Dyke

Small but not insignificant appears to be the motto of Dyke village whose heritage is proclaimed in this new carved sign that was erected in 2001. It depicts all that this place is famous for, the old smock mill, the Car Dyke and a mention in the Domesday Book of 1086.

The Car Dyke, built by the Romans and connecting Lincoln with Peterborough and beyond, runs through this village which is how it gets its name. Henry Penn, the famous 18th century bell-founder, cast one of the bells for Lincoln Cathedral at his foundry in Peterborough in 1717 and sent it to Lincoln on a raft, passing through this village. The bell, weighing just over 12 cwt, was transported at a cost of £8 13s. 0d (almost £1,000 at today's values), which indicates that the waterway was still navigable more than 1,500 years after it was built. The Penn bell is now the sixth in the ring of eight bells hanging in the south west (St Hugh's) tower of the Cathedral.


The Car Dyke runs through the village at Dyke, hence its name

The village hall is a strange looking building but perfectly functional for its current purpose. It is built of corrugated zinc and was originally erected at Belton Park, near Grantham, where it was known as St George's Mission and had been used for church services by army personnel stationed there during the First World War. After the Armistice, many of these military buildings were sold off or given away by the War Office and in 1920, this one was moved in sections by tractor and trailer to a piece of land at Dyke supplied by the Bettinson family where it was re-erected and used by the community for social events and meetings.

Dyke village hall

The village hall is built of corrugated metal and stands on brick columns but its cold external appearance gives way to a warm and welcoming interior which is one of the reasons for its popularity, being used on most evenings for a wide variety of social events and in recent years it has become the focal point of village life.

Inside the village hall

In 1978, when its future came under review, a village hall committee was formed and since then almost the entire village has been involved in its running and upkeep, extending the floor space by an additional building at the rear to cope with an expanding population, and it has become the centre of social life in Dyke ever since. 

The Wishing Well in the main street at Dyke has an unusual history and is not as old as it looks. The building on this spot was referred to in local records in 1729 and became licensed premises in 1879 and was known until recently as the Crown Inn. The present property however was created as an old English inn by a previous owner Mr David Owen, licensee of the Angel Hotel in Bourne. He bought the Crown and practically rebuilt the premises from ground level, stripping the old building and replacing it with an oak-beamed, stone-walled house with some 2,100 sq ft of floor space. The kitchen which was once a butcher's shop was retained but the front facade was given a 17th century look with timbers angled in the Elizabethan way.

Traces of thatching work carried out in 1734 still existed under tiles in one part of the roof and a bread oven was discovered purely by chance when a wall was removed and the cobwebs of 300 years swept away. 

Mr Owen, who did most of the conversion work himself, also found a well during the rebuilding, having an internal diameter of 2 ft and a depth of 20 ft, and rising 4 ft above ground level, and he decided to retain it as a feature and so he named the new hostelry the Wishing Well when it first opened for business on Thursday 19th April 1973. The well subsequently provided a touch of magic for the very young and the small daughter of one regular visitor tossed a penny into the depths on every visit, closed her eyes and wished for a kitten, a wish that was eventually granted. The Wishing Well has since become one of the most popular hostelries in the Bourne area, especially at weekends, and in 2002, the business changed hands for £1 million.

This is the village green at Dyke although it is far too small to accommodate today's summer festivities that are now held on the nearby recreation ground, but it survives as a reminder of the way things were. The village green dates from mediaeval times and as the centre of a self-sufficient community, its main purpose was probably to enclose the village livestock that were impounded at night against predators, both wild and human. They survive in all shapes and sizes, some large enough for a game of cricket on a Sunday afternoon while others barely have room for a war memorial or a maypole, yet they are still the heart of the village and to know something of their origins is to understand more about their role in the history of the community they serve.

