Perlethorpe Village part 2.

 

Above: This schoolboy drawing from 1964 was made from the bedroom window of number 3, Village Green, Perlethorpe, and shows some features such as the street lamp and railings around the smaller green which have long since disappeared. The arch of Home Farm is clearly visible, and the white building in the centre is White House. In the late 1930's Head Keeper Frank Bebbington lived there; in 1940 the game keeper Mr Carey; and in the late 1950's / early 1960's Mr Carter. The small green on the bottom right of the drawing stands in front of the red brick bungalows built c.1950 (not shown), and this green was the location for the village flag pole. The road leaving the picture on the left is Jackson's Hill.

Above: 2 Radleys Lane, Perlethorpe, c. 1953. Note the garden walls are not yet completed.
The redbrick buildings constructed around the Village Green c.1950 are those most associated with the name of Perlethorpe today. They were built for the exclusive occupancy of those employed on Thoresby Estate's three main industries: Farming, Forestry, and the Woodard. The village green was established at the same time as the houses were built, and was not a feature before then. Electricity had been supplied to Perlethorpe just prior to their building, and wireless sets (radios) depended upon rechargeable accumulators.

There were never any shops in Perlethorpe apart from the local Post Office near the Kennels, which supplied most goods. During the 1930's a Co-op van with a huge shoe on its roof would visit the village in the hope of collecting boots for repair, but most households did their own. In the 1940's Mr Fillingham from Wolesly would arrive on a horse and cart, selling basic household goods such as candles. In the 1950's I personally remember a large Library Van the size of a removal truck would park in the village, and then proceed to Three Gables, at the Woodyard, so the residents could step into the back of it and choose their reading matter from the well-stocked shelves.

Above: I well remember, during the early1950s, how a small Bush television set in the front room of 2 Radleys Lane played black & white host to the Lone Ranger, and later on how Independent Television introduced "Murray mints, too good to hurry mints" and "Hoover beats as it sweeps as it cleans" adverts.