Pettaugh
History
Society
In history, as in life, truth is everything.
THE DOMESDAY BOOK
Pettaugh is named ‘Petehaga’ in the Domesday Book of 1086, more precisely in a separate volume, Little Domesday Book, which covered Suffolk, Norfolk, and Essex.
The information in this article has been extracted from ‘Domesday Book, Suffolk; volume 34’ (Ed. Rumble) which was translated from original documents.
The introductory section explains that in 1085 King William sent out commissioners all over England to each shire to record in extraordinary detail how much each landowner held, both then and before 1066, how many ‘hides’ (unit of land approximately 120 acres), ploughs, villagers, cottagers, slaves, free men, and how much woodland, meadow and pasture. The information was collected, copied and abridged by one scribe into a single volume now known as Domesday Book Volume I. This task of copying and editing, by omitting details of livestock and the population, was not completed when William died. All the remaining returns for Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex were copied unabridged into a second volume, the Domesday Book Volume II, commonly known as the Little Domesday Book. As it has not been edited or abridged, the second volume therefore contains much more information than the first volume.
Villages were grouped in administrative districts known as ‘Hundreds’, which formed regions within the shires or counties as they are known today. Most of the population lived in villages which consisted of houses clustered around a central area or were dispersed on the margins of farm fields in a ribbon-like fashion along the footpaths and lanes which linked villages.
The name Petehaga, as recorded in the Domesday Book, is thought to be derived from ‘Peota’ and ‘haga’. There have been many variations in the spelling of the village name over the centuries, and other variants included Pethaga, Pethag, Pethage, Pethagh, Pethaghe, Pethale, Pethanger, Pethaugh, Pethawe, Pethaye, Pethlige, Pettawgh, Peto, Petta, Pettehaga, Pettehawe, Petteshaghe, and Petthall, as well as the more modern Pettaugh. Haga, later ‘haugh’, refers to an enclosure formed by a bank or hedge. Thus, Petehaga was Peota’s enclosure.
Settlements surrounding Pettaugh were also mentioned in the Domesday Book. Winston lies to the north, Crowfield to the south-west, Framsden to the east and Stonham Aspal to the west, with Helmingham to the south-east.
In his book, Podd mentions the ‘lost’ Domesday settlement of Manwic or Manuuic. Manwic, a holding of nearly 200 acres, was probably situated within the north-eastern boundary of the present parish of Pettaugh. It may have been an earlier settlement than Pettaugh, but when Pettaugh acquired its church it is postulated that Manwic was eclipsed by the settlement of Pettaugh in the Middle Ages and disappeared as a separate entity.
Petehaga is mentioned in three sections in the Little Domesday Book, corresponding to the three landowners who were the Bishop of Bayeux, the Abbot of Ely, and Hervey of Bourges.
The Bishop of Bayeux who owned large tracts of land in East Anglia was also known as Odo and was the half-brother of William the Conqueror. Hervey De Bourges was another Norman who fought alongside William in 1066 and was rewarded with land in Suffolk. The Abbot of Ely was the head of the abbey founded by St Etheldreda.
Of the land owned by the Bishop of Bayeux, a Freeman named Siward had five acres, valued at 2 shillings. A Freeman named Thorkell had 20 acres of the land belonging to the Abbot of Ely and there was also a 1 acre meadow, a villager and a ½ plough, valued at 5 shillings.
Hervey of Bourges owned land in the Claydon Hundred which included Pettaugh and it was here that Brictwold held Pettaugh in lordship with 1 ‘carucate’ of land and 30 acres as a manor; ‘carucate’ was a unit of Danelaw land measurement with a fiscal value equivalent to about 120 acres.
There were 5 smallholders and 1 plough, a 3-acre meadow with 1 cob, 1 cow, 8 pigs and 20 sheep, all valued at 40 shillings. There were also 5 free men under patronage with 18 acres and 1 plough.
There was a church with 2½ acres, value 5 shillings; this was at revenue for £3 15 shillings, ‘but the men were thereby ruined and now it is assessed at 45 shillings’.
The land was a league (about 3 miles) in length and a furlong (about ⅛ mile) wide.
The population of Pettaugh at the time of the Domesday Book is not known precisely as a count of all the people, including women and children, in a settlement was not performed. In Pettaugh the number of named individuals, freemen, small holders and villagers was given as 14. Assuming that each of these had a wife and three children on average, this would have given a population count of 70, but this must be regarded as an approximation.
