Ken talks to Dave Sims, again! Part 1 — "The Seven Wonders of Kempston"

David Sims returns to the Bedford podcast for another deep dive into the rich history of Kempston. In this first half, we explore the story behind the mock-Tudor almshouses on Bedford Road, built through the generosity of Charles Williamson in 1881 and still standing today. David then takes us through his personal "Seven Wonders of Kempston" — from the Norman-era All Saints Church, predating the Domesday Book, to the Victorian military grandeur of Kempston Barracks. We also hear the tragic tale of Kempston Grange and the heartbreaking 1926 balloon disaster at Kempston Ho. Essential local history.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We are not going to be able to do that. They want us to get back the the Kemps and legend that is David Sims, founder of Kemps and Ghost Walk, local fundraiser, a true historian, and David uh has a way of bringing our local past uh to life. Um so uh we're back with uh David Sims. Yeah, hi Ken. Um now your uh your first you were one of our first uh podcasts and the people really um fed into the history. People love local uh Kempston, Bedford, and surrounded vision history at the moment. It just it's all over social media and you get lots and lots of comments. Uh if I mention Sims Barber Shop on social media, boom, there'll be loads of people who come back to us and and they know it, and it's obviously it was it was your dad.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

A great uncle before my dad.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

And your great uncle before your dad. So there's you're the man. If we're gonna get someone in to talk local history, you're the man. And specifically, um, we had a comment from Belinda Yates that asked us if we knew anything about or you, because I'm I'm not a captain historian, um, if you know anything about the arms houses on Bedford Road. So we're going up St. Hill there. Um I did a bit of digging and uh it was a fascinating story, but equally got myself confused because I was thinking that the the lady as they called her, um, and Charles Williamson, I was thinking that she was of the manor of Manor Close Kempston down there, and I think you're gonna correct me. So with that, I will shut up and I'll hand over to the legend that is David Sims.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Well, yeah, good morning again, Ken. Thank you. Yeah, no, uh Kempston Arms Houses, yeah, St John's homes. Um when you say about the manor, so uh Charles uh uh Anne Charles Williamson was was the widow of a chap who was the um the lord of the manor, but not of uh manor as it is, manor close, the manor house, but lord of the manor of Kempston, Hastingsbury. Uh the manners of Kempston go back a long way. They go back actually to the 1200s, the 13th century. Uh so there were manners such as you know uh Kempston, Hastingsbury and Grays. Uh that was that was one, Hastingsbury and Grays, then there was Kempston Daubney, and of course we've had Hastingsbury School and we've had Daubney School, so that's where the names of those two schools came from. But when we go um to the manor houses, sorry, the uh the arms houses themselves, St John's homes, yeah. So we have to thank the lady who was, and Charles Williamson for this. Um, she endowed those um to the people of Kempston in 1881. They're mock Tudor in design. Um everyone knows them. They were as you say, they're halfway up Sainsbury's Hill, those little Befford Road Hill. Um, but yeah, the the houses themselves um were endowed to people of Kempston. She actually lived there herself, and when she died, um she left a lot of her money and that went towards the building of the Transfiguration Church in Kempston. Yeah, so so she was very much a philanthropic uh person in Kempston who spent a lot of money and uh did some great work in Kempston. Incidentally, when that was built, however, it wasn't Bedford Road Hill, it was Newell's Lane, which was the original name of uh of Bedford Road, and that's where the Newells, the retirement home, just down there by the War Memorial, gets its name from.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

A house of modern design, some would say, David. Sorry? A building of modern design.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

A building of modern design, absolutely. I wonder who gave it the name Newells, though, Ken.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

