Legacies

Bottesford c1900. Courtesy of the Records Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland.

Interviewer: You were saying there were quite a lot of legacies left in Bottesford.

Mrs Challands: In Bottesford, oh yes. And there was one, which my grandparents had for several years when they were, I think they had to be – I think they had to be 40, ‘cos at 40 you was old in years gone by - and the minister, the rector or the canon, used to go and see Granny and Grandfather, and they’d say the Lord’s Prayer, and the belief, the Creed, and the ten commandments, and they had a pound.

Interviewer: How often was this?

Mrs Challands: Once a year, Christmas time. And then there was so much bread and so much coal, and all sorts of things. I do believe, one of the old schoolmasters that I knew very well, he died, but he used to tell me all sorts of things like that, but he said it got that you couldn’t give bread and coal because the money didn’t allow you see, so I think they give the poor of the parish, whoever they might be, you know, a little bit of money. I think that’s how it worked out.

Interviewer: Were there legacies left by the Rutlands?

Mrs Challands: No, no. I think there was a White, one of the Whites, but I can’t just remember that much. And there was also in Bottesford, there was a row of tiny cottages, well they were getting so, you know, neglected, well they were out of date, and they wanted to pull them down and build some nice bungalows for elderly people. And that was called a Hands Charity, and they had a deuce of a job to find a relative of the Hands to be able to pull these down and rebuild. And I think they found a great, great, great, great something belonged to him eventually, who said oh yes, of course, and there’s some very nice bungalows. But the stone is inlaid in one of the walls so the people know it was a Hands Charity land that these cottages were built on. Very nice too.

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