the Salthouse History Group records. At present time I have ascertained links back to Matthew Randall (1733-1808), grandfather to Onesiphorus.

I should be pleased to know whether or not your records are available for viewing or, in the first instance, could you let me have a resumé of information held in your records pertaining to the Randalls?

Kind regards

Ann Ward

--Unfortunately I (Val) had nothing more on Onesiphorus than Peter Brooks' article which I was allowed to use in the Salthouse Book and have not yet abridged for the website, so I let Ann know that it would be a case of her giving us information on the ancestors and relations of our famous lord of the manor!

Ann's most interesting reply is on the right - .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: Ann Ward
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 11:37 PM
Subject: The Randalls (& Lewis')

Dear Val,

Many thanks for your e-mail,11th Nov.04. We managed to have a quick look at your website before going off to London for a few days over the weekend. Now we are back we will trawl through the information in more depth to find out exactly what's there.

With reference to Onesiphorus we have not, unfortunately, seen your book. Are there still copies available for purchase? We do, however, have a copy of Jane Hales' book "The East Wind" in which father wrote margin notes/corrections. The section on Randell's (sic) Folly states that Onesiphorus was the youngest of a family of five children, which is technically correct although he also had a further four step-siblings. His mother was Elizabeth Hook, the second wife of John Randall (son of Matthew,1733-1808, (mentioned in my earlier letter). His first wife, Mary ?, was buried 11 July 1787, aged 29, just before her fourth child Anne who was buried 27 July 1787 (2 weeks old). The full list of siblings is:-
John,1781 (died in infancy); Matthew,1783-1845; Anne,1785-1786 (died in infancy); and Anne,1787 (died in infancy).
Sab(r)ina,1790-1874; Naomi,1792-?; Eliza,1794-?; John,1796-1821 (lost at sea); Onesiphorus,1798-1871 (1873 c.f.Jane Hales).

Onesiphorus' father John,1756-1816, was the eldest of ten children, the youngest being Richard, 1776-1806, who was my father's great-great-grand father.

Other names which have cropped up through marriage include Elizabeth Purdy who married Richard Randall,1776-1806 (incidentally Mary, Richard's eldest sister,1758-?, married a Robert Purdy); Elizabeth Alcock who married Richard's son James,1807-1880; Anna Elizabeth Waller who married Richard's grandson James,1848-1927; and he, in turn, was the father of Everard James who married Marionette Lewis (my father's parents). Marionette was the daughter of Captain R.W.Lewis of Cley who married Marion Adelaide Ward (!!!). She died of dysentery at sea and was buried at Las Palmas. They also had two sons, Edmund Francis and Ernest Robert.
Capt. Lewis subsequently married Dorothy Ward (Marion's sister) and had a further son, Roberts ("Bobs") who was my great uncle.

We are currently trying to flesh-out the Lewis side of the family so please feel free to put our correspondence on your messages page. Hopefully there are Randall and Lewis connections or memories still in the area.

I will be in touch with you later when we have had more time to absorb the wealth of detail on your own web pages.
Best wishes,

Ann Ward

message received 18 November 2004

Dear Val, 
my name is Josephine Stratton nee Holman. I was in Salthouse recently and visited the church and discovered to my delight that you now have a village web sight. I was born in the village in 1941 to Mary and Reggie Holman and when looking at the Holman page I discovered that you have got the names of Reggie and his brother Frank under the wrong photos.

I am finding the site fascinating especially the pictures of my family and I'm on a school photo 1949 Kelling that I haven't seen before  it's great. Lots more to see .wonderful memories. 
Josie

Geoff Pigott, Consultant Toxicologist, Cheshire, UK , wrote this letter

Dear Val,
Thanks for the note Please find my cheque for a copy of Salthouse story.
I have fond memories of the village from visits when I was a child. My paternal grandparents (and most of their siblings on the Pigott side) "emigrated" to the (then) boom town of Middlesbrough in the early 1900s. My grandfather was Richard Pigott and he married Edith High (although her birth certificate gives her name as Pigott - I was told that the reason for this was that she was "boarded" with my grandfather's family as a baby because her father James(?) High had been fired for voting Liberal and the family had fallen on hard times. My middle name is Herbert and this was after the baker - who according to my father (Harry), was a very successful businessman prior to his relatively early death. It was hoped that I would emulate his success and perhaps to a degree I have.

