Roddy Miller remembers life at J K Kings, Coggeshall
Plan Of JK KINGS YARD
1. – 4. Orchard Cottages.
Once called Factory Cottages they had been built for the silk factory workers c 1837. JK King refurbished them in March 1934, which is when the Crittall windows must have been fitted and demolished in the 1970's when a warehouse was built on the site.
1. – 3. Kings Acre
Built in c1957 and demolished in the late 1980’s.
5. The Cricketers public house
6. Sack Warehouse of galvanised sheets
7. Grass Warehouse, clapboard
8. Garage And Workshop
9. Sheds (used by the Barnetts)
10. JK Kings original offices
11. Seed Treatment and Grain Warehouse
12. Drying Silo (40m or so high)
13. Bean Warehouse
14. (Now marked on plan)
15. Pea Warehouse and Small Seeds
16. Orchard House ( new offices)
17. The “Ha_Ha”
18. “Cave” In ha-ha bank (possibly site of well?)
19. Doorway in wall
20. Old Water Gates for flood control
21. Trial Grounds
Rod aged 6 months with his father outside Orchard Cottages, and in the Trial grounds in the 1950's. St Peter's Hall in the distance.
J.K.Kings Yard, West Street, Coggeshall – recalled by Roderick Miller, 2018
Orchard Cottages. The Miller family, Christopher, Marguerite, Roderick, Stephen and cat Wiggy all lived at No.2 Orchard Cottages in Kings Yard. These were a row of four terraced houses brick built and slate roofed, two up two down. Metal window frames. I was born in 1950, Stephen in 1951. We lived there until about 1957 when 3 new houses were built across the yard (called 1, 2 and 3, Kings Acre) In No.1 were the Potters Isaac (Ikey) Alice(?) both of whom were well into their 70's in the 1950's. With them lived their daughter Margery and son Geoff who were then into their late 40's Geoff worked as a Company Secretary(?) at Crittals and became an officer during the WW2. I think he was overseas in India for part thereof. Neither married. Geoff and Margery moved to a council flat in Walford Way(?) in the 1960's after the death of their parents. Issac had worked for J K Kings for years. Both are now deceased. In No.2 were the Millers in No.3 was Frank Ruggles who was into his 70's. Frank had played football for Cog and one season let in one single goal and was so incensed he chased the scorer trying to kick his bum! He had a series of large stones on his bedroom widow sill which he would use to drop on the heads of intruders. Frank narrowly missed my dad after he came home late from the Cricketers one night. Frank died there in about 1960. In No.4 was Les and Violet and daughter Patricia. Pat still lives in Coggeshall Les Perkins was a King's lorry driver. The Potters house was a little bigger than the rest (the old foreman’s house?) and it had an outside toilet. The rest had a WC’s built as an add-on off the rear door. The cottages were very small. Downstairs was a room about 12ft x 10ft with a front door with a very small fireplace and a kitchen even smaller off that. It had a deep stoneware sink, a cold water tap, a small inbuilt cupboard as a pantry, a cast iron solid fuel range, again very small. Two adults and the kitchen was full - no table space and a small coal cupboard under the stairs, which twisted upwards to two small bedrooms. Electric lighting but no heating, no hot water and no bath. A bath was in a tin bath in front of the fire, hot water was brought in from the kitchen range. All clothes were hand washed – no refrigerator. Newspaper for toilet paper as was the norm for many working class families just after the War. Rationing was still in force to a large degree until 1956. Mum did insist on proper toilet paper for female use. Brother Steve, neighbour Pat Perkins and I have a memory of an old hand pump for water but none of us can recall where it was located. I think it may have been either in front of Frank Ruggles so all Cottages could use it or by the return end of the wall of the Potters nearly opposite the Pea Warehouse wall. There was a trough with a water tap there. Nos 2,3, and 4 all had a continuous tiled lean-to at the rear of the cottages supported by cast metal posts painted a deep blue in which King's stored beans, faggots and the like. Only No.1 had a garden, surrounded on two sides by a brick wall of London clay bricks. (A yellowish colour) The Potters kept a few chooks in their patch.
