Meet C.W. Allen: Market Harborough's champion walker of the Edwardian era

Remember C.W. Allen, the "pedestrian holder of the 2,000 miles road record" who saw a phantom airship over Kelmarsh? He turns out to have been quite a figure in his day: the newspapers were full of reports of his feats and appearances.

Here is an account of a visit he paid to Great Malvern in 1905, which was recycled by the Worcester News a century later:

How To Walk And The Boots To Wear was a headline in the Malvern Gazette 100 years ago.

It came as Mr C W Allen, the champion long-distance pedestrian of the world, gave an exhibition of his powers in Malvern.

"At six o'clock in the evening, he started from Mr Oliver's boot stores on the Promenade and walked along the Belle Vue Terrace, through the Wyche cutting, round the hills by West and North Malvern, down Trinity Bank to the Graham Road and up Church Street to the starting point," the paper reported.

"This walk, which is practically an afternoon's walk to an ordinary individual, and has plenty of difficult ascents, he accomplished in the marvellous time of 49 minutes, or at the rate of eight miles an hour.

"A considerable number of people watched him en-route and the critics had to admit that in spite of the rapidity with which he travelled, it was a fair and square walk with no suspicion of breaking into a run.

"Mr Allen wore a pair of Oliver's celebrated boots and stated that he never had any others to beat them as regards wear and ease and comfort."

But then Allen, whose forenames I have yet to discover, was a great one for endorsing things. He endorsed the tonic Phosferine tonic in the makers' advertisements, even when he had joined up as an air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps during the first world war.

Another Phosferine advertisement gives Allen's home address: 43 Nithsdale Avenue, Market Harborough.

The illustration above is one of a number of postcards of Allen that the CardHawk site has sold in recent years. You will see that in this one he is endorsing Harboro Rubber Soles, which were made at the Dainite Mill in St Mary's Road by the Harborough Rubber Company.

Later. A reader has researched this (thank you!) and his full name was Charles William Allen. He was a commercial traveller working for a boot manufacturer, so he was a walking advertisement.

Allen was originally from Stroud. His first child was born in Market Harborough, but he had left the town before the 1911 census and was living on Jersey in 1921.

It occurs to me that he may have seen that airship because he was off his tits on Phosferine.

The mysterious drones seen over New Jersey and the phantom airships of 1909

From the Guardian:

The mysterious reported sightings of drone clusters in the night skies over New Jersey and other parts of the US north-east has prompted frustrated outbursts from Congress members, triggering calls for a limited state of emergency to be declared over the region.

Jon Bramnick, a Republican state senator in New Jersey, has demanded a ban on all drones until the mystery is solved. ABC’s Action News reported that he called for a “limited state of emergency … until the public receives an explanation regarding these multiple sightings”.

Concern about unexplained drone sightings began in mid-November as isolated postings by local residents on social media. The issue has steadily risen up the political food chain, bursting this week on to the stage of state and federal authorities.

And you can see a report from yesterday's CBS Evening News above - note its use of that fashionable measure  of size, the small car.

People do see strange things when they look up, but maybe what they see depends on what they expect to see or are worried they might see.

I am reminded of the phantom airships seen over England in 1909:

The reporter failed to find the airship's base, but he found a good supply of fresh witnesses who were prepared to say they had seen it in the air. One of these was a Mr C.W. Allen, described as "the pedestrian holder of the 2,000 miles road record" who claimed he distinctly saw the craft whilst driving with two friends near the Northamptonshire town of Market Harborough on 5 May 1909:

"we had been for a night run, and when we were passing through the village of Kelmarsh, we heard a loud report in the air like the backfire of a motorcar. Then we heard distinctly from above our heads the 'tock-tock-tock' of a swiftly-running motor-engine, and we looked up. I was sitting on the front seat, next to the driver, and had a clear view of a dark shape looming up out of the night. 

It was an oblong airship, with lights in front and behind, flying swiftly through the air. It seemed some five or six hundred feet up, and must have been at least a hundred feet long, although owing to its altitude it looked smaller. The lights were not very bright, but we could distinctly see the torpedo-shape and what appeared to be men on the platform below. 

We slowed up our motorcar and stopped to watch it. The steady buzz of the engines could be heard through the still air, and we watched it under it passed out of sight in a northeasterly direction towards Peterborough."

The Kelmarsh fire of 1943

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The fire at what used to be Kelmarsh Rectory, which later became a Buddhist centre, reminded me of the fire in 1943 that destroyed half the village. You can see the smouldering ruins in the photo above.