I used to stay with Aunt Florrie (Radley née High) in Pear Tree Cottage. There really was a pear tree then, all over the end wall and a Victoria plum along the front. This was beaten by William Cubitt (further up Cross Street) who had a peach tree which bore fruit most years.

Aunt Alice (Hancock) lived further down the street and Aunt Margaret (Goodwin) was the schoolteacher in Weybourne [teaching at Kelling School]. The camp was in full swing then with very long military convoys through the village and all-night barrages out to sea.

The Website looks good, (although I was denied access to some of the Pigott pages) and I will certainly be revisiting it. The amount of work put into the High family tree is staggering and I hesitate to carp, but Edith (page 16- my grandmother) was born in 1874, not 1879, you may like to pass this on.
There is no-one left in Salthouse now that I remember, although doubtless some of the younger members of the old families are still about. As I recall Mary High (daughter of Haddon who inherited the manor farm from his brother Havelock) had a son whose name I forget. They used to live in the council houses just across from Pear Tree Cottage. He probably has the farm now. However there is at least some evidence of a return to the roots. My father had a brother (Norman) who had a son (Arthur) and a daughter (Susan). Cousin Arthur died a few years ago. He had two sons. I understand that one of them (Russell) moved to Sheringham within the last 10 years or so and is now active in the North Norfolk Railway. I do not get to Norfolk as often as I once did now that the MAFF lab had moved from Norwich, but I do try to keep at least some contact with the village.

I look forward to reading the book, and to more visits to the website.

Yours Sincerely

Geoff Pigott

Val,

Thanks for the book its fascinating.
Thanks also for some of the additional information. I can tell you a bit more about the High sisters, Alice lived in Cross Street and had two sons.  Gordon was a builder and built Greystones - next door to his mother- and lived there, he used to give me 6d a bucket to collect snails from his garden. He died (I think of a heart attack) in the '60's. His widow Vera married Percy High (Florries elder son) later-second marriage for both. They went to live somewhere in the south-to be close to Percy's son who I think become a director of Bayer UK. Vera kept in touch with my mother until a couple of years ago. I assume she is now also deceased.  The second son was Eddie and I think he never married. He certainly lived with his mother in the 60's I remember that he was a member of the Oddfellows and could waggle his ears - at the time I thought the two were linked.

Margaret lived in Weybourne where she was the schoolteacher and thus she lived in the school house, though I don't remember exactly where it was.

Muriel went to live in Briston.

I remember Billy West. He was my father's cousin and when in Salthouse I used to spend most of my time helping him on his farm. He had two daughters Jill and Wendy (Lou). He lived in the bungalow on Cross street at l first and kept his old Lincoln red cow (which was the first he had and by the late 40s, was reputedly nearly 30)! in a shed/garage at the end of the house. I was surprised to note recently that the door is still the same one and does not seem to have even been painted. Billy moved to another house at the bottom of Bard Hill (just past the road junction) for a while and then took a better farm at Bergh Apton. We lost touch when Jill married and went to New Zealand, as the rest of the family were not good correspondents. There seems no trace of them in Bergh Apton now, but its a long time ago. I see that West's fish shop in Sheringham (Billy's Mother's) is now renamed and put to other use.  After Billy moved away I used to spend time with Harry High (Dew) and Peter Holman on his farm.

By all means put this (and the earlier) letter on the website if you wish. Include the e-mail address if you do
Must go now as its 01.30  

Best Wishes

Geoff Pigott

Hello Val
I understand my daughter Jane has been in touch with you, regarding my mother's family.My name is Jennifer [although I hate being called that] my mother was Molly White nee Cooke born 29th July 1916, died 15th April 1977.
I notice on the Cooke's family page you have her named as Martha she would have absolutly hated this as she was always known as Micky.
I was born in the house in which Uncle George lives. I have some photographs of my mother taken in her younger days, I spent so much time at Salthouse when I was a child, and have so many happy memories, going samphire picking, gathering mushrooms, and many other things I did with Grandad, at this time I won't bore you with anymore, but as Jane say's I must get things down before my lights go out completely, plus
I am not ever so sure what I am doing with emails. I do hope I haven't rambled too much and that I manage to get this to you.
best wishes Jenny Moore

Hello Val,

Many congratulations on such a great site to which I was directed by Margaret with whom I share a gggrandfather (John Dewing Jarvis). My line follows his son John Dodman (b1855) who ended up teaching at Cambois, County Durham.