14TH TO 19TH CENTURIES
In 1327 it was recorded that there were 45 taxpayers but this figure included Framsden. In 1524 there were 11 taxpayers in Pettaugh while in 1608 there were 68 adults and in 1674 there were 23 households. The 1706 Pettaugh glebe terrier informs that ‘we have about 30 persons in our parish above 16 years of age and but one dissenter, and he of the Presbyterian persuasion. We have no Roman Catholicks.’ As there were different methods of recording the populations in these various records it is difficult to compare the data. From 1801 onwards, there was more systematic recording of the population. In 1801 the population was 204, 284 in 1831, followed in successive decades by 289, 288, 261, 240, 196, and 221 in 1891. The first census in the 20th century showed that Pettaugh had a population of 201 individuals living in 47 dwellings.
The History continued
IINTRODUCTION
The Pettaugh History Society has built up a substantial database of historical evidence from 1930 onwards, based on the oral testimonies of people who spent the years of their childhood and youth in the village. The 2009 publication, ‘Pettaugh Preserved’ provided an illustrated account of these years from 1930 to 1960.
The present article provides a brief review of the earlier history of Pettaugh up to the end of the 19th century. Census records from 1841 and other documents provide information about Victorian times. Knowledge about the village before this is based on parish records dating from 1688 and other records, available from the Suffolk Record Office. The parish records were used by Barton Tucker to compile ‘A short history of Pettaugh’. Barton was the youngest son of the rector in Victorian times, the Reverend J K Tucker. His short history was published in eight parts in the ‘Ipswich Journal’ and the first part was dated 2nd December 1889, with the final part written in the early part of 1890. It has been used as the basis for parts of this article.
A major source of information has been a comprehensive historical survey of Pettaugh compiled by Stephen Podd (‘Deben Valley Place Names: Pettaugh’) and he has kindly reviewed this article. We are also greatly indebted to Alan Page who has given most freely of his time to share with us his vast store of memories of Pettaugh. If errors are discovered by readers of this article, or if anyone’s work has been quoted and inadvertently not acknowledged, we would be grateful for these errors and omissions to be brought to our attention in order that corrections can be made.
In the introduction to his ‘A short history of Pettaugh’, Tucker wrote, ‘Pettaugh is a small parish unconnected with any notable event in the past.’ Nevertheless, the Pettaugh history project, which led to the formation of the Pettaugh History Society by Hilary Marlow and Richard Clark in 2009, has revealed a rich mine of interesting facts about village life in Suffolk.
ROMAN TIMES
Colchester was the first city which the Romans established on the site of an earlier settlement on the island which they were busy conquering and incorporating into their expanding empire. Travelling north from Colchester the Romans had to cross the barrier formed by a wide river which is now known as the River Gipping. At this crossing the Romans constructed a large fort which was discovered some 1900 years later and the site is now occupied by a farm in the village of Baylham. Having crossed the River Gipping, the traveller had the choice of two roads in a northerly direction to Thetford and thence to the Great North Road, another to Norwich.
The village of Coddenham is a mile to the north of the River Gipping crossing and Roman remains have been found in Coddenham, including traces of a villa. The village of Crowfield is about a mile north of Coddenham and the straight parts of the road from Crowfield and then to Pettaugh, the next village, have Roman origins. Roman coins have been unearthed in fields around Pettaugh, indicating a settlement during that era.
The earliest record of a rectory in Pettaugh is from the 13th century. There was a rectory in 1254 valued at £7. 6s. 8d and in 1594 the value was £9 12s 1d. The rectory was described in the 1747 glebe terrier as having six downstairs rooms (parlour, hall, backhouse, two butteries and a dairy) with four chambers and a garret over them, all under one roof. There was also a barn, stable and neathouse under one roof. The term ‘neathouse’ is derived from the Old English ‘neat’ which means ‘cattle’. It was therefore a ‘cow house’ or byre; in the Suffolk dialect it was the ‘nettus’. In the 1791 terrier there was a parsonage and barn both built of timber and walls of spick and daub and covered with thatch, the parsonage measuring 60 feet by 18 feet. In November 1881 the building was destroyed by fire. The rectory fire was described by Barton Tucker, writing in 1891, ‘Just ten years ago the rectory-house was burnt down. It was an old-fashioned house, lowly and thatched. Indeed it was only a cottage adapted for the reception of a family by additions raised by the rector himself. It was insured to its full value at double rates in consequence of being made of inflammable materials. However, the roof catches fire in the early morning (as it was supposed by a spark from the chimney), the consequence being that it was burnt down and an aged clergyman and his wife were rendered homeless. But a real hardship existed in the following respect - a poor domicile had been burnt down worth about £250 whilst the Rector was called upon to raise a modern structure in its stead to the value of £800.’ The description of the 60 feet by 18 feet house as being ‘only a cottage’ appears to be an understatement. In 1848 the church had 18 acres of glebe.