But sorry, you're in full flow.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, no, no, not at all. No, um, you probably remember that uh I was I was contacted in 2018 to to give suggestions for the naming of the building, and I'll give quite a few, some humorous and otherwise, but they didn't know either way or whether they were humorous or not. They would have been to people at Kempston, but um no, they chose the Newells uh as a as a reference to Newell's Lane where where the uh the arms houses sat or still sit.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Which is really interesting, and I'm not gonna uh uh digress too far, yeah, but that naming of the Newells retirement homes, it it bucks the trend at the moment because now I think when when you got these big developments, I think the council will just have a a random app that comes up and names for them. But there used to be a lot of thought went into street names. Um they did. And like that so and we'll come across names as we're talking today that are now there's rows named after them. Yeah. And I know we've said before and we say it again, that all the houses down to Ells Home, all the closest and roads down hill grounds, as far down as uh Ells Home, are all named of people on the Kemps and Warmore. They are. But there's no I don't think I think it's fair to say generally, there's not a lot of thought that goes into street names nowadays with the Cameron.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

There aren't. I mean, you know, the Galliford Estate, you know, which would which takes up a lot of the old um uh what were the old houses in Bunyan Road, just by Sainsbury's all the way down the hill with Bunyan Road. I mean, all that uh that's the Gallford Estate, they're named after Lake District, you know. Yeah. Sort of, you know, sort of we're we're quite a long way from what's name, we come very old. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah, yeah, they don't know what that was all about.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

No, exactly. They could have been a little bit more sort of like creative about sort of like local names, you know, they're like um things like Thornton Street and Littledale Street and Williamson Road, Williamson Road, named after Charles and Charles Williamson, of course. Yeah, you know, we come back to the almshouses again.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

A lovely gets us right back to the Kempston Manors. Yeah. Carry on.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah, well no, the Kempston Man, but we mentioned the Kempston Manors before. I mean, as you said before about the manor house itself, the manor house still sits down there by you know um touching the river almost, you know. Uh there was a medieval manor house there originally. Uh that was demolished, and then the the sort of like pseudo-French white building that's down there now was built in its place, yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the great ghost stories of Kempston, I have to say, you know, but uh, yeah, we're gonna definitely come and we're gonna cover the ghost story.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

So um so almshouses themselves, my understanding of the of alms houses, because they're all over the place. Sadly, a lot of the Bedford ones have gone into private ownership now. Yes. Um and if you look at the ones on St. Lloyd Street, they they all arms houses used to be impeccably looked after Christine. If you walk down St. Lloyd Street now and have a look at them, uh it's a tragedy to see. Yeah, they were sold off and ready they look. Yeah. Um but an almshouse was something that it was kind of like a local welfare state before the welfare state existed. It was people with uh with money, basically, and uh that put some developed these places for people who were less lucky, had fallen on half-time, and they could live in them as long as they were local and as long as they were Christians. Um that was certainly the case for the St John's home.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

It was, yeah. I mean, they had to be members of the Church of England, so they had to be sort of like yeah, confirmed members of the Church of England, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Right, okay. So they're still there today, they're supported by the money that was left by um by the lady, as they call her. Um and I don't I don't know how you go about I mean I've got I know some people that live in there, so before we'll be before we put the podcast out, we will inquire with them as to what it means to be able to live in them sort of facilities that we've done. Absolutely. Uh and and there was an uh there was a modern design added much later, wasn't there? Yeah, that's right. Which isn't as nice looking, yeah, but uh a great facility, no doubt, for the people that live there.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah. Um well over the years we've probably m known a fair few Kempstonians who've who've lived there. Yeah, yeah. I can think of a fair few, you know, who um who made their homes there and thankful for it, I'm sure. Yeah. Very much.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Okay, so go back, you mentioned the the manor of Hastingsbury and Grays. Yep. So I'm assuming like Gray's House down Kempston Manor, Grays House is an educational facility. Absolutely, yeah, indeed. That would be part of the name in the world. That's the name, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

That's where they got the name Grace House from. From one from the manor. As I said before, it's the manor of Hastingsbury and Grays, but later on it just, you know, sort of came into the the the manor of Hastingsbury. Talking of um, you know, the the manors quickly, uh, when you think about um yeah, Hastingsbury, there's at one point there was the it was the Caters that were the um the lords and ladies in the manor of uh Kempston Hastingsbury, and they uh had two daughters and uh who you know who who died under tragic circumstances, and that's one of the other ghost stories of Kempston. Right. The sisters, yeah. Yeah, so Louise and Sophia. That's not the Bloom one, is it?