Crouch’s Lane was the border of the land, a brick wall ran from the Quakers graveyard right down to Robins Brook. The western side fence abutting Kings was made from iron sheeting with the top edge cut into points and was painted green. This area contained a large pear tree and some greengage trees, which Steve and I defended from other kids nicking the fruit. It was ours!
The New Houses. The 'New' houses were built around 1957/58. They became 1-3, Kings Acre which was named by Mother, Marguerite Miller. When we moved to the new house the postman Mr Shepherd wanted a new address so Mum decided on Kings Acre and it stuck to this day. In No.1 was Eric King and wife and son Derek (they were no relation to J K Kings). Eric was Company Secretary. Derek was about 4 years older than me. They had a detached house and garage but internally all were the same. My family, the Millers, were in No.2 and the Perkins were in No.3. Frank Ruggles continued to live in the “old” No.3 (Orchard Cottages) until he died there and No.1 was still being used by other employees. Where the back brick wall behind the new No.2 takes a small dog-leg I had a pigeon loft. The New houses had a small lounge, a dining room, kitchen, hot AND cold water! Electric oven. Upstairs were two double beds a single bedroom above front door, a bath and toilet. Outside was a toilet, a coal shed and a small work shed. The vegetable garden ran some 20m x 8m wide down to the back wall. There was a fireplace in the front and the back rooms. Luxury. Now when I were a lad……………!!!!!. Outside the boundary wall behind King’s Acre, was the land once owned by a Mr Chaplin. He used this land intensively for fruit and vegetables and fowls which I think he may have sold off to local shops. Anyway I had asked him if he knew anything of the peculiar nails I was finding in the wall and he told me that the wall extending from the Quakers graveyard to behind the warehouses, was once used as an orchard area (Hence Orchard House??) Peaches and plums etc were grow against this wall and espaliered as the wall retained heat and soft fruits grew well. This would account for the unusual nails that I found in the wall - they had flat bodies with a head for smiting and a small hook extending from the shaft of the nail to which to tie on ties to train the tree.
Buildings The Sack Warehouse (6). Here a Mr ‘Tich’ Brettle mended jute sacks at a bench. He had been gassed in WW1 and wheezed all day. It also had a hopper which dried and treated grain which was sacked and stored there. It was on brick piles and made of iron sheets and painted a pale green. It had steps left and right going up to a wooden loading platform. The Grass seed warehouse (7) was clapboard with a covered ramp joining the two warehouses. The door was on rollers. This was also built on brick piles. The space in between the Grass Warehouse and the Lorry Garage (8) was used as an allotment and had two Cox’s Orange Pippin trees and against the rear wall a greengage tree. At the wall return was an old doorway, which gave access to the rear of the Chapel. Most of this area was later built over with a new large warehouse c1962. There were two small lock up sheds (9) used by the Barnetts for their goods. The original Kings offices (10) were on the main road outside. The old brick building (11) was the main storage for grain, two or three stories high, the lower floor was the fungicide treatment area. The grain was basically blow dried and riddled and dusted with fungicide and insect powders No protection for the men working there. Everything was in sacks, those of beans were larger than barley or oats or wheat (B O W). The sacks were 112 pounds/one hundredweight/1 cwt, and string tied. After a season of tying up the men's hands would crack open as the string had to be pulled hard to make the neck of the sack tight and not lose grain. Pinky Prentice the chemist would make up a pink lotion to stop the cracks on hands and finger from weeping.
All were connected to the large 40m or so tall, camouflaged Silo which on the other side was also connected to the brick, two-storied Bean Warehouse (13). A surviving bit of the old silk mill (15). At the eastern end of this which was single storey was the peas sorting machine and pea storage. This connected to the main Warehouse which was on two floors. Underneath was the cane store and seed tray making area. Mrs Newman was the main worker there on piece-rate, and did she scrap! Above was the small seeds office run by Percy Rayner. This had a connection to Orchard House (16) which was the Main office. Kings bought Orchard house from the Goddens for their offices which were previously in West St. Mother was employed there doing clerical work after leaving Braintree High School as her father could not afford to keep her without a wage coming in. She met Dad there and married mid 1948. Mr Godden had an old open, British racing Green, Bentley with a Leather belt across the bonnet, a huge motor would be worth a fortune now.