3. Mission Room
Towards the end of the 19th century, religious life in Pettaugh adopted the evangelical enthusiasm which was sweeping through England. One of the evangelising societies conducting missionary meetings throughout England was the Evangelical Society and in 1899 this one society provided preachers in 1086 towns and villages, with 32 in Suffolk including Pettaugh, Framsden and Debenham. The year before, in 1888, the Evangelical Society conducted a tent mission in Pettaugh which was attended by many parishioners.
One of these parishioners was James Cutting, who had recently taken over the tenancy of Abbot’s Hall following the death of his father in the previous year. James Cutting underwent a religious conversion during the tent mission. This had a powerful effect on his life and that of his family, as well as having an impact on the religious life of Pettaugh.
Indeed, the 1888 tent mission appeared to have fired many in the village with the evangelical spirit and in October a group of Pettaugh landowners and leading parishioners formed a committee to collect money for the erection of a Mission Room in Pettaugh and to be responsible for its administration.
The chairman was the rector, the Reverend Tucker. Members of the committee were James Cutting, his older brother George Cutting who farmed at Grove Farm, George Mayhew who farmed at Pettaugh Hall, John Mayhew who was the Registrar of Births and Deaths, Thomas Salter who was the wheelwright, and Edwin Runneckles who was the blacksmith.
During the following month the collectors were busy raising the necessary funds by soliciting donations from neighbours, as well as from friends, organisations and businesses beyond Pettaugh.
The wood and iron building was built by Mr Gibbons of Crowfield on a portion of land, leased to the Mission Room Committee, in the wheelwright’s yard which he owned in Pettaugh. Construction commenced in November and was completed by the end of the year.
The opening ceremony was conducted on the 2nd January 1889.
The Mission Room provided a focus for evangelical activity in Pettaugh. The minutes of the Mission Room committee meetings during subsequent years indicate that it played an important role in the life of the community with a meeting held every evening of the week.
Typically there would be a YMCA meeting on Monday, Night School on Tuesday, Ladies Group on Wednesday afternoon and Bible Class in the evening, a lecture on Thursday, Hymn Practice on Friday and Prayer Meeting on Saturday evening. Sunday activities in the Mission Room included Sunday School in the morning and an evangelical non-denominational service in the afternoon, and sometimes in the evening as well.
James Cutting also expressed his evangelical beliefs in his work for the Caravan Mission to Village Children (CMVC), taking charge of the Suffolk caravan and being a member of the Committee in London which administered the work of the CMVC in England and Wales.
He also organised the annual summer seaside services of the Children’s Special Service Mission (CSSM) in Felixstowe.
His name is mentioned in the records describing the early history of the CMVC when the caravan passed through Pettaugh on its very first mission journey in 1893, as follows. ‘One afternoon Messrs Will Perkins, Arthur Lyon and S J Hewlett were journeying to Helmingham. Their custom was to sit on the platform of the van – Arthur Lyon at the organ, Will Perkins with his cornet, and S J Hewlett driving and making a joyful noise. As they reached Pettaugh, out came Mr J H P Cutting and his men to salute them. The Helmingham services were announced and Mr Cutting came over to the open-air meetings. This led to an invitation to visit Framsden. At this village Mr Hewlett was taken ill and the van moved to Pettaugh where the patient became much worse. He prayed that the Lord would let him get to Ipswich Hospital, but God had other plans. For one morning up drove Mr Cutting in his trap, saying: “I am getting you out of this van. I have sent for a doctor and you are coming to my house.” There he stayed for several weeks.’ Samuel Hewlett was one of the two men who founded the CMVC.
During the time that Hewlett was recuperating, James Cutting took the caravan on a journey through several villages near to Pettaugh, including Debenham, where he conducted evangelical services. The caravan then remained in Pettaugh where it was put in storage for the winter, resuming its missionary journeys throughout Suffolk during the summer months of subsequent years under the direction of James Cutting.
4. Parish Council
The Local Government Act of 1894 established Parish Councils to have oversight of civic affairs. Previously the affairs of the parish were governed by Overseers who were elected by the Annual Vestry Meeting. At the same time they elected an Assistant Overseer who was responsible to act as Clerk to the Overseers. This was in pursuance of an order of the Poor Law Board as the Vestry held delegated powers to act under the Poor Law Act.