SPEAKER_00 9:57

No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

This one they predates that that predates one. The Bloom one is the wasn't it the Bloom one is the um is the Kempston Who. Right. Yeah, and we might want to talk about buildings actually in Kempston today while we're talking about the arms houses, you reckon?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Yeah, absolutely. So um yeah, any any buildings that you want to talk about today from history days.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Well, I thought we might do, you know, a it's contentious because it's my my just my own thought, but obviously other people have other thoughts. But let's do the let's do the seven wonders of Kempston, shall we, Ken? Yeah, yeah. Right. Well, I'm gonna start off with the Kempston's oldest building, an oldest established building, which is the Kempston All Saints Church. It's got to be one of them. Right. You know, that was 1080. That was commissioned by Judith of Lenz, who was the the niece of William the Conqueror. So that goes back a long way, it goes to back to Norman times, just just after the Norman conquest, we know 1066. But in 1086, the Normans released what was the great surveyor in England, you know, the ancient Doomsday Book. Well, well, if you think that Kempston Church predates the Doomsday book, that gives you an indication. That's why, and it's still got Norman bits in it now, but of course it's been extended and it's got medieval bits as well, but it still sits there after all these years by the river, you know. So that's got to be one of our good, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Is this the one up Kempston Rural? That's the one. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

So it sits by the river, so that's uh that that was Norman, that goes back to 1080. So um, so that's gotta be there as one of the the seven wonders of Kempston. Go on, and I think. And then you know, when you think about grand buildings, I think we're gonna have Kempston Barracks in there.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Got to have Kempston Barracks.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Got to have Kempston Barracks, even though some people are coming towards Kempston said we're just past the prison. Do you know what?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

You see, I I had a new client in the other week that moved into the area and he said, I keep driving past that prison there. Is it still open? No, mate, that was not a prison. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Well, it looks like you know, like something out of a porridge or something, doesn't it? You know, but it's not, no. So that was a military building built in the time of Victoria between 1874 and 1877, and uh at the time when it was opened, it you know, 500 soldiers at any one time could be billeted there, including people who recuperating from war. So, you know, there's there's old-fashioned photographs of the Highland regiments, loads of people from the Highland regiments. If that place could only talk, honestly, because you know, military bands have played in the you know, in in the uh parade square there, you know, and there's been all kinds of military pageants and things like that there, including a fantastic, I have to say, um, during the silver jubilee of the Queen, there was a uh tattoo there, uh uh, you know, a proper full-blown military tattoo. Yeah, well, I played there. I was lucky enough to play there with the with the Boys of Gate band. Uh, we played that day, the C cadets uh had a huge band that played, but also the band of the East Anglian regiment were there, and probably one of the ones at the defunct now, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

So going back to that time in there, the bat obviously the barracks was much bigger then, so where you see the front, there would be two wings each side of the parade square. Yes, indeed, yeah, that's right. And but at that point, the only housing around the barracks at that would have been Malakan Road at the back. Was that there by then?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

No, no, no, it wasn't though. That that that took up Malakan took up um uh that was um occupied by the barracks. Yeah, so oh that was part of the. So all we've got left of the barracks now, of course, is the gatehouse, which they call the keep, don't they? Well, it ain't the keep because a keep obviously is uh well I say it's uh a keep if you think of a castle or anything like that, it's a fortified, you know, a building within the walls of something, but that you know, so that's the actually the gatehouse. Well, you can see it as it's got the gate.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Yeah, but um well, so Kempston Barracks, when it was first opened, it had a um it had a a primary school in there, you know, gymnasium.