Mysterious Stones At Orchard Cottages, in a corner of the wall by the Potters was a large black rough surfaced stone with a small depression in the top. Great for marbles! I have wondered about this as by the silo and by the Sack Warehouse were two other large flat stones about 1.5m square x .5m high of a tan colour and very hard. Nothing else I have seen in or around Cog matches it. (Old markers stones?) Now I come to think of it, I remember that there was another large stone against the wall down by the West Street facing Warehouse it was again about a 1m long x .4m deep and just under 1m wide. That makes three of the same type and similar size together with a pudding stone and the most peculiar black stone in Orchard Cottages. I have not seen similar stones anywhere around Cog and as a kid I did look. I have wondered if they were some form of markers. I think that many years ago places where boundaries (& parishes ???) met were often so marked and if several boundaries met at one point then that area of conjunction was regarded as a 'Special place'. Perhaps I was influenced by the stories of Ley lines and the like. The pudding stone by the Potters was also sited against the wall to stop carts and lorries from clouting it. On the returns of the wall around Potters place were large white stone balls on which I lost part of my front tooth I later rolled this into the brook by the old water gate that Mr Baines from the rectory used to control the water levels.
View across the trial grounds with the old silk mill wall on the left and the wall along the Crouch's footpath in front. Highfields Farm is just visible in the distance.
The Trial Grounds. These were used for the production and testing various seeds. Everything from squashes, pumpkins, beans, peas, marrow flowers and more. A small warehouse was later built between the ‘ha-ha’ and wall for garden accessories (not on map). The Trial Grounds sloped away from the ‘New’ houses down to the old wall (19). I suppose the drop was 2m over the length of the Trial Ground. About 10m east of the wall there was a fairly steep drop off of about 1.5m making a distinct bank. On this grew blue and white violets and primroses. [this was probably the remains of the east wall of the silk factory demolished after the 1920 fire]. In the bank at its midway point was a small cave only a couple of meter deep with an entrance of about .75m wide, internally roofed of bricks. Methinks it may have been an infilled well or similar. [This probably also relates to the old factory). A wall ran the width of the Trial ground and there was a double door painted the same blue as the support posts of the Cottages lean to. There must have been windows in it but these were all bricked in. (This was west wall of the silk mill retained as a garden wall].
Robin’s Brook was the scene of catching eels, loaches, minnows, sticklebacks, the odd duck and moorhens nests. There was an old weir here that Mr Baines from the adjoining Old Rectory used to work to release or dam flood-water, now in a very dilapidated state. I rolled a big white ornamental stone ball in the brook here. This came from the wall surrounding part of No 1 Orchard Cottages after I had broken part of my front tooth on it. I was then about seven. I bet it is still there!