The position of Overseer of the Poor was created by the 1597 Act for the Relief of the Poor and the Overseer administered poor relief including money, food and clothing, as well as supervising the poorhouse. The position of Overseer of the Poor was abolished by the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, but the position of Overseer remained in some parishes. After the passing of the 1894 Local Government Act the Parish Council took over the duties of the Poor Law and appointed the Overseers. The 1925 Local Government Act abolished the Poor Law and the position of Overseers.
In Pettaugh, poor relief had been paid since 1776 when £39 6s 5d was spent. By 1834 the amount had increased to £375 8s, which would be equivalent to £18,500 in 2011.
A poorhouse in Pettaugh was first mentioned in 1706 when occupied by Joshua True. In 1733 repairs were needed costing £9 17s 5d. In 1747 it was called the townhouse with ‘three lower rooms, and a bedroom to each room’ and it was occupied by Widow Simons, Samuel Moyse and Francis Pitt.
The poor of the parish were well looked after, both in life and death. The accounts of 1771 showed that bushels of wheat, beef and mutton were provided, medicines including drops, powders and plasters were administered, and money set aside for the laying out of the departed, coffins costing about ten shillings, and four bearers who were paid a shilling each.
The poorhouse had become known as the workhouse by the time the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act was passed and it was sold in October 1837 when responsibility for the poor became the responsibility of the Bosmere and Claydon Union who ran the workhouse in Barham, just south of Coddenham.
The Barham Workhouse was a large institution built in 1766 and continued to look after poor people until 1925 when it was closed.
One of the last inhabitants of the Pettaugh workhouse was the Widow Keeble and her removal to Barham was graphically described by Barton Tucker. ‘The place (Pettaugh workhouse) was governed patriarchally and parochially. The grandees consisted of Parson, churchwardens, overseers, and parish constable. The poorhouse was on the spot. Old people were duly cared for in the parish among their own kith and kin. They were clothed, fed, housed, warmed, nursed and finally buried in this old, familiar place. The institution of the Union Workhouse initiated a totally different state of affairs. The aged poor have a horror of the Union. Is it to be wondered at? For them to be taken six or seven miles from home amongst unsympathetic strangers is to entail upon them all the terrors of the dreaded unknown. When the last Widow Keeble came to be removed to the Union Workhouse at Barham after a long and contented existence on 2s 6d a week (equivalent to just over £6 in 2011), such a step being found advisable owing to her low and infirm condition, she is described in the old Suffolk dialect at not only having cried, but “shruck” (shrieked).’
The site of the Pettaugh workhouse on the Framsden Road, which is now known as Townhouse Corner, on the A1120 near the parish boundaries with Framsden and Helmingham. The three cottages which formed the workhouse still exist and the field behind them is now known as Workhouse Field, whereas it was known as Melfield and Millfields in the 17th and 18th centuries, suggesting that this was the site of one of the first windmills in Pettaugh. In the 1851 census the cottages became known as the Parish House where the Edwards family lived in one of the cottages.
The handover of village administration to the new Parish Council was noted by the rector, the Reverend J K Tucker during a ceremony held on the 14th December 1894 to mark his birthday and his 50th anniversary as rector of Pettaugh.
The event was reported a week later in the local newspaper which quotes part of his speech thanking his parishioners for their kind gifts of ‘an easy arm-chair’ and two books. Seated in his new chair, the rector ‘observed that, whereas the Legislature, in its wisdom, had turned him out of one chair, his parishioners, in their kindness, had put him in another, which he should find quite as comfortable, though he was never otherwise than comfortable in the chair which had been taken from him’, an obvious reference to him no longer being chairman.
The first meeting of the Parish Council appears to have been held on the 15th April 1896 when five elected councillors signed the Declaration of Acceptance of Office.
The five councillors were Harry Baker, William Borley, Frank Denny, William Goodwin, and George Mayhew. George Mayhew and George Cutting were appointed Overseers and George Mayhew was also appointed as Surveyor of Highways. Harry Baker, William Borley, and Frank Denny were all listed as agricultural labourers in the census records, William Goodwin was a shoemaker, and George Mayhew and George Cutting were farmers.
5. Business and occupations
Agriculture has been the principal industry in Pettaugh for centuries.
Between 1550 and 1699 the occupations of husbandman, labourer and linen-weaver had been listed. In the 1841 census ‘agricultural labourer’ was the most common occupation listed. Other occupations were those of farmer, shoemaker, seamstress, grocer, blacksmith, nurse, publican, tailor, wheelwright, miller, female servant and man servant. The first mention of a grocer was in the 1871 census. When William Cooper, who was the grocer listed in the 1881 census, died in 1885 the grocer’s shop continued under the ownership of his wife Ann and, later, their daughters Emily and Fanny.