I discovered the story when I visited Kelmarsh in 2013 and discovered a plaque on the row of cottages that replaced the Elizabethan ones lost to the fire.

Later. A couple of news report from 1943 say the cottages dated from the 15th century and that the salvageable stone from them was used for the front of the ones that took their place.

Fire destroys former Buddhist centre at Kelmarsh

Last night, reports HFM News, eight fire crews fought a blaze at the former Nagarjuna Buddhist Centre in Kelmarsh. 

The main house's roof was destroyed, but the fire did not spread to the newer buildings next to it.

One of those newer buildings housed the World Peace Cafe, where I once had lunch. The cafe closed a few years ago when the Buddhists relocated to the more attractive Thornby Hall.

The main house was originally Kelmarsh Rectory, and became a care home before it was a Buddhist centre.

10 churches around Market Harborough on Historic England’s new ‘at risk’ register

Historic England’s new ‘At Risk’ Register includes 10 Leicestershire and Northamptonshire churches near Market Harborough, reports Harborough FM.

The churches, which are deemed by the public body to be at risk of being lost due to neglect or decay, are:

St Denys, Kelmarsh; All Saints, Clipston; St Mary, Ashby Magna; St Peter, Horninghold; St John the Baptist, King’s Norton; St John the Baptist, Little Stretton; St Giles, Great Stretton; St Michael, Loddington; St Leonard, Misterton with Walcote; Church of St Andrew, Owston and Newbold.

Exploring Great Oxendon's railway tunnels

Those nice people from Trekking & Towpaths have returned to the old Market Harborough to Northampton line to explore the railway tunnels at Great Oxendon.

They have already covered the tunnels at Kelmarsh, which lie three miles to the south.

Like Kelmarsh, Oxendon has two parallel single-line tunnels. The up tunnel carries the Brampton Valley Way, but Trekking & Towpaths first explore the abandon down bore. There are some striking mineral colours on the walls and the accompanying music is suitably dramatic.

Incidentally, the line from Market Harborough to Great Oxendon climbed a steep gradient - you could hear the diesel locomotives slogging up it all across the town. On the first night back from university the sound would keep me awake.

Exploring Kelmarsh railway tunnels

The last train from Northampton to Market Harborough ran in August 1981. Most of the trackbed now forms the Brampton Valley Way, which as a result passes through former railway tunnels at Great Oxendon and Kelmarsh.

This video explores the Kelmarsh tunnels, both the one that carries the Way and the parallel one, which is not officially open to the public.

Exploring Oxendon and Kelmarsh railway tunnels

The railway between Market Harborough and Northampton closed in 1981 - I was on the last return working - and it is now a cycle track, the Brampton Valley Way.

One of its quirks is that it runs through tunnels at Great Oxendon and Kelmarsh. And in both places there are pairs of tunnels, as the line was originally single track and a second tunnel one was dug when it was widened.

If you dare venture into the darkness, this video takes you into them.

Joan and Eric White in Kelmarsh churchyard

I wrote the other day that

Most of the people I was on the council with have died and had roads named after them.

But I did not expect to come across two of them in the churchyard at Kelmarsh on Saturday.

Joan and Eric White were the power couple of Market Harborough politics. Conservative councillors, they were the last survivors of an era in which the interests of its shopkeepers had dominated the town.

My experience of them was the opposite of the general perception. I found Joan frosty and soon concluded that she did not approve of Liberals or people in their twenties being elected to Harborough District Council.

By contrast, I often chatted with Eric at meetings. Perhaps he had mellowed, and by then Joan was ill and I suspect he was glad of someone to talk to about it.

As far as I know, there is not a road in Market Harborough named after the Whites. Perhaps there should be?

Later. Thanks to the person on Twitter who told me that one of the new roads off Glebe Road - part of the controversial development on the old Bricky Tip - is named White Crescent.

In which I have lunch in a Buddhist cafe in Kelmarsh

"I shall go back to the Buddhist cafe one day when it is open," I wrote four years ago.

Today I did just that, and very good it was too. There were more people there when I arrived than these photos make it seem.

You can find the World Peace Cafe just off the main road in Kelmarsh. It is run by the Nagarjuna Kadampa Meditation Centre.

It will be closed next weekend, but there is a fete on the Saturday.

Six of the Best 691

"Ever since she took over from David Cameron last summer, she has spoken as if Britain is a nation harmoniously united, aside from the divisive forces of party politics and liberal elites seeking to thwart the 'will of the people.'" William Davies dissects Theresa May's vapid vision of a one-party state.