Life in the Yard . Kings Yard was, looking back, full of birds and animals; toads, frogs, the odd partridge, jackdaws, tits, nightingales, pigeons, sparrows, woodpeckers, thrushes, hedgehogs, grass snakes, and slow worms to name but a few. Of course there were rats. I could get 6 old pence a tail for a rat from the Nicholls. I had a catapult then a .177 air rifle and I could make a fair amount a week! I would get some tinned cat food and lay it near some rat runs in a warehouse then sit up among the sacks. It was fairly dark and I had a torch with some red cellophane over the light which rats could not detect. Out they would come and I would knock them off. We had a ginger cat called Wiggy who was a Master Ratter. John ‘Dubber’ Shepherd counted Wiggy with over 20 rats in a week. Wiggy would catch a rat and then parade around with it as if he was showing off. Gruff old John Nicholls director/CEO was about to give dictation one day and walked into his office with his secretary. Wiggy was on his seat behind his desk near the radiator. Nichols picks up his chair, cat and all, and moves it to the radiator and gets himself another chair. Wiggy was a favourite with the female staff and they made sure he never went hungry. Quite often in summer all the families plus any visitors would all gather and play cricket in the yard on a Sunday afternoon. I can recall about 18 (kids and adults) all playing. If I got out and I did not think I was, then I would find Wiggy, pick him up and sulk. I disliked getting out, something that remained with me all my cricket playing days! In the grounds of Orchard House was a very large tree, which we called a Cotton Tree, as it shed wisps of white stuff all over the place. Up to 25 pairs of rooks used to nest in it. The tree was cut down in the mid 60’s. In Gurton’s Yard there were also several elms, which also accommodated lots of Rooks. [Gurtons yard was across West Street on the Gravel, Mr Gurton was a building contractor]
Some of the Workers at JK King’s; Rosemary Potter is still in Robinsbridge Rd now in her 80’s, Sally Heard - I went to St Peters with her, Roy Mann, Larry Bristow, George Heard (Sally’s dad) from the Hamlet, Les Perkins, John Moyce, Pat Boon, Alf Willsher, Percy Rayner, Bill Bailey, Jack Bowers, Roger Heard(?), Robbie Cowlin, Chris Miller, Tich Brettle.
Some of the practices for cultivation of trial seed were very old, hand hoeing and scarfing - the term used for the process of weeding the soil. Jack Bowers would use a little hand pushed rotary tiller which went down about 3 inches in the soil Two handles rather like those of a horse drawn plough and a wheel with small blades entering the ground to cut roots below the soil.
It was at JK Kings that I last saw flails being used to husk beans and the like. Jack Bowers would pay me to get him some eel skins, which he used to attach the stick-and-a-half as a swingle. If you used one for the first time you had to; ‘be careful ‘cos do you don’t ut’ll fetch you a clout across the side of the skull with the half stick boy”.
After the Essex Show the men would help bring down the King’s Hospitality tent and clean up. This would be a Sunday. So all the spare booze and food would be collected and brought back. A little ‘den’ would be made among the sacks in a warehouse and a tarp laid out at the base of this den. All the food would come out and it was top rate stuff, no crap. The booze would be drunk and they would start playing Poker dice to divvy up the remaining left-overs. There were some sore heads the next day.
Writing of sore heads; Moxey, the butcher in East Street, killed stock on the premises. He had a party there one Saturday night and the next day I was awoken early to find a steer in our back garden. Eventually at around 6am we woke Moxey to see if it was his. It was. Someone had let it out and it somehow found its way into Kings Yard. So there we were, The Millers, Moxey and his well-oiled mates, trying to drive a scared steer past the Cricketers, the Post Office, back to his shop. Hell of a job!
Comments
By Jennifer (was Gurton): I also worked at John K Kings and Sally Heard is still a great friend of mine. By David Clark: I remember one school holiday working in the seed tray making shed. On the first day I got stuck in, hammering nails and being left handed, was the butt of a joke by the men there. I will always remember how much they laughed when I responded to the comment 'There are left handed hammers over there' by going to look for one!!! By Jennifer Cole (nee Gurton): I lived at 11, West Street and my Dads' builders yard was what is now Culvert Close (awful name)! and the little park/seating area on the corner of The Gravel and West Street. Roddy mentioned the trees in this yard, which were actually lime trees and, yes, there were always rooks nesting in them in the Spring. I'm pleased to say that Gurton Road was named after my Dad, as his company Gurton Bros Ltd., built the Honywood Estate!!
When I worked at John K. King's I was a secretary. I enjoyed the 7-8 years I spent working there before I left to bring up a family. Other girls working there at the same time were Sally, June, Betty, Shirley, Edna, two Margarets, Joyce and Christine.