The era of steam had reached Pettaugh by 1871 as the occupation of ‘engine driver’ was listed, the driver of the traction engine being George Page, the eldest son of the postmaster, Robert Page.
The owner of the steam traction engine was Philip Cutting of Abbot’s Hall. The traction engine had many uses on the farm, one of which was to provide the power, via a belt-drive, to operate the rotating drum, shakers, sieves, fans and conveyors within the threshing machine.
The threshing ‘drum’, as the thresher was known in Suffolk, was a large machine on wheels, about the size of a caravan. The sheaves of grain were dropped through a large opening at the top of the structure into the cavity which contained the rotating drum. The drum had a serrated surface which tore the grains from the stalks. The stalks were removed on a conveyor belt while fans blew the chaff from the grains which dropped through sieves and then along a chute where the grain was loaded into bags. The threshing drum therefore combined the processes of flailing, winnowing and separating the grain from the stalks and chaff in one operation. There was a tragic accident in about 1885 when a farm worker William Curtis, who was feeding the sheaves of grain into the machine, lost his balance and fell into the threshing drum, sustaining serious injuries with a fatal outcome. His widow, Martha remarried some years later and lived to the ripe old age of 93.
There is a document to suggest the existence of a windmill in Pettaugh as early as 1341 as the Inquisition of the Ninths mentions the tithe of a mill. This enquiry was an assessment of the agricultural value of each parish.
The mill was possibly sited in the field behind Workhouse Corner and there is also evidence to suggest that another windmill existed in a field to the south of Pettaugh Hall on the parish border with Helmingham.
As these mills are not shown on any of the maps it was presumably demolished before 1634 when the Gaudy map of Pettaugh was prepared. The 1738 map of Pettaugh does not show any windmill. Hodskinson’s 1783 map shows a windmill on the site of the present Mill Field near the centre of the village.
The structure of this post-mill was replaced in 1865 and it continued to operate until 1939, the structure surviving another two decades when it was demolished in 1957.
The 1881 census listed William Cooper as the miller, blacksmith, wheelwright and grocer, employing five men. He died in 1885 and the mill was sold to George and James Cutting who established the firm of G & J Cutting, Millers of Pettaugh.
The Cutting brothers had the foresight to realise the limitations and inefficiency of a wind-powered mill, because they decided to construct a modern steam-powered roller mill which was built next to the windmill in 1899.
This mill had eight pairs of rollers, both rotating in the same direction but one roller slower than the other so that the cereal grains were not only crushed as they passed between the pair of rollers but also subjected to a shearing force.
The person in charge of the steam engine in the roller mill was Henry George Page. Henry had obviously learned the mechanical skills of looking after steam engines from his father who was the driver of the steam traction engine.
Pettaugh agricultural workers could enjoy a pint of ale to relieve their thirst at the Pettaugh ‘Bull’ after a hard day of toil in the fields. The publican in 1733 was Samuel Keeble and the public house was shown on a 1738 map. It survived on the site in the centre of the village, although rebuilt forward of the original structure, until it closed its doors for the very last orders in 1978 and was sold for conversion into a private house.
It was only in the 1891 census that the occupations of ‘postmaster’ and ‘postmistress’ are listed, these being Robert Page and his wife, Harriet. There are, however, other sources of information which show that Mr and Mrs Page were in charge of the post office in Pettaugh much earlier than this, as early as 1850.
Robert Page was actually a sub-postmaster as Pettaugh only had a sub-Post Office, letters being sent through the Post Office in Stonham Aspal. Robert died sometime between the 1891 and 1901, according to census records and Harriet died in 1903, having retired in 1900.
Her obituary read as follows. ‘For more than fifty years she was the post-mistress and only resigned about two years ago, when compelled through inability to move about. During her long period of service, by her kindly manner and faithful discharge of duty, she gained the respect of all who had business to transact at the post office. It was just after the introduction by Rowland Hill of the penny post that Mr and Mrs Robert Page undertook to discharge the duties of postmaster and mistress. The old lady was always pleased to recount how things were done in those early days. The pay was not sufficient to keep anyone at home all day, and so, for the convenience of the villagers, an old cigar box was placed on the hedge, in which letters were placed. It speaks well for the honesty of the people of Pettaugh, of nearly sixty years ago, that the pennies in the box and the unstamped letters were always equal in number. This was her testimony.’