I'm hoping to visit Salthouse next year, all being well.

Well done again!

Alison Jarvis

Back to current message page or Home

Hi there
> I am emailing you in the hope that you can help me with a family
> history project that I have been working on for a couple of years.
> My grandad, who is now 83, was onboard HMS Princess Victoria during WW2
> and was sunk off the mouth of the River Humber on 18th May 1940.
> I have been working on getting as much background information as
> possible surrounding the incident and the people involved. Using local
> newspaper archives I produced a list of those crew members killed or
> wounded.
>
> From that I searched the Commonwealth War Graves Commision website and
> discovered where most of these were buried or commemorated.
>
> This leads me to the Salthouse connection :-)
>
> One of the crew, James Burrows OBE was buried in Salthouse Churchyard.
>
> Last week my dad, grandad and I were on holiday in North Norfolk and visited the Churchyard to see the grave ( there are also others at Sheringham and Cley ).
>
> My reason for emailing is that we are trying to find out why they are down there. We don't think they were from there originally, our only idea is that they may have been washed up there ( not a very pleasant thought ).
>
> I was wondering if anybody you knew had any recollection or memory of such an event - or even if the local newspaper may have run an article at the time.
>
> Basically, any information would be tremendous
>
> Thanks for reading
>
> Mal Skelton

Hi Mal
nice to have a message from you. It is very interesting about those wartime
graves. There are people who may know, and  I'll try to find out.

Val

From: "Christine Watson"
To: <valfiddian@salthousehistory.co.uk>
Subject: DIX
Date: 06 August 2004 17:43________

Hi Val,
I just had to write to congratulate you on your fascinating web-site!  We have just returned from a visit to Norfolk, where we were trying to find out more about my, and my husband's, family history.  My family came from the eastern parts of Norfolk but, during this week's trip, we discovered that some of my husband's family originated in Salthouse!  It seems that his x3 Great Grandparents were John DIX and Anne DYBALL, who married in Salthouse in 1798.  Their daughter, Elizabeth DIX was born in 1807 in Salthouses and married James LONG in Blakeney in 1825.  They then settled in Glandford.  Two of their sons, William and James, moved to Newcastle-on-Tyne in the 1860's.

We had never even heard of Salthouses before this week but, having spent a couple of hours there on Monday, we shall definitely return on our next visit to Norfolk.  What a lovely place!  I am now going to order a copy of the Salthouses book from the Norfolk Family History Society and look forward to reading more about its history!

I noticed that there is some information about the DIX family on your web-site and I would be really interested to hear of any other people who may be researching the family.

Best Wishes

Chris Watson

Good afternoon Val Fiddian,

What a truly delicious site, will put a link on our links pages with pleasure.
You've even got the story of Onesiphorous Randall, a personal favourite of mine.
Our congrats brilliant site, will enjoy trawling through it.
Keep up the good work.
One thing your 1953 flood map on your home page is broken. [mended now]

Kind regards
Nikki-Webmaster
Norfolkcoast.co.uk http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk

From:  Cheekieboy36@aol.com
To:valfiddian@salthousehistory.co.uk Sat 26 Jun 2004 05:17 PM
Subject: What was here?

July 15th 2004
Gerald Cubitt, born in Salthouse 80 years ago, gave this information about the ruined pillbox :

The army pillbox which stands on the remains of 'Little Eye', was a Heavy Machine Gun type of pillbox., hence the large staircase type of loophole which faces west. The strong concrete wall before its entrance was a type of blast-proof doorway. It must be remembered that this pillbox, along with Little Eye itself, was severely damaged in the great sea flood of 1953, which explains why so much of the structure is exposed today.
The concrete footings seen on top of Little Eye are the foundations of a bungalow where an ornitholgist called Mr Garnett used to live in the summer months before the 1939-45 war.
I hope this information will be of some help.
Gerald

Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 5:14 PM
Subject: Hello from Bormio, Sondrio, Italy