3. JACK WELFORD

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Mr Welford told me a little about his past and the trade over several conversations. Any mistakes are errors on my part.

"Gardner's father was a large huffy fellow much worn out. It was his wife who kept things going. I never thought when I passed them on Hardwick Hill that one day I would take over the business. I came down to Cropredy in 1950."

Mr Welford took an active part in Cropredy and served on the Parish Council. He was also the Chairman for the British Legion for North Oxon. In 1984 he kindly showed me around the Bakehouse and yard.

" The first thing I did was to take off the old thatch roof and put on a tile one. I think that was the best thing I ever done. Taking the thatch off. Always expensive as the insurance was so high. It was two or three times the normal because of the thatch and because it was a bakery. Over the bakehouse was always slated and the kitchen.

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Godson's added the veranda out the back. It connects the kitchen with the house. We kept the toilet outside, but put a bath in the kitchen. The water we pump up daily to a tank with an electric pump, which is operated from the kitchen. We did have College water, it came up through the gardens behind. The tap is still down there but cut off. It wasn't very reliable, though it didn't run dry. That was lovely water. We had a stopcock outside by the shed. We cut that off when they said they couldn't guarantee a supply. I have a well and I pump that out several times a day. We also have another well in the garden. The well and a tank that fills straight from the rainwater into a tank in the yard keep us supplied. The rainwater runs down into the tank and can then be pumped up to the storage tank over the kitchen. Then the mains water comes into a meter through the front kitchen wall.

If you look at the front of the house you can see by the gatehouse double doors that the house once stopped here. The part by the gatehouse was done later. The west end, the kitchen, has brick which matches the brick over the bakehouse. Long before planning people that! You see the ground floor is stone and has wooden lintels. Can you see we used to have shutters? On the bakehouse windows. One here and one there. They turned round. Open and then kept them back with that metal. Those other four metal pieces up there are what was put there by Hovis when they had a Hovis sign up. To hold it in place. Big metal sign. "Hovis" up on that. But when was it? They came round and wouldn't pay the insurance on it and asked if I wanted it left. So I said 'If your not paying the insurance you can take it away. They know I have Hovis and then who is going to see the sign? They wont see it anywhere but up the drive opposite! Take the metal away.' So they took it down. I wasn't prepared to pay the insurance for something nobody could see. It was only insured in case it blew off and hit anybody. Yes. See Hovis used to pay it. It was metal. No other signs, no.

If you see the Church Rooms must have been built after the bakehouse roof was raised, because it comes over this way. My van used to block the Lane! So they dropped the kerb opposite to allow people to get past easier. To get into the gatehouse I used to have to back up the drive opposite. There were no gates then.

We sold pig food and kept a pig down the garden. Once the pigs had been killed they were hung from that hook on the cart shed beam. You couldn't keep much up there due to the rats. Mice would come into the house but not rats. We had to put poison down.

The oven? You can come and look now." He led the way into the bakehouse through a door from the gatehouse. "Godson's put the oven in. Walls of brick and an asbestos roof. Coke kept it in. This line on the floor is where the old oven came up to. They kept the coal and the faggots here to the right of the oven. The oven door would be here and you would have here your fireplace and you have a damper over that side. When you pull the damper the heat went right round the oven and then up there.

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In front of the oven we had a table under the (east) window and a cupboard used to stand opposite under the other window (west). On the oven side of the cupboard there was a small table to keep the tins on. We used to take the bread out and put them on the first table before putting them on the racks out there, next to the gatehouse double doors. You had to grease the tins while they were warm. You couldn't do them when they had cooled Well it would take up too much grease. Tins would get so cold in the winter, they more or less generally done as they come out of the oven, before they cool down.

That oven it says came from S. A. Rhodes Ltd Ardwick, Manchester. That was the temperature control that side. Turn inside and in there the fire down there. The hot air channelled round and come up there and round about, then finally up the chimney at the back! Open the damper well back at the side. The heat coming round actually kept the coke going. It was expensive. Cokes dear and the last ten years it went right up. It gets very hot under this low ceiling and you had to keep the windows and door open.

I'll show you the stoke hole. You have to go outside to reach it round the back of the oven. The door here opens out and there are steps down to the stoke hole for it is below ground level. The only light is from that window (south). A shelf there beneath the window holds the coke so that you can shovel into the boiler opposite. Coke. Fireplace and that's the fan. The air comes in there see, and is fanned through by opening and shutting this. You have to clean the thing out a lot. Worst job of the lot. When they installed the oven the builders put up this building. Since then its subsided. This stoke hole used to fill up with rain. Well it still does. Built below ground level in 1948. I didn't know the place then. Cause I used to see old Mr William Godson, not Gardner, but his father, delivering bread as I went to school, coming along the main road as far as the railway bridge by the Alcan. That first oven he had had the chimney in the main roof. This chimney grew unsafe and I've had to take it down.

Old Mr Godson he used to have a horse and come into this yard with his cart. There are two stables and a loft above. The wood inside is going rotten especially that far end under the galvanised roof."

Did you use electric mixers?

"In the bakehouse we had two. One stood in that back part under the window and the other by the front wall. The old dough kiver stood there once. Its now in the stable. The mixers were electric. I sold one to the potter at Constone the others awaiting execution in the shed! Up there in the flour loft they built a shoot to bring the flour down to the mixer. Half a sack to fill the machine. Flour was put up there by the miller, when the bags were 140 lbs instead of 100. In the old days it used to be 280 lb bags, then 140 and then in later years they started on paper bags like these potato bags, that size. They would open the loft street windows for they had a crafty way. They stood on the top of the lorry and threw it through, one man in, one out. They threw it through the window. The lorry drove up. They stacked it up there.

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How much per load? Ooh ooh! We used to have to depend on the price you see. So we would gauge it. If the price of flour was going up, you'd pay, enquire of the orders so you wouldn't have to, if it was dear, have it. If it was going to drop you didn't get much.

Yeast was bought in Banbury along Church Lane until that closed down. Yeast come once a week. Then that closed and after that it got difficult. Supplies dried up, but in the end I finished up getting it from Fine Lady Bakeries. They got a lot and I had mine from there. Baking was always hard work. Godson had it from his father. Well me father was a baker. I started with him. He had it from his uncle in Buckinghamshire, then he went to Canada. He was a cook in the army, then after the first world war come out and bought a business at Mollington and that's where my sister lives. Ah no its the same as this redundant. Then of course I joined the army as a baker. I thought I should break away a bit, but I wasn't so much with the people as with supplies and other feed stuffs. When I came out of the army the pension wasn't big enough. I worked for one of the combines until I got fed up with them. Then I heard about Mr Godson giving up through illness so I came here and saw the place. That's how it is. Came here in 1950 and closed 10 years ago in 1974."

l. Plan of Bakehouse. T = Table, C = Cupboard

 

2. Ground floor plan of Bakehouse. P = Parlour, B = Buttery, H = House, K = Kitchen

 

3. First floor plan of Bakehouse..