On her retirement in 1900, her grandson Henry George Page was appointed sub-postmaster; Henry was the son of George Page the driver of the traction engine.
Census records up to 1901 do not mention the occupation of school teacher as the first public school in Pettaugh was only built in 1910.
The newspaper report of the opening ceremony stated that ‘For at least forty years the inhabitants of the little village of Pettaugh, which is the last parish passed before Debenham is reached from Ipswich, have been asking to be furnished with an elementary school. Their wishes have been realised, and today they have reason to rejoice. Hitherto children have had to journey to the schools at Crowfield, Helmingham and Stonham Aspal and a three miles’ walk on a country road in some weathers is both undesirable and unpleasant.’
Nevertheless, it does appear that children in Pettaugh received some form of instruction, perhaps as part of the Sunday School, as described by Barton Tucker, when he referred to the disciplinary methods used by the Widow Keeble who was years later dragged shrieking to the Barham Workhouse.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Barton Tucker wrote in his 1891 article, ‘Pettaugh is a small parish unconnected with any notable event in the past’. Pettaugh may indeed not have been associated with any famous or infamous events and the people merely got on quietly with their lives. This article briefly describes some of those mundane aspects of day-to-day life in a Suffolk village throughout past centuries.
References
Domesday Book, Vol 34, Suffolk (Ed. Alex Rumble; Phillimore & Co, Chichester, 1986)
Pettaugh: Deben Valley Place Names (Stephen Podd; Suffolk Local History Council, 1994)
A History of Pettaugh (B S Tucker; Ipswich Journal, 1889, 1890)
Minutes of the Pettaugh Mission Room
Jubilee Booklet 1893-1943 Caravan Mission to Village children (CMVC; London 1943)
Annual Reports 1889, 1891, 1892 (The Evangelisation Society; London)
1. Farms
Abbot’s Hall was held by the Abbot of Leiston Abbey from 1310 until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1536 when the land was passed to the Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon. It then passed to the Framlingham family (Francis Framlingham 1544) and later to the Gaudy (Gawdy) family of Crows Hall in Debenham. A map of the estate lands in 1634 was commissioned by Charles Gaudy. The next owner was Philip Bennet before the land passed into the ownership of Lord Tollemache. In the 1881 census the farm, 190 acres in size, was occupied by Philip Cutting as tenant farmer. When Philip Cutting died in 1887, his youngest son James took over the tenancy.
The present Moat Grove Farm was originally known as Woodwards Hall in the 15th century. It was a small manor owned by Thomas de Ulveston of Ulveston Hall, Debenham in 1332. In the 15th century it was owned by John Woodward. Ownership passed to the Gaudy family who owned Crow’s Hall in Debenham and the manor became known as Crow’s Hall-with-Woodward’s. By the time of the 1881 census the farm had become known as Grove Farm, 189 acres in size, when it was owned by George Cutting, another son of Philip Cutting of Abbot’s Hall. The farmhouse was destroyed by fire in the year of the census and was rebuilt. The rebuilding was completed in 1883, remaining largely unchanged to the present.
Birches Meadow, which lay behind the houses on the north side of Ipswich Way, was
part of Grove Farm. In 1897 the owner, George Cutting, gave permission for the pond
to be dug to provide drinking water for the villagers. 
It was named the ‘Jubilee Pond’ or ‘Tea Pond’ and it was to be another 24 years before a deep well was dug on The Green to provide a more reliable and cleaner source of drinking water for Pettaugh.
In the earlier part of the 15th century Pettaugh Hall was owned by Henry Lancaster but by 1490 Thomas Fastolfe was the owner and the Fastolfe family continued to own it until about 1670. According to Podd, Pettaugh Hall was not a true manor as it owned no lands which were instead held by Woodward’s, Abbot’s Hall and Crowfield Manor. The plaster mouldings of the ceiling in the parlour of Pettaugh Hall include the initials of Anthony Fastolfe. It was during Shakespeare’s time that the Fastolfe family occupied Pettaugh Hall and the bard caricatured the portly ‘Falstaff’ in his play, Henry V. Shakespeare travelled widely in Suffolk between 1587 and 1608. According to local historian John Jones of Earl Stonham, who quotes from a lecture by John Wasson of Washington State University, Shakespeare was a member of a band of travelling theatre players who visited many towns in Suffolk, including Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds and Long Melford. At that time Pettaugh was known as Peto and it may be speculated that one of the rogues in Henry IV was given the name Peto by Shakespeare who may have travelled through the village. In 1885 Pettaugh Hall was owned by Lord Tollemache of Helmingham Hall.