I also attended St. Peter's Primary School and I was in the 'country dancing' team with my friend Moira Hammond, whose parents had a milk round in the village. Our partners then were Keith Staines and Malcolm Reeve. I still have the original St. Peter's school badge from my blazer! By Rod Miller: Jennifer Hi Malcolm Reeve is in Essex still I think Michael Staines is/was in Sydney I tried to contact him there about 5 years ago when I was there without success I think He and I played cricket for Cog back in the early Sixties. Was it Mr Frost that got you into Country Dancing? I met Linda Simmons as was in Sydney a coup;e of years back Had not seen her since 1961 Her first words 'You were my Country Dancing Partner at school'! Take care By via Trevor Disley: Francis Nicholls tells me that the management usually knew when a a party was being organised in one of the warehouses and even spotted the odd half bottle of rum being smuggled in, but diplomatically chose not to notice. By Brian Heard: George heard is my uncle and sally my cousin.havent been to coggeshall since early 80's but have fond memories By Peter Mudd: It was great to read this article by Roddy. I was in the same class at St Peter's as Roddy, Sally Heard, Linda Simons and Trevor. Rod may remember cycling out to Scrips near Coggeshall Hamlet to collect some really good conkers one year. I now live in Wales and have not been back to Coggeshall in many years, but I certainly remember the J K and E W King properties. Jennifer probably remembers my brother Anthony (now sadly dead) rather than me. It is good to hear about everyone. By Deborah Harper: Really enjoyed reading this from Roderick Miller - my family and I live in Coggeshall and have done for many years, but not looked too closely at its wonderful history. Particularly interested in the silk mill please, Orchards house, Kings Acre - if you have any more information and pictures, my family and I would love to learn more please. By Mike King: I started working in 1982 aged 17 for the horticulture division but also worked on the seed side doing the Borage.
We moved to Earls Colne industrial estate the the seed side was closed. George Heard, Dick Ketley and Les Perkins move out of kings acre at that time. By Brian Heard: Are sally susan and lawrence heard still living in coggeshall/earls colne By Colin Willsher: Hi Rod. Yes, I remember your father. I am Alf Willsher's son and I still live in the area. Dad died on 10th December 1973 on his way home from work for his dinner. Ivan Boon, who he worked with, brought his bike home after he had been taken to hospital; sadly by the time my mother and I got to Essex County Hospital he had died. We lived in Paycocke Way; I married in 1975 and left home to live in Marks Tey but our family has subsequently moved on. My mother died in 1984. I remember my father's time at Kings quite vividly. I visited him on site several times and he would take me upstairs to show me the gravity feed hoppers and the chain hoist for lifting sacks to the top of the building. I think he said the weight was about a bushel and a half (twelve stone I believe) - I can remember the sack barrows that I sometimes got to ride on! There was a weighing machine in the building and he would weigh me on it. I remember some of the drivers too such as Roy Mann. On occasions I would get a ride out in the lorry and remember visiting Ipswich docks, Southend and one memorable visit into Sussex. I think Arthur Taylor was assistant on that run. I see that Jennifer Gurton as she then was, has left a message. I remember Jennifer as we were both in the same class at Coggeshall Secondary Modern. She mentions Keith Staines who lived next to the school and who I went to Braintree College with but subsequently I have lost touch with classmates from that time. I came across your record of the business whilst researching family ancestors. I am glad to see someone has taken the time to leave a permanent record. I lost touch with what had happened to the business after my mother died but now is a time to reflect and the memories come flooding back especially as my father will now have been dead for almost forty eight years but to me it seems just a moment ago. By Brian Heard: My grandfather Richard Heard lived in coggeshall with his 5 sons are there any Heards living in village By Roddy Miller: Alf Willsher I do recall his unique laugh He would take his right elbow in the palm of his left hand clench his fist and extend his little right hand finger This he placed near his right eye His laugh was was an extended "Haaaaaaaaaa" He got into a bit of strife when the chain hoist in his warehouse broke and a 112 pd sack of wheat came hurtling down 3 flights just missing Ivan Boon The chain links had worn through and that was not picked up or safety checked Alf worked for EW King before J K Kings Alf was always pointing out the field that was abutting the road in Kelvedon on the right hand side. He had dug the whole field with a spade by hand to remove twitch etc. The drivers would often take my racing pigeons when they had a long trip and release them for a training flight By the bye there is a St Peters whole of school photo 1957 in the Coggy Museum with as many names as can be found Check it out You may be able to fill in some gaps!