20A Lordship Road

H James Ian

Description

The house in which I was born (20A Lordship Road), had only been occupied by my future family for a few months before my birth. Coming from the London suburbs, they settled in the green-belt area of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire. Unlike the other two-storey houses in our street which were parallel to the road, ours, at three storeys, was not only bigger than all the others, it also faced at right angles to them and parallel with Cheshunt Great House. In the stained-glass window on our front door was a picture of Oliver Cromwell. Why Oliver Cromwell should be depicted, as he had no known attachments to Cheshunt unlike his son, Richard Cromwell, who resided, using a hidden identity in the form of John Clarke in Cheshunt around 1680, until his death in 1712, remains a mystery. Though recorded as being buried at Hursley, in Winchester, there was rumour that his real resting place was, in fact, in an unmarked tomb in the grounds of St Mary's church, in Cheshunt. St Mary's church was close to, or in part of, the former grounds of Cheshunt Great House, which was gifted to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey by Henry VIII; and, as the crow flies, St Mary's church was less than two minutes' walk from our house. In fact, Cheshunt Great House was only ten minutes away. Our road was a cul-de-sac; its name was 'Lordship Road'. Oh, I forgot to say...our house was haunted...

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528965163
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

2 0A L ordship R oad
I an H . J ames
A ustin M acauley P ublishers
2022-11-30
20A Lordship Road About the Author Copyright Information © Preface Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Addendum Cardinal Thomas Wolsey Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland 20A Lordship Road Cheshunt Great House After the Fire Temple Bar at Theobalds Park, Cheshunt A Final Irony St Mary’s Church Unmarked Tomb at St Mary’s Church, Churchgate, Cheshunt -->
About the Author
Ian H. James was born in 1948 in the town of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, England. He met and married Béatrice, a French student spending a year in England as an au pair. They settled down to married life in Shrewsbury and had two daughters, Chloé and Lucie. Ian became a teacher of science and mathematics at several schools in Shropshire before retiring and moving to France where he now resides.
Copyright Information ©
Ian H. James 2022
The right of Ian H. James to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528964579 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528965163 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ® 1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Preface
My mother gave birth to her fourth child on Saturday, 27 November 1948; it was 2.00 p.m. I was born at home, under the supervision and support of a midwife.
We were four siblings; two born before the war and two after, and I was the youngest. By the time I was able to understand and communicate, my eldest brother, Derek, had left the house and had been conscripted to the RAF to complete his remaining 18 months of National Service in Singapore.
The house in which I was born (20A Lordship Road) had only been occupied by my future family for a few months before my birth. Coming from the London suburbs, they settled in the green-belt area of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire. Unlike the other two-storey houses in our street which were parallel to the road, ours, at three storeys, was not only bigger than all the others, it also faced at right angles to them and was parallel with Cheshunt Great House.
It was many years later that I began to understand more about our house through comments and research carried out by my fellow post-war brother, Colin. Though this story is fictional, the events that I experienced in the house are real, as is the outcome of Cheshunt Great House.
In the stained-glass window on our front door was a picture of Oliver Cromwell. Why Oliver Cromwell should be depicted, as he had no known attachments to Cheshunt unlike his son, Richard Cromwell who resided in Cheshunt around 1680, using a hidden identity in the form of John Clarke, until his death in 1712, remains a mystery? Though recorded as being buried at Hursley, in Winchester, there was rumour that his real resting place was, in fact, in an unmarked tomb in the grounds of St Mary’s Church, in Cheshunt. Adding weight to this possibility, outside and inside St Mary’s Church, there are monuments and family vaults dedicated to the Cromwell Family of Cheshunt Park .
St Mary’s Church was close to, or in part of, the former grounds of Cheshunt Great House, which was gifted to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey by Henry VIII, and, as the crow flies, St Mary’s Church was less than two minutes’ walk from our house. In fact, Cheshunt Great House was only ten minutes away. Our road was a cul-de-sac; its name was ‘ Lordship Road .’ The lands at the end of the road, were formerly called ‘ The Lordship ’ before becoming open ground and finally a playing field. Lordship Road, had not been constructed at the time of Cromwell, but had been built over an existing track leading up to The Lordship . One can only speculate at this strange name; perhaps, it is more than a just coincidence that one terminology for an Archbishop is Your Lordship ? So, perhaps the association of the ground being part of the Cheshunt Great House estate is more than a myth?
Our road, which extended for about three-hundred yards ended at a right-angled junction to another road named Cromwell Avenue ; again, lending itself to speculation about the involvement of the Cromwell family with Cheshunt. Not too far away from Cheshunt Great House, another significantly named road was Wolsey Avenue .
Our house was constructed in 1893 and the garden, which stretched for about 80 yards was, supposedly, recorded as previously having a small lake. However, the hunting lodge or gate house to Cheshunt Great House may have been formerly positioned exactly where our house was built, as not only did we have a cellar under the kitchen…we also had a tunnel. Well, we reputedly had a tunnel. Though my dad and brother Derek spent time down in the cellar, they never discovered an open tunnel; however, evidence of older masonry work, dissimilar to the surrounding stone work was apparent; as were the rumours from older neighbours regarding Richard Cromwell and a tunnel connecting St Mary’s Church to our house. At the time of Wolsey’s occupancy, England was about to undergo the biggest religious purge and persecution in its history; the replacement of Catholicism to Protestantism. Tunnels were needed.
Our next-door neighbours, were Mr and Mrs Palmer, who lived at 20B. Considering the size of our house and the age, I think it highly unlikely that it was constructed as a semi-detached; especially with numbers 20A and 20B. I believe, therefore, that it was originally constructed as 20 Lordship Road. The dividing wall between our two properties was by the kitchen and the stairway leading up to the first-floor bedrooms. Though I never went inside the Palmer’s house, did their stairway rest alongside ours; the dividing wall separating a more grandiose stairway? The Palmer’s garden ended after about 20 yards and our garden then formed a right-angled attachment to the end of theirs and continued down past a brook to an alley leading into Ripley Way and the small council estate.
Another interesting feature about Cheshunt was London’s Temple Bar , occasionally used to display the heads of traitors on its iron spikes. The last heads being displayed were those of Townley and Fletcher. Believed to have been constructed by Sir Christopher Wren, its location in Fleet Street was deemed inappropriate because of its restriction to the rapidly increasing traffic entering London. So, on 2 January 1878, just 200 years after it had been built, Temple Bar was dismantled. The corporation of London, however, had a strong attachment to the Bar, and consequently, rather than demolish it, it was taken down brick by brick, beam by beam, numbered stone by stone and stored in a yard off Farringdon Road. Ten years later, Lady Meux, a lowly barmaid marrying the son of a wealthy family of London brewers, decided, with view to impressing Victorian high society of her new position in the social order, to buy it and re-erect it at the entrance to her estate, at Theobalds Park, Cheshunt. -->