The Mayhew family became tenant farmers of Pettaugh Hall in the mid-18th century and lived in Pettaugh Hall until the latter part of the 20th century. The Mayhew and Cutting families became linked through marriage when George Mayhew married Jane Cutting, the youngest child of Philip and Emma Cutting of Abbot’s Hall, in 1884.
2. St Catherine’s Church and the rectory
St Catherine of Alexandria is the patron saint of the parish church in Pettaugh and the patronal festival is the 25th November. Parts of the church building are Norman and in the 14th century it was recorded as having a chancel, nave and tower. The font bears the scars of the reformation, as described by Barton Tucker: ‘The font is highly decorated with allegorical figures of beasts and angels which still bear traces of Puritanical iconoclastic zeal in chopped faces and truncated bodies’. There were strong Protestant sympathies in Pettaugh as during 1686, 1687 and 1694 there were collections for the French Protestants who had fled to England while in 1690 a collection was made on behalf of Irish Protestants.
The church underwent restoration in 1862 when the west gallery was removed, pews replaced and the chancel roof replaced. The changes and personalities were recalled in Barton Tucker’s history account describing Widow Keeble and John Hails, the former being the lady who maintained strict discipline in the Sunday School and the latter being the Parish Clerk.
‘She presided over the school children with her long wand, poke bonnet, and frilled cap. She was the last to wear this ancient dress. She also was amongst the last to wear pattens (editorial note: a wooden clog raised on wooden wedges or iron stands, designed to keep the hems of long skirts above the dust and mud). She was the Dame that taught the village children their letters. How well do we remember her keeping watch over the Sunday School in church, habited in her brown cloak and poke bonnet, and brandishing the long white willow wand, which ever and soon came down with a loud “crack” on the pate of some offending urchin! How did she marshal the expectant youngsters in the bough-dressed waggon that took them to the “famous treat in the park” (editorial note; probably refers to the park in Helmingham Hall). Parallel with her seems to rise the memory of the worthy old parish clerk, John Hails, with his fine bass voice and flute and willow wand, wherewith he dominated the gallery. In his own person he constituted the choir. He also said “Amen” for the people, very few of whom could read. Both of these worthies are in their graves now. The old gallery is pulled down. The high pews have been replaced by low benches. A harmonium leads the singing of a numerous choir. An orderly Sunday School needs no awe-inspiring and punitive wand.’
An undated photograph, taken from the nave shows the harmonium on the south side of the chancel, with the sound pipes located above it on the deep ledge of the window. In the foreground of the photograph, the slow-burning ‘tortoise’ stove which provided heat in the winter months can be seen.
During the extensive work on the church in 1862, two of the three bells were removed from the church tower. Barton Tucker, writing in 1889, described the work as follows. ‘Up to the time that Pettaugh church was restored (nearly thirty years ago), there were three bells in the belfry, consisting of two sound bells and a cracked one. The music of campanology being represented by the equivocal melody of “ding, dong, d—k”, two out of the number were sacrificed for the general good in utilisation of repairs, the tenor bell alone being retained. One of the bells melted down bearing an inscription assigning it to the time of the Restoration. It may be regarded therefore as a Royalist thank-offering, and there was rejoicing at Pettaugh, as at Helmingham and Framsden when the grand old liturgy was once more authorised within the church, and an ordained clergyman again took up his just position in place of Praise-God-Barebones or Boanerges Thumptub, who doubtless held forth for a season to the accompaniment of nasal whinings and pious groans. Very estimable men assuredly they were. They effected much good, for which we may be thankful. Nevertheless can we not heartily sympathise with the rejoicing which hailed the downfall of their stern, bigoted and persecuting intolerance. Some oak carving also dates from this period, a poppy-head bearing the date 1665, being utilised in the reading desk framed out of pre-existing materials.’ The article by Barton Tucker was read by the Rev William Pearson of Henley who had made a study of the bells in Suffolk churches. He wrote a letter to the Ipswich Recorder, providing further details of the bells of Pettaugh church. From the inscription and the decorative shields on the shoulders of the bells, Pearson suggested that these identified the bells as having been cast in the Norwich foundry of Richard Brasyer in the mid-fifteenth century. The hanging of the new bells would have coincided with the construction of the battlements on the tower of the St Catherine’s.
