CARDALLS CORNER - November 2017 - by Helen Morris and Len Gale
In the year 998 Aethelred (the Unready) gave some land which included Southam to Leofwine, the father of Earl Leofric of Coventry whose wife was the famous Lady Godiva. The description of the land still exists written in Old English in a Charter. The boundaries of Southam were carefully marked and remembered through the custom [...]
Cardalls Corner - October 2017 By Jenny Frith
Mop or Hiring Fairs started when, in 1351, Edward III passed the Statute of Labourers to regulate the labour market after the Black Death had resulted in dire shortages of labourers. They were held in the Autumn on or near Michaelmas Day in bustling Market Towns which had many nearby villages to attract both employers and employees. [...]
CARDALL's CORNER - August 2017 by Alan Griffin
Walking the turnpike road towards Fenny Compton on a hot August morning in 1848, James Read pondered some remarks addressed to him months earlier following a case at Southam Magistrates’ Court. The phrase ‘Somebody should pay dear for this’ had stuck in his memory. Read was the Southam Division sergeant in the Knightlow Hundred Police Force and in [...]
CARDALL'S CORNER - June 2017 By Alan Griffin
Many English fairs have their origins in Medieval times during the reign of King Henry III. The Benedictine monks of Coventry Priory were granted a market charter for their Southam manor in 1227. They subsequently received grants for fairs on St Peter and St Paul’s Day (June 28), St George’s Day (April 23) and on the Feast of St Leger (October 2). [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - February 2017 By Jenny Frith
Until recently, I thought Pip Squeak and Wilfred were (only) cartoon characters from the 1920/30s. They were on a comic strip in the Daily Mirror newspapers children’s column from 1919 right up until 1956 and, in the early days, also in the Sunday Pictorial. Pip was a dog, Squeak a penguin and Wilfred a rabbit. [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - January 2017 By Robert Sherriff
The following article by one of our members who is also a bellringer, gives us an insight into the workings of the bell tower of St James Church and the history of the bells themselves.
There are eight bells in St James Church bell tower and they sit in a double deck steel “H” frame, donated by [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - December 2016 By Rowan Parker
In January 1947, along with his 18th birthday cards, Rowan Parker received his National Service call-up papers. It snowed on and off from Christmas, but in March the snow fell in earnest, and this is Rowan’s account of a trip home from Leamington in that famously snowy Winter of 1947, nearly 70 years ago. [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - November 2016 By Val Brodie
After a hundred years, people across Europe are remembering the horrors of the Battle of the Somme. Amidst the tributes to the tens of thousands who lost their lives in those terrible months 1st July – 18th November 1916, it falls to all of us to remember the twelve men of Southam, then a very small town, who gave their lives. [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - October 2016 By Alan Griffin
It has to be said that for lads like me growing up in Southam in the post-war years, there were few diversions. One long-established institution that was still thriving in the 1940’s and 50’s was the Parish Church Choir which in common with most church choirs of that era was an all-male body. [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - September 2016 By Linda Doyle
For many years until March 2016, Southam had two banks: Lloyds and HSBC (formerly the Midland), both situated in the town centre. Today, only Lloyds remains, and at the time of writing, the former HSBC building is up for sale.
Banking in Southam is known to go back to 1835, when in September of that year the Leamington [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - August 2016 By Janet Cox
The Harbury Cement Works (HCW) was as near to Bishops Itchington as it was to Harbury. Indeed the men from Bishops Itchington walked or cycled down a lane or across a field from the village to go to work at HCW, which for many years was the only work around, apart from agriculture.
We lived in Bishops Itchington and [...]
CARDALL’S CORNER - July 2016 By Val Brodie
The Journal of Annie Eliza Bull - July 1874
In Annie Bull’s day, the journey time from Marton to Rhyl was six hours. Travelling with friends in a group including children, her train trip (change at Rugby, Crewe and Chester) was an adventure for a young single woman, in her early twenties. She wrote a journal each day and a copy [...]
