This house was for many years the head brewer or brewery manager’s house and called Brewery House to this day. The following fascinating and very valuable account by a resident of her life in this property, is quoted with permission from the CLHS magazine ‘Chichester History’, no. 23, p41
THE SLOE FAIR ‘SQUIRTERS’ by Ruth Bagnall (née Randell)
” I was born in 1912 at the Brewery House (then number 31 Westgate, Chichester), as my father was Head Brewer at Henty’s Brewery. It was a pleasant Georgian house, with gardens at one side, and backing onto the brewery yard. The front door of the house opened straight onto the pavement.
Two steps led up to the door, and these gleamed white with daily applications of hearthstone; the door handle and knocker shone from vigorous polishing with Brasso. The pavement in front was also swept. I longed to be allowed to help Annie, our maid, with these tasks, but Mother forbade this, as she considered it would not be ladylike. This was a favoured adjective of my mother’s, which I hated. Two dear old ladies, who lived nearly opposite us at 10 Westgate – Miss Lily Myall and Mrs Florence May (see the history of no 25) – used to perform these tasks after dusk, hoping to be unobserved and keep up the fiction that they had a help. All the neighbours respected their pride, and their little subterfuge was never mentioned.
I remember when a clerk who worked at the brewery, and who lived near us, was desperately ill. A deep layer of straw was laid on the road in front of his house to deaden the sound of heavy carts passing the house and disturbing him. When he died, all the blinds in the street were drawn and kept closed until after his funeral.
Deliveries
A great feature of the city streets on weekdays was the dozens of errand boys careering round on their bicycles. They were a cheery band and enlivened their task by whistling or singing the popular songs of the day, and making cheeky remarks to any girl they passed. They called on customers for orders early in the morning, and came back to deliver fish or meat, carried in the big baskets on the fronts of their bikes. A lot of horse-drawn vans still made daily deliveries; our milk arrived on a float. We used to give the milkman our jugs, and he filled them by dipping a little can with a curved handle into the churn. Bakers’ carts delivered bread and buns daily. When needed, the coalman drew up as near as possible to the house to tip the fuel into chutes at ground level that led down into the cellars.
The brewery used powerful carthorses to draw the drays that delivered beer to the public houses in the town and surrounding villages. I knew these great friends by name, because I used to go round to their stables and feed them apples. They had real country names, like Buttercup and Daisy, painted over their stalls.
There were hardly any telephones in the town, but the postal system was amazingly swift and efficient. A postcard or a tucked-in envelope could be sent for a halfpenny, and a sealed letter for a penny. A letter posted locally would arrive in four hours within the town and would be delivered across England by the next day. There were four deliveries daily to residents.
Sundays
Different days of the week were distinguishable by their special sounds. Sunday was very quiet, until the Cathedral bells began to ring for the early service and were joined by those of many of the old stone churches in the city. Many were clustered round the crossing of the main streets, marked by the lovely market cross. It seemed as if almost everyone put on their Sunday best and went to church, once or twice a day. Very little housework was done on Sunday, and it would have been quite scandalous to do any washing and hang it out. My parents and I went to morning service at the little church of St. Bartholomew, which was up a lane right opposite our house. We used to escort an elderly lady, Mrs Elphick, who lived at 32 Westgate (now no 46), next door to us. She always wore a long black satin dress, covered with a mantle, which was a kind of cape with a silk fringe. Her bonnet was decorated with sequins, one of which seemed to drop off each week. This headdress was tied firmly under her chin with black satin ribbon. Her outfit was obviously kept in a wardrobe full of camphor balls to discourage moths. Waves of the smell wafted around our friend wherever she went and permeated the nasty little gelatine sweets she used to give me to suck during the sermon. At the end of our pew, on the prayer book ledge, was a little brass frame holding Father’s visiting card, denoting that he paid pew rent.