In medieval times, Suffolk was a wealthy county deriving its income from agriculture, including sheep farming. Parish records describe the bodies of the departed being ‘wrapped in wool’. This was required by the Burial in Woollen Acts of 1660 to 1680 to increase the use of wool. Corpses had to be wrapped in wool and the coffins lined in wool, unless the person had died from the plague. Sworn affidavits had to be signed by the rector to prove that wool had been used and records of these exist in the Pettaugh parish records. If the family was too poor to afford the wool and the cost of the affidavit, the register had to be marked ‘naked’.
The first named rector of the church was De Brakedish who served from 1282 to 1299 during the reign of Edward the First. There is a document in the British Library which states that during this reign ‘John de Stracton grants by deed to Richard son of Thomas de Weyland all the lands, rents, etc which he has in, which de Brakedish rector of the Church of Pethaga holds for his life at a yearly rent of 5 marks to hold to the said Richard in tail with the remainder to John his brother’. The ’mark’ currency was introduced to England under Danelaw and the 5 marks annual rent paid by De Brakedish would have been the equivalent of about £2500 today.
After De Brakedish there were 46 rectors of Pettaugh until 1979 when St Catherine’s became part of the Debenham and Helmingham benefice and the rector of Debenham assumed the responsibility for Pettaugh.
A number of rectors served in Pettaugh for long periods including Will Hart from 1566 to 1604, George Burroughs from 1604 to 1653, and John Candler from 1664 to 1704. In 1603 the Rev William Hart recorded that there were 68 communicant members, with no recusants (editorial note: person who refused to attend Church of England services) and no nonconformists.
One of the oldest rectors to be appointed was the Rev William Young who was aged 76 when he took up his position in 1791. Although he was a scholarly man he was reputed to be extremely absent-minded. He died in 1798 and was buried in the churchyard.
During some periods in the 18th century Pettaugh did not appear to have a rector. John Candler was succeeded by John Stephenson until 1711 when Thomas Ross was appointed curate. He was followed by two rectors, William Wilson and John Clement, who were followed by two curates, Edward Wyche and James Sherwood until 1766 when Thomas Tookie was appointed rector. The Reverend James Sherwood was from Stonham Aspal and was headmaster of the Metcalf Free School in Stonham Aspal until he was dismissed in 1746 accused of ‘negligence and severity’.
The longest serving rector of Pettaugh was John Kinsman Tucker who was rector from 1844 until his death in 1896. A great deal of information about the Tucker family has been provided to the Pettaugh History Society by his descendants.
Before being appointed as rector of Pettaugh, Tucker was a curate in nearby Framsden. He was born in Devon in 1811 and he married Sarah Henrietta Shepherd who was six years older than he. The couple had six children, four boys and two girls. The eldest child was John Henry (b 1835), who was followed by Charles William (b 1837), Mary Jane (b 1842), Saville Arundel (b 1844), Barton Shepherd (b 1851) and Charlotte Henrietta (b 1853).
Charles William Tucker joined the Royal Navy as a boy officer cadet in 1850, training in Portsmouth. He died in 1861 while serving in the Merchant Navy and was buried at sea. His father erected a plaque to his memory in the chancel of Pettaugh church.
Saville Arundel Tucker appears to have been something of a rogue and in family circles he became known as ‘the bent solicitor’. He was a solicitor with offices in Kent and London. In 1883 he was in serious financial difficulties and in November of that year suddenly disappeared. He reputedly fled to Spain with £55,000 of client’s money which was never recovered. In today’s values this sum would be worth about £55 million. He left his wife and children in England and they lived in Pettaugh rectory, dependent on the charity of the Freemasons and the Tucker family.
The youngest son, Barton Tucker, followed in the footsteps of his father and took Holy Orders. At the time of his death in 1891 he was serving as a naval chaplain on HMS Audacious which was based in Hull. He was buried in Springbank cemetery in Hull with a marble cross erected by his shipmates marking his grave. He is commemorated by an inscription on the back of his father’s gravestone in the graveyard of St Catherine’s Church in Pettaugh, together with a dedication to his mother, Sarah Henrietta who died in June 1888.
Mary Jane Tucker was an artistic person who painted a number of watercolours of village scenes, including the rectory, church and other views. She obviously inherited this artistic gift from her father who was a self-taught artist and his self-portrait hangs in the vestry of the church.
The 50th anniversary of the Rev John Tucker being rector of Pettaugh was the occasion of a large celebration in 1894 but he was only to live for another two years. It was during his time as rector that there were three deaths caused by smallpox in Pettaugh which all occurred in August 1863, the victims being an elderly Jane Borley, her son Robert and a young boy Samuel Page, aged thirteen.