Britain House (left) and the newly thatched Redmile Farm (right)

Overlooking the village green is Britain House, a Georgian property with an untouched front façade and a flat roof and once one of the grandest houses in the village and it still retains its original windows and front door with a glazed sunburst above. Cottage and barn conversions abound in the villages around Bourne and this one in the main street at Dyke is one of the most attractive. The property before the work started was quite dilapidated and work was prolonged because of planning restrictions but even the thatching has been completed in a sympathetic manner and the restored building, now known as Redmile Farm, adds grace to the street scene.

 A quaint red-brick building dating back to the 19th century lies at the end of a cart track off the main street in Dyke and it is known to villagers as the Dovecote. It was not built for birds but for a Victorian farm labourer and his family which is why it stands next to the fields and several large families were subsequently raised there but it has been standing empty these past fifty years and now attracts pigeons and doves which is why it has earned its nickname. 

 

A new housing development off Main Street has been named after a woman who founded a school in the village more than 150 years ago. Jane Redmile was born in 1801, the eldest daughter of a local farmer. She was a tireless worker for the Baptist Church in Bourne and despite family circumstances that forced her to care for her younger brothers and sisters, she opened a shop and still found time to walk to Bourne twice every Sunday to attend services. 

Redmile Close street sign

Jane was determined to establish a school in Dyke at her own cost and in 1843, a building was completed and this continued in service for 27 years but was eventually demolished because it lay on the route of the new Bourne to Sleaford railway line. Then in 1861, she bought a small property for Sunday School meetings that were held until the present Baptist Chapel was opened in 1879. The suggestion that the new housing development be called Redmile Close came from local councillor Don Fisher who had researched Miss Redmile's life and was endorsed by Bourne Town Council and the developers, M Parker and Sons (Builders) Ltd in November 2000.

The present Baptist Chapel at Dyke was opened in 1879  with seating for 150 people and has since remained the largest place of non-conformist worship in the village. But for 70 years, the premises were also used as Dyke Primary School until closed by Kesteven County Council as part of their policy to phase out 
one- teacher village schools.

The chapel was officially opened on Wednesday 7th May 1879 and the Stamford Mercury reported on Friday 23rd May:

A new chapel has been opened at Dyke in connection with the General Baptist chapel at Bourne. It is a neat and commodious building, is adapted to seat 150 persons, cost about £400 and is to be used for the twofold purpose of public worship and of Sunday School teaching. The opening services were conducted by the Rev S S Allsop, of March, and on Sunday the 11th by the Rev William Orton, the pastor of the church. On Monday last, a tea meeting was held specially in the interest of the Sunday School; Mr W R Wherry presided. A memorial bible with an appropriate inscription was presented to each of the scholars and addresses were delivered by the pastor and several of the teachers and friends. The proceeds of the opening services were £41 2s. 1d., the amount received at the laying of memorial stones was £46 1s. 6d. and the private subscriptions amounted to nearly £200.

A proper schoolroom was added to the building in 1896 and opened as Dyke Primary School. This provided education for hundreds of local children during the early years of the 20th century during which time excellent facilities were maintained with one large classroom and one smaller room, changing rooms with hot and cold running water, a canteen where the children are their lunches provided by the schools canteen service based in Bourne and as playground. The school was staffed by a headmistress with two part-time assistants and a secretary. There were 38 children on the roll when it opened and the number fluctuated over the years but never exceeded 50. By 1969, there were 25 pupils on the roll but was earmarked for closure by Kesteven County Council as part of their policy to phase out all one-teacher schools in their area.

There was also a Methodist meeting place here, established in a private house in the Main Street adjoining No 63. In 1835, there were only five members, rising to 30 by the mid-19th century but membership then gradually fell away. There were moves in 1878 to secure a piece of freehold land to build a permanent chapel but this did not materialise and during the 1980s, membership dwindled and when the then owner of the house, Mr Morton, died, the new occupants did not encourage the Methodists to stay and consequently the cause was closed in Dyke.