Very few of the cottages in our street had coal ranges with ovens to cook by, so they used to prepare their Sunday joint by putting them into baking tins, liberally spread with dripping, surrounded by peeled potatoes, and covered with a clean white cloth. These were carried to the baker (Mr Rawlins, 34 Westgate) who used to cook them all in his bread oven. Just as we emerged from church, these were being collected, and the smell was delicious. On Sunday afternoons, many of my young friends used to have to read rather dull Sunday storybooks and were not allowed any toys except, perhaps, a Noah’s Ark, as this was biblical. I was lucky, and my parents did not censor my books or toys.
Mondays
Monday had its special smell of boiling soapsuds. The copper was filled in the washhouse, the fire lit beneath it, and the white-washing put on to boil. Mrs Rogers, from 24 Westgate, came in to help. The big mangle in the scullery, with its huge wooden rollers, did not remove much water, and the piles of dripping linen hanging over clothes horses and festooned over the ‘flying angel’ over the fireplace made life very uncomfortable. It was never considered possible to change the routine of workdays.
Tuesdays
On Tuesday morning, the fire was lit early, and the flatirons put on it to heat up. A thick folded blanket was put over the big kitchen table. The first iron was taken off the stove, cleaned with dry soap and emery powder to remove all the smuts, tested for its heat, and then the ironing began. It went on for most of the day.
Wednesdays
Very early on Wednesday morning, we woke to the sound of the farmers driving flocks of cattle and sheep past our house to the cattle market at the other end of the town. As well as the pens of livestock to be auctioned, the farmers’ wives brought butter, eggs, dressed chickens and vegetables to sell.
Thursdays
Thursday was always a quiet day, as it was early closing, and all the shops closed at lunchtime for the half day’s holiday. For the rest of the week, the special weekly ‘turning out’ of the various rooms in the house and jobs like window, brass and silver cleaning were carried out.
Saturdays
Any special cake or pastry making was generally done on Saturdays. Sometimes I used to go with Mother to the big grocers in the centre of town (Harris & Hall) to order a good supply of dry goods such as tea, sugar, dried fruit, cheese and bacon. We used to both sit on high chairs at the mahogany counter. While Mother was given slivers of cheese to taste, I used to be given chocolate or a sweet biscuit. All the goods were written in a neat accounts book (with stiff cover) at the shop. They later arrived at our house with all the other tradesmen’s accounts; Mother entered them all in her own account book, and Father wrote the monthly cheques.
Entertainment
There were one or two annual treats, eagerly awaited. We always went to the local amateur society production – generally one of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas – and a pantomime at Christmas. These all took place in the Corn Exchange. Plush seats were arranged on the floor, while big cushions were put on the corn bins that lined the walls, in order to make the cheapest seats. There were also two cinemas, and I remember seeing exciting films like The Prisoner of Zenda and Robin Hood, and even one or two early Chaplin classics. Of course, these films were in black and white, and silent, and a gallant lady would be thumping away at a piano in front of the cinema screen.
The Sloe Fair
At the beginning of October was the annual Sloe Fair. It was a couple of days of real enjoyment for the young people, with roundabouts, swings, coconut shies, the big dipper, shooting ranges and hoop-la. These were all run by the gypsy fairground folk, who came every year. My mother was quite sure the Sloe Fair was a hotbed of infectious diseases. Her particular worry was the ‘squirters’. These were metal tubes, like those used for toothpaste, but which were filled with water from the local ditches. They provided all the youth of the town with great fun. Mother always said our nursemaid must never take us anywhere near this boisterous event, even in the afternoons when we were out on our walks. Of course we always went, and I never divulged this fact to Mother. I was a very devious child!
Society
The social distinctions in the city were quite unbelievable. As Father was a qualified brewer and engineer, we were balanced precariously on the edge of the professional class, alongside doctors, solicitors, civil servants and junior clergy. We were rarely invited to any parties in the Cathedral set, these being reserved for the Bishop, the Dean, and senior clergy. It was just like Trollope’s Barchester. Shopkeepers were considered inferior, and I remember once having quite a battle to get permission to go to a party at a friend’s house. That friend was Freda Geering, whose father’s business was Geering’s Drapers, of North Street. Fortunately, Mother’s common sense prevailed, and I duly went and had a wonderful time.”
Ruth Winifred Bagnall (née Randall) 1912-2001