Harwell: Village for a thousand years

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  • Harwell Book – Full text of ‘Village for a thousand years’
    • Introduction
      • Contents
    • Beginnings – The Beginnings of Harwell
      • The Beginnings of Harwell
      • The Charters
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    • Middle Ages – The Late Middle Ages
      • Harwell Church
      • The Medieval Manors
      • Cruck Buildings
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    • Tudors – Tudors to Charles II
      • The Tudor period
      • Berkshire Farmers and their Homes
      • The Harwell Mug
      • Harwell: The Family Name
      • Trade Tokens
      • In the Civil War
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    • Charities – Harwell Charities
      • John Loder
      • Christopher Elderfield
      • Poor’s Orchard
      • William Wells
      • J. King
      • Frances Geering
      • Matthew Eaton
      • Robert Loder
      • Bag(g)’s Tree
      • An Old Harwell Recipe
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    • 19th C – Harwell in the Nineteenth Century
      • Enclosures
      • The Great Fire of Harwell
      • Fire at Didcot Station
      • Harwell and the Early Posts
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    • People – Some Nineteenth Century Families, Houses and Personalities
      • The Manor of Bishop’s Harwell, or Lower Manor, after the Middle Ages.
      • Bob Lay, Bob Lay, Bob Lay
      • The Bosley Family
      • John Lay of Prince’s Manor 1815 – 1888
      • From a book sold for the Blewbury Village Organ Fund in 1874.
      • Thomas James Pryor
      • The Day Family
      • The Hitchman Family
      • Other Old Harwell Families
      • Pillar House, Harwell
      • A Country Doctor (Dr Richard Rice)
      • Kelly’s Directory reports on the Harwell of 1891
      • The School
      • A Pictorial Miscellany
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    • 20th C – The Early Twentieth Century
      • Stanley Day
        • The Turn of the Century
        • A Visit to Harwell
      • Tape Recordings
        • A Houseboy at Harwell
        • Eliza Hutchings
        • Harwell Bakeries
        • The Eggs
        • Old Neighbours
        • Fire at King’s Farm (c.1908)
        • Will It Light?
        • Miss Irene Clarke’s memories.
      • Poem by H.S. Baker
      • Close
    • WWII – The Second World War
      • Guinea Pig Club
      • Eric Greenwood
      • Harwell in Wartime
      • School Life in Wartime
      • The Harwell Players
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    • 1945 -1985 – The Post War Years
      • The Atomic Energy Research Establishment.
      • Harwell Parish Council
      • Water and Sewage
      • Nursing Service
      • School Life after the War
      • The Winterbrook Youth Club
      • The Public Houses
      • The Whit Monday Feast
      • Wild Flowers of Harwell
      • The Bee Orchid
      • Village Footpaths
      • St Matthew’s Church Today
      • Harwell Women’s Institute
      • Harwell Bowls Club
      • Harwell Football Club
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    • Cherries – Harwell Cherries
      • Robert Loder
      • Cherries (1965)
      • Gordon Bosley
      • John Masefield: The Cherries
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    • Appendices
      • Appendix I the Harwell Charters
        • Introduction to The Harwell Charters
        • Charter No 1
        • Charter No 2
        • Charter No 3
        • Appendix I Charter References
      • Appendix II Buildings
      • Appendix III Glossary
      • Appendix IV Contributors
      • Appendix V References
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You are here: Home / 20th C / Tape Recordings / Eliza Hutchings

Eliza Hutchings

Eliza Hutchings kept the Post Office at Townsend

They said she used to wear a wig and the children used to catch it onto the scales so that when she bent down to weigh her wig went up. She did have a very faithful dog that barked. You opened the shop door – I was very young, only a bit of a toddler – the dog’d be barking, and she would suddenly come in, y’know, tomorrow would do, thank you. Sometimes the dog used to bark, but she wasn’t always attending the shop.

07-04
Figure 7.4 The Old Post Office, Townsend; Eliza Hutchings was the postmistress.

You can still see where the door was in Burr Street (at Pollards), up the little steps.

And what did she sell?

Snuff.

Did she have a general store as well as the Post Office?

I don’t know about any quantity of that, because I wasn’t very old. She would sell three boxes of Red Tarmasis (matches) for a penny.

And ‘course we boys used to have a key. Used to pull the tops off the matches and bang it against the wall. Lovely bang – hold a key, put these matches in, then bang it against the wall.

Maybe that’s how all the fires started?

I shouldn’t think so, that was fully under control, because the explosion was inside the key. If people lost any keys belonging to their padlocks, those are the ones that got burst, because they wouldn’t stand up to the explosion at times.

Further information about Eliza Hutchings tells of her wearing a ginger wig on Sundays and a black wig for the rest of the week. Also she took the amount of four pence to mate any folks’ animals i.e. goats, rabbits. All was put on the account.

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Harwell is a village in south Oxfordshire, England, although until 1974 it was a Berkshire village. Harwell was first mentioned in 985, before the Doomsday Book.
This website presents the full text of the book (ISBN 0 9510668 0 3 ) published in 1985 to celebrate the village millennium.
"Harwell ~ Village for a thousand years"

Additional information about Harwell Village (History Notes, photos and more) can be found at harwellvillage.uk

Website © 2005–2023 maintained and managed by David Marsh on behalf of Harwell Parish Council
Copyright © 1985–2023 in the text of the book is vested in Harwell Parish Council