Now that the basic structure of this website is in place, and the first lot of resources have been loaded, we need to start thinking about how it can develop. Here are some projects that people could get involved in. If any of them capture your enthusiasm, please let us know at history@campionsend.com, so that we can help you to plan the scope and put you in touch with any potential collaborators.
Your house
The most immediate thing that would help is if everyone in the village could provide information about their own house. You may already have researched its history, or have material handed on to you by family or by the people that you bought from. Even if you don’t live in a period property, its history is still of interest. Was it converted from an older property and if so, what do you know about it? Or did you build it yourself? Every house has a story: please tell us yours.
If you can illustrate that story with any photos, drawings, letters etc, so much the better: everything selected will be carefully scanned and returned to you. Please don’t just send copies of your title deeds, as these will take up too much archive space – but if the deeds contain any interesting names or help to tell the story, we’d love to hear the results of your researches/
Church Army at Hempstead Hall
As you can see from the website, from about 1908 up to the start of the Second World War, the Church Army ran a centre which trained young men in agricultural schools and prepared them for a life in the Colonies, especially Australia. After the war, it became a remand home which closed in 1950, when the house and land were sold into private hands.
Filling in some of the gaps in this story is a fascinating project. Ross has already made a start on this but if you’d like to be involved, or if you can shed any light on the people who worked at the Hall and the men and boys who were trained there, please let us know. In particular we are keen to track down what happened to the boys in their new lives overseas.
Unsolved puzzles
The Land section of this website lists a couple of unsolved puzzles relating to the pattern of glebe lands in the village and the disappearance of Latchley Wood. There is plenty here for someone to get their teeth into.
The Bluebell
Yes, we know Dick Turpin was born there. But what can we discover about the history of the inn itself? Dates, name changed, names of landlords and any stories about them. A nice project for someone while we wait for the pub to re-open.
The Ring of Trees
Was it a cockpit? A place for boxing matches? A witches’ coven? Why was it known as ‘Turpin’s Ring’? Nobody seems to know the real answer so some detective work is required.
Hempstead’s mills
Hempstead had a windmill on high ground to the south of Church Hill, directly opposite the church, which burnt down in 1900, and another earlier windmill on land between Boytons and Hempstead Wood. There was also a steam driven flour and grist mill in the centre of the village. More information needed. Also, can anyone suggest a reason why the miller should also have operated a brick kiln?
Hempstead’s War Dead
A lot of work has already been done to find out about the lives of the men from Hempstead who are commemorated on the War Memorial. But many gaps remain. There is work to be done to fill these gaps and to correlate the names with census records. We also need to understand why not all of the men are named on the memorial in St Andrew’s – did they attend the Primitive Methodist Chapel instead?
St Andrew’s incumbents
The church contains a board displaying the names of all known incumbents since the 14th Century. But we don’t yet know their stories. As Hazel Weedon’s guide makes clear, the dates raise some intriguing questions about Hempstead during the Black Death and, later, during the Civil War. There was also a John Keme, whose office spanned the reigns of Henry VIII, Eward VI and Mary I – on the face of it an impressive survival act! It may be that more research can help to answer these questions and tell us more about the priests who tended to the village’s spiritual needs.
St Andrew’s graves
We are not aware of any systematic record of the graves in the churchyard. This would be a good discrete project and could lead on to cross-relating to burial records and helping to build up a life of those who lived in the village in past times.
Census returns
The first census in England was in 1801 and they have taken place every ten years since then, except for 1941. Those up to 1911 are publicly available. The older returns lack precision about exactly where people lived: indeed in these times many of the humbler houses did not even need names or numbers. But there is much work to do in charting the people and families recorded at each census, which may help to show patterns of movement, marriage and employment as well as to date the appearance of new houses.