Bardon Village

The Birch Tree pub, Bardon Hill, 1939. People still remember having to cross the road to the toilets in the small block on the left. Courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland. Compare this with the 2006 photo on the 'Farming' page.

Mr Harris: The post office was not in the position it now is, it was right at the end of the Old Row kept by people called Tallis for quite a number of years, and not only did they deal with the clerical side with the business of the post office itself, they delivered the mail, they walked round to all the outlying farms and delivered the mail, and would be responsible for taking the private mail to the Everards’ house, on the outskirts of the village, also again on the A50, and also for the mail for the, bringing the mail down for the quarry offices itself, as we’ve previously said, which was at the back of Station Farm. The school was as it is now, the old school was half way along what was called the Old Row – two rows of houses, one called the Old Row and one called the Crescent. There were, prior to the last war [Second World War], an odd shop, an odd sweet shop or shop where they sold pretty well everything in that line. The blacksmith’s shop – in those days there were a large number of horses employed in the quarry, mainly for transporting the trucks about in the quarry itself, they were all shod here, there was a farrier doing that.

Interviewer: Who was the farrier, do you remember?

Mr Harris: The latter one was a fellow called Shelton. And also there were some carpenter’s shops as well up here, as well as the ones where they, down near Station Farm where they repaired the wagons. They did a bigger job down here in the wagon shop, but minor repairs would be done up in the… And of course the houses had no, it was only either just after the last war when the houses had water laid on. They had at the back of the houses, at the back of the Row, there were taps to so many houses and they fetched the water from those, there was no main drainage.

Interviewer: What happened to the sewerage at the Old Row?

Mr Harris: It was carted away. It had to be… night soil I think they called it. The local authority would come round and…

Interviewer: Every night?

Mr Harris: Very early morning but I’m not certain how frequently it was done, I wouldn’t think it was every night, possibly once a week.

©EMOHA