Temple Bar, just after it was rebuilt in 1889.The road to the left
leads to the A10 and to the right to Enfield Chase.
St Mary’s Church, Cheshunt
-->

20A Lordship Road
Chapter 1
I stood in my cot and looked out at the dark world from my bedroom window. At less than two years old, I knew there was something sinister, something strange about this house. The tree on the horizon swayed near the street lamp and then, as though it knew I was gazing up, uprooted itself and bound towards me—roots and branches crushing all underneath its enormous weight. I was mesmerised, but then I became frightened—it was coming for me! I screamed! I screamed!
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“The tree! It’s coming for me!”
“What tree, baby?”
Shaking and through tear-stained eyes, I pointed my finger out of the window as mother lifted me from the confines of my bedding. Holding me close, she peered out of the window.
“What tree? The are no trees outside—see, look…”
I slowly uncovered my fingers from my eyes and looked through them and out into the dark. She was right, there was no tree…now, but there was a minute before!
“You’ve just had a bad dream, baby. Hush and go to sleep, all will be well.”
With that, she laid me back down in my cot, pulled the covers over my young body, kissed me on my cheek and left.
In the dark, I lay trembling. I knew what I had seen, I hadn’t been sleeping; it had been real.
Well, that was over seventy years ago, but I still vividly recall that moment; the moment that I became aware of unknown, unseen forces that were greater and more powerful than I could see with my everyday senses.
“But you were young…much too young to remember such an event?”
“Why? When are we supposed to recall events…or dreams; at what age, then? Six…seven…?”
“I don’t know that anyone can put a definition on which age such traumas that you recount can be relied upon. I believe that you hallucinated and…”
“I was actually lying down in my cot and felt a need to stand up and look out of the window. H