12-May-2006 - On Tuesday
16 May, 2006, at 2pm, the Beckingham cum Saundby
Parish Council will take invited guests, including
Environment Agency and local Council officers,
councillors and other partners, to see repairs
and improvements at the newly-restored Old Willow
Works building on the Old Trent Road, Beckingham
in north Nottinghamshire.
Nottinghamshire County Council
funded the restoration cost of just over £50,000
through their Building Better Communities programme
and the Department for Environment Food and Rural
Affairs (Defra) Aggregate Levy Sustainability
Fund.
Nottinghamshire County Council
also gave £6,000 towards professional fees
and Gainsborough Local Alchemy contributed a further
£15,000 to complete a feasibility study.
Alongside this, the History
Group secured £28,000 funding from the Local
Heritage Initiative to explore and record history
and local Willow Craft Heritage.
The Old Willow Works is licensed
to Beckingham cum Saundby Parish Council by the
Environment Agency and is part of the Beckingham
Estate, a flood storage reservoir on the River
Trent. It is a building of historical interest
and a unique feature of the area’s agricultural
and industrial heritage.
It is all that survives of the
traditional cottage industry of willow basket
and furniture making and is thought to be the
only one of its kind in the County, if not the
UK.
The willow industry provided
a living for many local families from the 1800s
until the mid-1900s. At its peak in the early
1900s, there were two willow operations, one on
the Old Trent Road and the other on the banks
of the Trent using converted buildings just south
of Crown Farm dairy farm. Nothing remains of the
second willow works, or of the willow plantations
themselves.
The Old Willow Works closed
around the mid-1940s and has had several uses
since then, but its condition deteriorated and
in recent years it has lain empty.
The Environment Agency approached
the Parish Council about the building’s possible
restoration and the community’s response was magnificent.
Local people planned the building’s restoration,
found funding for the work, had studies carried
out to see how it could be used once restored,
and organised all of the building works.
Local contractors and tradesmen
were used to restore the building to its former
glory. A new roof was fitted, along with new supporting
timbers, rain water guttering and down-pipes.
Walls were re-pointed and new timber windows installed,
in keeping with the style and age of the building.
In addition, the Environment Agency paid for the
installation of two barn owl boxes, and bat roosts
in the roof ventilation stacks. Volunteers helped
with numerous practical jobs, including the removal
of tonnes of manure accumulated during its former
use as a cattle shed.
It is proposed that the top
floor of the building will house a small museum
and heritage room. Three upstairs rooms will be
available for rent to local businesses.
The ground floor is subject
to flooding and has been left as an open space.
It is likely to be used for community activities,
but plans have not yet been finalised.
Project Co-ordinator, Colin
Gibson, says: " I am pleased that all the
hard work, planning and delivery of the first
stage of our project was met within budget and
the required time scales. Hopefully we can now
progress toward the second stage by attracting
funders to support us."
The Environment Agency’s Regional Estates Manager,
Paul Freeborough, says: "It has been particularly
rewarding to see the local community so enthusiastically
bringing such a unique building back to life again.
The Old Willow Works is part of the agricultural
and industrial heritage of the Beckingham Marshes.
I feel privileged to have been part of a project
that creates an excellent facility for today’s
residents and a historical legacy for future generations."
Councillor Ken Bullivant of
Nottinghamshire County Council, the local member
for the Beckingham area, added: "I am very
pleased that the County Council has been able
to help the people of Beckingham to carry out
this project. It is an excellent example of partnership
in action and it touches on many of the Council’s
aims relating to historic buildings, nature conservation
and environmental education. I hope it will inspire
other communities in this area to get involved
in learning about their heritage and conserving
important local features."
More information
Beckingham Marshes and
the Old Willow Works
In the 18th century, before
the 1779 land enclosures, Beckingham Marshes comprised
of common land with an extensive strip-farming
system operated from Beckingham village. The common
land, marshes and Ings to the east were not under
cultivation.
The marshes were used for summer
rough grazing. The Ings remained too wet throughout
the year, but were useful for wildfowl hunting
and fishing. There was little traffic between
Beckingham and Gainsborough and tracks eastwards
were too wet for regular use. The Trent was finally
bridged at Gainsborough around 1792.
Many of the villagers were involved
in the willow plantations in some way and in the
early 1900s there were 13 acres of willow beds
adjacent to the Willow Works. Harvesting was carried
out in rotation throughout the year, although
in earlier times, before the Willow Works on the
Old Trent Road was built, cropping was only from
January to May.
There were two willow operations
during the early 1900s, one on the Old Trent Road
and the other on the banks of the Trent using
converted buildings just south of Crown Farm dairy
farm. The Willow Works produced baskets and willow
furniture. It closed around the mid 1940s by when
there was around 100 acres given over to willow
production.
In the 1930s there was no arable
farming in the marshes, just the willow operation,
some dairy farming and rough grazing when the
fields were not flooded. Frog Hall dairy farm
was inhabited until flooded in 1940.
Beef cattle were either driven
on hoof by road to Gainsborough or else taken
by rail to Doncaster from Beckingham Station.
The shipyards at the east end
of the Old Trent Road were begun in 1869 and continued
in business until the end of the Second World
War.
After the war grants were made
available for draining land in order to increase
food production. Drainage was installed creating
many arable fields and this process was largely
completed by the 1970s. This land has been described
as the ‘worst land in the country’ and is very
claggy, being sticky when wet and like concrete
when dry, so machinery got stuck in the wet and
broken in the dry.
The only crops that worked well
were the grain crops with long roots to penetrate
the sub soil impermeable pan before the summer
heat struck. Also harvesting was not possible
before mid morning and had to cease in the late
afternoon otherwise the water content of the grain
would have been unacceptably high.