Bernard Aris looks at the history of internationalism in the Liberal Party and the Liberal Democrats.

The privatisation of the Forensic Science Service in 2010 has brought about a crisis in the criminal justice system, argues Jerry Hayes.

Bethlem Museum of the Mind on the rumour of a Petition of the Poor Distracted Folk of Bedlam from 1620.

Northamptonshire Britain's Best Surprise visits Kelmarsh Hall, which is down the road from here. I shall go back this summer to see the exhibition of artwork by MacDonald (brother of Eric) Gill.

"The presence of the 'slick, flashy' Spivs gave post-war British cinema an excuse to make their own version of the 1930s Hollywood gangster movies – still loved and regularly watched by much of the UK cinema audiences after the war." Rob Baker looks at this genre of films.

The Naylor family tomb at Kelmarsh

This monstrosity in phallic pink granite is the cap of the family vault belonging to Richard Christopher Naylor, a Liverpool banker, cotton trader and horse racing enthusiast who owned Kelmarsh Hall from 1864 until his death in 1898.

St Denys, Kelmarsh, is very much a church belonging to the big house. The Naylor and Lancaster family graves are well tended, while other parts of the churchyard are almost derelict.

And in the porch is a notice saying that the large rural parish of which it now forms part is to be left without a vicar for the next five years.

Kelmarsh school and village institute

Kelmarsh village has dwindled over the centuries - I suspect much of it has disappeared as the grounds of the Hall have been landscaped.

All that remains are Colonel Lancaster's cottages, St Denys where his grave is and a dozen houses along the road to Harrington.

But they are worth looking at, because you will there find what was once the village school and institute, though they have long since been converted into private houses.

Once more, the Welcome to Kettering page on the village has the story:

One of the first line of cottages on the Harrington road has a porch. This was the first school in Kelmarsh, built in 1850. Evidently there was trouble in the village in 1849 and Lord Bateman, owner of the village and occupant of Kelmarsh Hall, gave all his tenants notice because they had lapsed into bad habits. They were called to the Hall where they were told to attend church regularly and live in peace with each other, conducting themselves honestly and soberly. 

A school would be built so that children would learn to read, write and sum, and a charge of 1d per child per week would be made. Notices would be withdrawn if the tenants signed an agreement promising to behave themselves in the future!

Claude Lancaster's grave at Kelmarsh church

This is the grave of Colonel Claude Lancaster who rebuilt the cottages at Kelmarsh that we saw yesterday. It is a family plot and was originally erected for his father, so Claude's name appears on the back of the angel's plinth. (Incidentally, if you think it is in poor taste you ain't seen nothing at St Denys, Kelmarsh, yet.)

Claude served as Conservative MP for Fylde and then Fylde South between 1938 and 1970. He was not a great contributor to the Commons and seems to have been chiefly concerned with the coal industry, parts of which he owned before nationalisation.

In 1948 he married Nancy Keene Perkins, who had previously been married to Ronald Tree, the Conservative MP for Harborough until 1945. She was a cousin of both Nancy Astor and Joyce Grenfell and enormously influential as a gardener and decorator - it seems that much of what we think of as the classic English country house style comes from her work.

Their marriage did not last. The Wikipedia entry for Nancy Keene Perkins explains this as follows:

The couple had been having an affair for years prior to their marriage, and Nancy Lancaster later claimed that it was the suffocating, day-to-day intimacy caused by their marriage that made her realise why they were successful as lovers and ill-suited as husband and wife.

Tweedland quotes another explanation. Nancy had previously lived at Kelmarsh Hall with Ronald Tree, and the architect James F. Carter said:

“She was probably more in love with his home than with the man himself.”

Colonel Lancaster's cottages at Kelmarsh

As you speed through Kelmarsh on the A508 you may spot these two terraces across the road from the lodge gates of the Hall. What you will not discover, unless you are there on foot, is this plaque on the end wall of one of them.

Though he lived at Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire, Colonel Lancaster was Conservative MP for the Lancashire constituencies of Fylde and then Fylde South between 1938 and 1970. He has been mentioned on this blog before, in a post on Nancy Keene Perkins and Ronald Tree and I have since written more about him.

The story of the fire that destroyed the cottages that originally stood here is told on the Welcome to Kettering site:

It is difficult to believe the tragedy which overtook the stone cottages on the 4th May 1943. On that day, as lunch was being prepared, a spark somehow ignited the thatched roof of the middle house. A strong wind was blowing, and all the 13 houses were destroyed, rendering 44 people homeless. No one was injured, but few possessions were rescued. The cottages were rebuilt in their present form in 1948.

