There is a superb dinosaur park at Weston Longville, about 7 or 8 miles out of Norwich. I was really impressed by the dinosaur trail where we had to track down all the dinosaurs and collect stamps to earn the medal.
We spent the whole day there (we took a packed lunch) – lots to do, the maze is a lot of fun, and there’s a huge adventure play area including a good area for toddlers too. Highly recommended.
The dinosaurs at Crystal Palace don’t quite compare.
During the second world war my grandad moved to Stockport, near Manchester, where he worked for Fairey – the airplane manufacturer. With a little help from my dad I knew that there was a Fairey factory near Reddish in Stockport, and after a couple of google searches worked out it was actually in Heaton Chapel, but when I first started looking (around about 2001) that was as much as I could find.
Today, type Fairey Heaton Chapel into Google and … there are quite a few results (mostly repeating one other), although a couple of years after I first wrote up what I had found, George Nixon emailed me about his new website (a history of Levenshulme) where he has a very good history (and several photos) of the Fairey Aviation factory through the years.
My grandad was an airframe fitter making/finishing off the wings on Barracudas – they were an all metal aircraft with an airframe clad with aluminium panels which were riveted on. I knew that the Fairey Battle was built at Heaton Chapel (so too the Fairey Fulmar) – although the Battle was only built up until 1940 (513 built in 1939, 218 built during 1940)*, but I don’t know if my grandad also worked on these (or what other planes he might have worked on).
* Source: Fairey Aircraft since 1915 (H.A. Taylor)
Left: is a Fairey Battle (the only Fairey aircraft at RAF Hendon in London).
Below is the fitting room in the factory at Fairey (not dated, via George Nixon and Stockport Heritage magazine). Maybe my grandad is in the photo…
This photograph was taken in Sunnyfield Rd, Heaton Mersey outside nos. 21 and 23 (click on photo to zoom in). We think the street party was for VJ Day (August 1945).
| Back row 1st left – Len (grandfather) 2nd left partly obscured – Doris (grandaunt) 6th left – Geoff Marsh (1st cousin once removed) 7th left very obscured – Frank Marsh (granduncle) |
3rd row 2nd left – Granny Wardle |
2nd row 1st left – Richard (my Dad) 2nd left – Helen (aunt) on Richard’s left shoulder 3rd left – Brian Lowe (friend of Richard) 4th left – Sam Hall (later an ITN reporter) |
Front row 7th left – Muriel Marsh (1st cousin once removed) |
Except for christmas 1941 when they returned to Kettering, my grandad and his family remained in Heaton Mersey until 20 July 1947.
Ghost Hill is a place in Taverham, near Norwich.
Part 1: where did Ghost Hill get its name is here
This is a (slightly edited) version of my
original article first written in December, 2000
After a couple of years of first writing about Ghost Hill, a Drayton resident, Mr Charles Jarvis emailed me with lots of information. He wrote:
As a child I was told that during the First World War there was an army training camp in the Drayton area. When a draft of soldiers were due to leave for France several men deserted and one of them climbed into a high tree in the area known today as Ghost Hills. He bound himself with a rope into the upper branches of the tree, but his bondage was such that he could no longer free himself and eventualy he died of exposure. His body remained in the tree un-noticed for many months (remember in those days few people would have visited the woods).
Many months later a party of people visited the woods and whilst walking through that area of the woods one of the soldier’s limbs fell down in front of them.
Charles Jarvis
I spent most of my childhood in Drayton and I attended the original Drayton Primary School. This story was related by my late aunt Mrs K.Haverson, one of the two teachers at the school, and much later in life she repeated the story to me. She learned of the story from a Major Rudguard (retired) who had a small estate in the vilage.
Ghost Hill, 1985
In January 1985 it snowed heavily.
Best remembered for St Edmund middle school’s heaters breaking down, and sledging conditions since have only briefly been rivalled in early 1991.
In those days digital cameras didn’t exist – these are the only photos I have of Ghost Hill then, with the exception of bonfire night 1984 (at night, so not much use). Remember the sand humps?
All built on and long gone now.
Ghost Hill is a place in Taverham, near Norwich.
This is a (slightly edited) version of my
original article first written in December, 2000
I used to live on the back of Ghost Hill, which, once upon a time, used to be waste land (and a BMX track), and I always wondered why it was called Ghost Hill.
I have also always wondered whether on same BMX track, after the start did anyone ever manage to overtake? Because overtaking involved riding into waste high grass from which few returned… but I digress.
“I can find out on the Internet,” I thought. Alas, I found one person’s memories of Knight Rider and 1984, but nothing else about the Ghost Hill, Taverham.
The photograph is of Ghost Hill Wood (taken in December 2000).
I thought perhaps the children at the first school are told every year about Ghost Hill and tell tall tales about the bendy tree (it can’t be old enough to have served as a gallows), but apparently not (that or the kids are not paying attention in classes).
When I was 10 I watched an elderly gentleman scanning the field with a metal detector and he dug up a rusty old .303 cartridge. He believed the field to have been a practice range for soldiers around about the time of the First World War. This might be true since during the First World War large numbers of soldiers were billeted in Taverham (some at Taverham Hall or the old paper mill). Most were put up in tents alongside the Fakenham Road – hence Camp Road next to Pip’s Chips (if that’s what the chippie is still called).
Bunnett Hill
A trip to Norwich Record Office dug up a map printed 1891 and this shows the land between what is Orchard Bank and Shakespear Way today as Ghosthill Plantation. This is a bit of a surprise to me because as we all know Ghost Hill is over by the school..!
I’ve scanned in a wodge of map; zoom in by clicking on the map: 
In 1845 Francis Greene Bradshaw Esq. was the landowner of the plot marked 28, and the occupier was Bunnett (or Burnett?) who was charged rent in lieu of tithes for 5 acres, 0 rods and 4 poles of land. The record only shows that the land consisted of hills and arable. This ties up with Ghost Hill formerly being called Bunnett Hill.
I found one little book about Taverham, published in 1969, which makes a single reference to Ghost Hill Plantation – there was no Shakespear Way or Norgate Way, and certainly no Cameron Green then. The lower half of Cypress Close was built in 1965 but that was about it.
No ghosts, just the usual histories of Taverham Hall, the paper mill and a little piece about silver fox farming. However, in Mr Norgate’s book he does point out that on a map dated 1826 (by A.Bryant) “Hanging Wood” on the way down to Ringland has no connection to gallows – the name refers to the trees that were “hanging” on the steep ground. I cannot think of a similar reason where Ghost Hill could have earned its name.
On another map the plots above 28 and 29 were labelled glebe which probably indicates it was owned by the clergy. A lot of this information gleaned from A History of Taverham by Thomas B.Norgate, 1969 (available on the shelves at Taverham Library).
A couple of years after posting this (about 2002) I received a nice email from Mr Charles Jarvis which gave lots of information – Updated: Where did Ghost Hill get its name includes Ghost Hill in 1985 (before it was built on, remember the sand humps?)
