Workhouse (1)

In 2007, the workhouse buildings are now flats.

Mr Carter: Course the place was pretty well self-sufficient as far as vegetables and things were concerned.

Interviewer: Really?

Mr Carter: Oh yes, they had a large, two large greenhouses, and they kept pigs and all that sort of thing.

Interviewer: Who sort of organised that side, was it the inmates themselves that did the work there?

Mr Carter: Yes, well that was the point, you see. My father, naturally he was in charge of the whole thing, you see, but having these inmates he was able to find out what they were good at, you see. And, for instance, we had a carpenter’s shop, well we had an excellent carpenter, a patient, an inmate. We had good gardeners, and they kept those jobs you see, and they loved them. And then we had a stick, a stick shed where they chopped up sticks and things, and we sold those.

Interviewer: Was that as firewood?

Mr Carter: As firewood.

Interviewer: If I could ask, the able bodied people, now, you said that they were skilled carpenters and gardeners, how was it that they got to be in that situation?

Mr Carter: Well, I think drink was one of the problems.

Interviewer: How was it that you’d be sent to the workhouse, as it were?

Mr Carter: Well if they became destitute and they’d got nowhere to go…

Interviewer: If they got turned out for not paying the rent or something like that…

Mr Carter: Like these people that you read about on the streets of London at the moment…

Interviewer: Once they were admitted, sort of, was that the term?

Mr Carter: Yes.

Interviewer: Once they were admitted, what were their, how long did they expect to stay?

Mr Carter: If they got jobs outside that was fine, but most of them seemed to stay for life.

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