SPEAKER_00 14:07

Didn't know that, didn't they?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Um yeah, and it also had a um 14-bed hospital, recuperation hospital, and uh yeah, so it was a busy place at one time or another. But it was never the Ministry of Defence. Whenever you went to the barracks, there was always signs up there for the Ministry of War. The Ministry of War.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

That sounds very Trumpish, I guess, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Well, it was neck. So you never got signs there for the Ministry of Defence, it was always Ministry of War throughout, up until the time it was, you know, all all all the main parts of the buildings were demolished, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Right, right. Yeah. So that's two.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

So that's two. So yeah, well, let's have a go then. So that was the barracks so far, and then we've got the church. Um so the next one is uh Kempston Grange in the park.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Right quite dear to your heart.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Well, it kind of is, it was my home for 13 years, and um it was built in 1845.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Um so you moved in in 1846, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Jeez, thanks for that, mate. Um, but no, so let's talk about it. So, this is a place that's dear to the heart of a lot of Kempstonians, absolutely, you know, because let's face it, you know, the park, um, so many people have spent so many hours, so much of their time in that park, and enjoyed themselves in the park. And there at the back of the park sits that grand old building, Kempston Grange, built as I said, in 1845. There's a ha-ha, an unusual ha-ha that goes around it, which is basically a raised um portion of ground with a ditch to keep the animals which were grazing at one time in the farmland, which is now the park, off the lawn of the of the building. Yeah, and I mean the building, you know, when you look at the original inventory, you know, it had a billiard room, it had a a drawing room, a library, it had servants' quarters, all kinds of things going on there, and it had a wine cellar as well. And this is the the issue because if anybody goes to see Kempston Grange now and knows what it was like at one point, then their hearts will sink. We know that. It's not the building it was, it's not been returned in any way, shape, or form to the grand building it was with the lovely porch over the bay windows and things like that. It looks very plain now, the way it's been left. And um yeah, it's pretty sad really. And the reason why and the reason why it's uh looks like that is because um well I I I remember seeing um when I walked around the front one day a little crack in one of the windowsills, and um and when I looked at it the ne the next time it was bigger, and so I reported it, and that was a pet I and I remember that I think that was nine eight uh sorry eighty two thousand and nine. Right, and then it got bigger still and nothing got done, reported it again, and before we knew it, there were cracks appearing in the drawing room in the front by the bay windows, right? And these were the considerable cracks, and basically what was happening was we found out later on that the the building at the front was slipping into the hidden wine cellar.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Well, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