You can see a picture of them on the Leicestershire County Council Collections Online site.

In which I fail to get a cup of tea at a Buddhist cafe

I have long felt warm towards Buddhism. That may at first have been the result of coming across the lama in Kim, but there are other reasons. Even if recent events do not wholly bear this out, I suspect that religions with no god or many gods are inherently less aggressive than monotheistic ones.

So the sign in Kelmarsh, a few miles south of Market Harborough, pointing to a Buddhist centre only a quarter of a mile away and promising refreshments intrigues me every time I pass it.

Today I tried to visit the Nagarjuna Kadampa Meditation Centre, but found its cafe closed. 

I was ready to reconsider my view of the Buddhist faith - at least you get a cup of tea from time to time with the Church of England - until I got home and found that the closure was clearly mentioned on the centre's website (even if a different reason is given).

Besides, I found plenty of points of interest in Kelmarsh even though the Hall was closed to the public for a wedding. No doubt I shall share them with you in coming days.

I shall go back to the Buddhist cafe one day when it is open. It is housed in a modern outbuilding close to the village's rather elephantine old rectory, which is now home to the centre.

Six of the Best 77

Andrew George, Lib Dem MP for St Ives in Cornwall, is campaigning against unfair banking charges:"It is not unusual for bank customers to find themselves hundreds of pounds overdrawn within a few weeks of initially straying just a few pence overdrawn. Such abuse by high street banks which were themselves bailed out by poor taxpayers is morally unacceptable."

Caron's Musings contrasts officialdom's treatment of Raoul Moat and of Florence and Precious Mhango.

The Big Society is just an admission that the state can't do everything, says Tory councillor James Cousins.

Congratulations to Labour-run Tameside on finding a new way of wasting public money. The Manchester Evening News reports that it has blown £36,000 on creating a "virtual town hall" in Second Life.

History Today mourns the fact that less than 30 per cent of schoolchildren take history at GCSE: "Apparently, it is seen as a difficult, academic subject, a stigma it shares with the separate sciences and modern languages (i.e. the very subjects that make one educated)." The magazine's blog has harsh words for the cult of "relevance" too.

I was too busy in Gaddesby to get to the English Heritage Festival of History at Kelmarsh Hall last Saturday. But it doesn't matter: Unmitigated England was there.

Nancy Keene Perkins and Ronald Tree

The Esoteric Curiosa introduces us to Nancy Keene Perkins, whose second husband was Ronald Tree, the Conservative MP for Harborough between 1933 and 1945.

Nancy was born near Charlottesville, Virginia, and brought up in Richmond and New York. She was the niece of Nancy Astor and a cousin of Joyce Grenfell.

She was first married in the United States in 1917. Her husband Henry Field, heir to the Marshall Field department store fortune, died five months later following an operation to remove his tonsils.

Her second husband Ronald Tree was Henry Field's first cousin. Esoteric Curiosa follows Wikipedia in describing Tree as "a bisexual journalist and investor". They married in the States in 1920 and moved to England in 1927. They took a 10-year lease on Kelmarsh Hall, which is five miles south of Market Harborough.

In 1933 Tree became MP for Harborough in a by-election that was a Conservative hold. In the same year he and Nancy moved to Ditchley House near Charlbury in Oxfordshire.

Tree became one of the few Conservatives who grasped the threat that Nazi Germany posed to Britain. During the World War II he offered Ditchley House for Churchill's use as Chequers and the prime minister's own house at Chartwell were thought too vulnerable to German bombers "when the moon was high". (Tree took this phrase of Churchill's as the title for his own memoirs.)

Tree lost Harborough to Labour in 1945 (the only time they have won the seat) and he and Nancy divorced two years later.

Nancy's third husband was Claude Lancaster, the Tory MP for Fylde and then South Fylde between 1938 and 1970. By coincidence, he also owned Kelmarsh Hall. This marriage lasted only until 1953, but Nancy was later to buy Haseley Court near Oxford and become "the doyenne of interior decorators (something she never was nor ever claimed to be) and smart gardeners".

Ronald, meanwhile, had also married again. His new wife was Marietta Peabody FitzGerald, with whom he had worked at the Ministry of Information. They moved to New York and had one daughter, but Marietta's other lovers included the Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson and the film director John Huston.

She was the sixties model Penelope Tree, who was David Bailey's partner and later appeared in The Rutles.

What all this brings home to me was the degree to which American money and American blood kept the British upper classes going through the upheavals of the 20th century. No wonder so many Tories are instinctive Atlanticists.