 

The most recent addition to the street scene has been a water feature on the village green known as the Dyke Millennium Well. There is an artesian well at this point that once supplied water to the community through standpipes in the street but these became obsolete when mains water was installed in 1953. The bore was tapped again towards the end of 2001 to create the present feature under the direction of David Stubbs, a lifelong resident of the village who acted as project engineer. It took several attempts and seven tons of concrete to contain the bore within a test tank and once this was done, Peter Machin completed the surround in yellow brick. The operation was a difficult one but water from the bore is now fed into the stainless steel tank housed within the structure through a four-inch pipe and is afterwards piped into the Car Dyke. The entire water feature is maintenance free and cost £3,000.

 

 

This was one of several new features to mark the millennium, the others being the carved oak sign, a copse planted by children on the playing field and a flagpole outside the village hall which was used for its first important occasion to fly the Union Jack at half mast to commemorate the death of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on 30th March 2002. All were financed by four years of social events and other fund raising activities.

 

A CRIME FROM THE PAST

The body of a woman who had been beaten over the head, tied up and dumped in a ditch, was discovered by archaeologists working in Dyke fen in August 1997. The skeleton was found in a Roman trench and forensic investigation established that the crime had taken place 2,000 years ago.

 

VILLAGERS RALLY TO EXTINGUISH FIRE

About the time of Sunday morning's service, the Town Hall fire bell was rung by Joseph Walpole who had cycled from Dyke to summon the fire brigade to a fire which, about 12 midday, had broken out on Mr Joseph Cooper's farm premises. In eight or nine minutes from the summons, the brigade, mounted on the fire engine, were hastening to the scene of the conflagration. The outbreak was discovered by John Morton who raised the alarm and endeavoured to stamp out the fire. Very quickly, a host of villagers, filling pails and buckets at the water bore near the village green, were pouring water on the flames. A large straw stack was speedily consumed. A strong north-east wind was blowing the flames directly upon the Wesleyan chapel and the residences of Mr Joseph Cooper and Mr Morton. The villagers' timely help was extremely valuable. The fire brigade was expeditiously and energetically at work under the direction of Captain Shilcock, Lieut Clarke and Chief Engineer Teat. The outbuildings were furiously blazing. Poultry, pigs and a pony had no great risk, being safely removed. Two poor imprisoned pigs were roasted. The efforts of the brigade were successful in saving the chapel, the shutters and doors of which were afire. The houses also were preserved. By two o'clock, all fear of danger was past though for a long time, the brigade continued to play upon the ruined mass of heated and smouldering material to which the entire block of outbuildings had been reduced. It is said that the fire was caused by a boy playing with matches. - news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 12th May 1899.

 

DYKE IN PAST TIMES

 

Hay making and harvesting were the times when everyone pitched in to help down on the farm for when the sun shone, it was essential to get the work done before the weather changed. This picture was taken at Dyke around 1910 by a British-born American, Arthur Wilkinson, whose mother, Esther Ann Tory, was born in the village and who made an annual pilgrimage to keep in touch with relatives. The photograph was sent to me by his son Robert Wilkinson of Newton, Massachusetts, who thinks that it may have been taken on Cooper's Farm because one of the people his father used to visit was farmer's wife Ethel Cooper. He is also intrigued that some of the women appear to be wearing uniforms or were they merely in their Sunday best posing for the photographer?

These two colour photographs were taken by Arthur's older brother, Mr Fred Wilkinson, who went to live at Bradford in Yorkshire, where he became an architect, and also taught at Bradford Technical College. His two eldest sons emigrated, one to Kenya and the other to Canada. He served in the army in Italy during the Great War of 1914-18 and in 1962, made a sentimental trip back to Dyke where he had enjoyed so many happy memories of his childhood and took these pictures. Fred died in 1975 at the age of 86.

 

 

Photos: Courtesy Robert Wilkinson

See also     Dyke Mill     William Walpole     Dick Sellars, gardener

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