So we had to bring in specialist surveyors, and they did bring they bought a chap back from retirement who knew something about specialist buildings. Uh I remember the guy's name, but then they brought in somebody else as well from an outside company uh to make the decision on how the building could be kept upright. So they basically did some emergency work to sort of like keep it from falling down. Everybody got moved out so it didn't fall down around them, and then um yeah, uh, but it's a bit sad the way they've left it. Yeah, it is okay. So that's that's the that's the Grange. We talked about um you know the manor. Yep, that should go in there, just uh uh you know the manor house down um by the river. Uh said before there was a medieval manor house there originally, and then um the berry, Kempston Berry, right, up on the hill just uh uh down on Cemetery Road.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Uh that's been converted into flats, so that's right, because originally when that development was proposed, they was going to pull that down, I think.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Well, this is it, yeah. I mean, that's not the original berry. Um there was a berry there before that, um, but that was demolished in 1857, and they found underneath the berry a lot of artifacts, including they found a you know, they found a skeleton for start uh uh underneath the stone steps, so that gave rise to another ghost story about Dr. John Cater, yeah, who went missing, and that under mysterious circumstances, and then there was um and then there was another uh you know uh at the at the berry um they found um sorry Sax Saxon remains there as well. So they found Saxon artifacts that they dug you know that were dug up there and they ended up in the British Museum. Of course, up the road at Sainsbury's, as we know, that's called the Saxon Centre because they found the Saxon burial ground and found some stuff, but they also found it's all over the place, Saxon stuff in Kempston. And um, yeah, in fact, um I found out since we last spoke there's actually some Saxon artefacts in Queensland Museum in Australia that were found in Kempston, and that's an amber bracelet, so amber in those days was very much a precious end. Yeah, I know, and this this is annotated as being discovered in Kempston, Bedfordshire, and it's um yeah, an amber bracelet, and as I said before, you know, that's that that was a treasure, that was that was a high-ranking Saxon person, yeah, at the time. As Saxon novel, yeah, indeed. So that's um so the berry, yeah, 1857 that was knocked down, and now we've got the berry that was there, and that's been converted, as you say, into apartments. It was due for demol demolition, but it sits there now amongst some buildings of modern design, you know, and stuff like that. Yeah, of course there's ghost stories uh associated with the berry as well. So yeah, goodness, yeah. Help the people who live there now, you know, if they want to get in touch and say, Oh, you know, this is happening here and that's happening here, you know, they didn't tell us this when we bought the place.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Oh no, that weren't on the sale.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Well, I'm afraid they won't, but I can you know there's there's there's a couple of ghost stories about the the berry, yeah. Yeah, and then uh so we've got those. We've so we've so far then we'll have a recap. We've got the the church, the old church, we've we've got the barracks, we've got the berry, we've got the Grange, we've got the manor and Kempston Who. Now Kempston Who um what people call you know the area occupied now by Eugester Avenue and Dipmas Avenue, Durler Avenue, Deacon Avenue, Barnard Avenue, Lodge Avenue, they call that the Who Estate. And the reason why it's called the Who Estate is because there before it stood Kempston Who. This was built at the same year, actually, in the same year as Kempston Grange, 1845, by a guy called Talbot Barnard. He was um of high, he was the if you like, one of the the directors of a very, very important insurance company at the time, a very wealthy guy, and he built this this grand um Gothic building. Now, if you've ever seen the classic photograph of the Grange in uh sorry, the of the Who in all its glory, then it's an amazing building, it truly, truly is. There's only three uh photographs that actually um Survive of this. One is that great picture that's on the the archive, the um the county archive of the building its glory as I say. Then there's one of it in the background with the Oakley hunt in the foreground. Then there's one photograph I've got in my collection that I've never seen outside of that, which is um the where it sits actually in the position of the new housing estate before it was demolished.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Up the drive. So yeah, but uh so this was a fantastic building. I mean it had you know, I think something like um eight bedrooms, I believe, or maybe more, but it certainly had you know everything you get from a house of that size, so drawing room, games room, you know, servants quarters, the butler's room was upstairs, for instance, so they had a butler there as well, so fabulous, and an amazing Victorian um conservatory on the side and stuff like that. But unfortunately, it all fell to ruin when um after the balloon disaster of 1926 that you mentioned briefly, you know. Yeah, um, so I won't go into great detail, but they you know they had a fabulous what's names, fair and uh flower show there in July of 26, and um in the middle of it they had a great balloon uh from um Spencers and Sons, and it was um and it went up on a on a wire, if you like, and gave people rides, and then they they drew it in on the wire and gave more people rides and stuff, and they paid two shillings to get on for a ride. But on the on the third time that it went up, the the net that was holding it to the wire, etc., so it wouldn't float off into the atmosphere stratosphere or whatever, um uh yeah, the the net slipped and then it crashed the ground and it killed the people in the balloon. Now, the guy at the time who uh who owned the Grange was a sorry again uh owned the Who was a chap called um Colonel Thomas Hughster. So this is where Eugster Avenue comes from. Yeah. And um Colonel Thomas Eugster, yeah, he was so upset about this, it really didn't, you know, it you know, it never left him and he left the Grange. The I keep saying the Grange, don't I? The Who? Yeah, the Who, and uh and it fell into rack and ruin and then it was demolished. The sad thing is it was demolished just around a hundred years after it was built, you know, that fabulous building. But it's as I say, now it's the Who Estate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there we are, that's six. Um no, that's the seven, but actually, but um I'll I'll I'll throw in a few contenders, alright?

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Right, hang on a second then because I I think what we do, we'll take a quick break, David, and then we're gonna come back with the contenders. I want to bring up a bit of local history uh and uh that's not a building, but it's somewhat within a building, and uh I want to hear a little bit about how the the ghost walk, because we every building we mentioned there could be a ghost store about, and I want to talk a bit about the uh the the ghost walk itself. So we'll have a quick break now and then we'll come back. We'll be back soon, folks.