Published
BY THE PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL IN AID OF THE CHURCH REPAIR FUND
'1949’

From across the North Sea, up the river Great Ouse, came the Saxons, and, choosing a place to settle, they called it Welig-tun "township among the willows." Here, at first, they worshipped the old heathen gods-Odin the All-Father, and Thor the Thunderer-till news came to them of the gentler teaching of Christ. Was it at this time that our first church, perhaps only a wooden hut, was built? We cannot tell for certain. Our forefathers loved stories. When they were told the stories of the Gospel and of the first Christians in the now vanished Roman Empire, they took a liking to that of Lawrence. Lawrence was a deacon who had suffered death by roasting on a gridiron rather than give way to his persecutors. Grit and faithfulness, then, were the qualities Willington people admired, and they called their new humble little church the Church of St. Lawrence.

Up the river again came the heathen Danes. They came in the spring, dug great earth-works and harboured their boats, and from their headquarters in Willington ravaged the countryside through the hot summer days, till in the autumn they went home with their plunder. The next year they came again, and still again, and now Bedford was their strong­hold; till at last King Alfred agreed that they might settle. Now peace returned;  the Danish settlers became Christian; and in Willington Dane and Saxon lived together as friends. 

In 1066 there came other invaders. Did Aschil, the Saxon lord of Willington, fight at the battle of Hastings when William the Norman Conqueror landed on our shores? Or did the dread news come slowly to Willington, when Hugh de Beauchamp, the Norman lord to whom the village was given, rode in to take possession? No doubt he merely passed through. Willington was but one of his many Bedfordshire manors, and it was in Bedford, where now a castle was raised on rising ground overlooking the river, that the Beauchamps made their headquarters. Yet from this time dates our first description of Willington. The number of menfolk was twenty-one (the whole number of inhabitants can hardly have been more than a hundred) ; there were eight plough-teams; there was a mill; and the whole was worth £7. This description, written in 1086, is still to be seen in Domesday Book, the great book King William made. 

The Beauchamps, then, did not live in Willington. Nor did their successors, the Mowbrays. What, then, do we know of Willington in the Middle Ages, this village where the lord of the manor rarely came?
Down by the river were the meadows; no railway came between, and it was easy for the villagers to go down there for haymaking. At one end of the village street was the mill, where all corn grown in Willington was taken to be ground. At the other end was the church; probably after the Normans came a small stone church was built; on the walls were painted pictures in bright colours from Bible stories; and here the Latin service was said. Near to it, but where we do not quite know, was the manor-house-it may have been at Pond Gardens-but this was seldom occupied. In 1376 it consisted of a hall of ancient fashion, with a pantry, buttery and kitchen, "which used to be tiled, but are now mostly unroofed, and the timber is old and in bad condition." The other houses in the village were but small and poor; most had only one or two rooms, with a lean-to outside for the cooking; for furniture only a bench, table, and straw pallet; food was plain (neither potatoes nor sugar, and little fresh meat in winter) ; and beer or mead were the drink. Clothes were home-made, of wool spun at home and woven into cloth by the weaver. Near the village lay the common; and beyond it the open fields, called in 1230, Mill Field, East Field, and South Field, and divided into strips. One field was left fallow each year; and in the other two the villagers sowed and reaped together. And beyond lay Sheerhatch Wood, no doubt more extensive then than now; was it shimmering with bluebells in the spring of 1227 when Robert the forester found there an unknown man, slain?

Though the lord of the manor came to Willington but seldom, at regular intervals his steward came to see to the estate, and then all the tenants must come together at the manor-court, where the steward presided. Here those whose homes needed repairs must ask for timber from Sheerhatch Wood; or brawls were reported (in 1467, John Osberne was fined 2d. for assaulting John Malton with a dagger) ; or in 1469 John Wodehyll, the miller, was reminded to grind the tenants' grain sufficiently and well. For the remainder of the time, one of the more substantial tenants acted as the lord's bailiff; more than once the tenant who held this office bore the name of Gostwick.

A few miles up the river was the great monastery of Newnham Priory. Here, in 1166, the Beauchamps had built for the canons of St. Paul's Church, Bedford, a permanent home. Among other endowments they gave to Newnham Priory the tithes of Willington Church; that is to say, when the people of Willington, as elsewhere, brought a tenth of their corn as an offering to the church, that must now go to Newnham Priory. But this left the people of Willington without spiritual care. The Bishop therefore laid down that, though the tithes of corn (the great tithes) might go to Newnham Priory, the canons must appoint at Willington a ''vicar'' in their stead, who would receive a stipend. Thus Willington became a vicarage instead of a rectory, and throughout the Middle Ages the tithes of corn went to Newnham Priory, but the canons appointed at Willington a vicar to minister to the village.

It was not only the Beauchamps who helped to endow the new monastery. We know this from a beautifully illuminated book (now in the British Museum) in which the canons wrote down all the gifts which came to them. More than one came from Willington; among them was Ralph Marcaunt, who gave a half-acre in Pese furlong. And probably more than one Willington boy became a canon of Newnham Priory.

The years went by, and times became ripe for change. In the 15th century we know that the Bishop had occasion to reprimand the canons because they did not keep their rules strictly enough.  Among these was one, Brother John Wylyton, who, as cellarer, had not faithfully performed his task of keeping the Priory's accounts. The church at Willington was small, dark and ruinous-so the Bishop found when he came on his visitation. The manor-house was tumbling down. Now there came to the throne the young king Henry VIII; and in Willington that family which had often acted as bailiffs for the Mowbrays, was represented by a vigorous, shrewd, far-sighted young man, John Gost­wick.

It was in 1529 that John Gostwick bought the Willington estate (or manor). He was by then a man of note. He was in the king's following when Henry met the French king at a meeting so splendid that it was called the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He also served Cardinal Wolsey. He had acquired other lands in Bedfordshire, too, but it was his home village for which he cared. His sumptuous new manor-house stood in a park which stretched from Bedford road nearly to the river; and even his farm buildings, at a little distance, were finely built of stone.  (This stone may have come from Newnham Priory when it was pulled down, for the monasteries were now done away with, and it was not long before the old Latin service was translated into English, and the pictures on the church walls were whitewashed over.) And now the little, old, broken-down church, was replaced by our church of to-day. For years the village must have rung with the sounds of building, as the tall stone walls grew and the carved beams of the roof were hoisted into position. One bell from the old church, with a Latin inscription, "Oh, martyr Christopher, pray for us," was rehung in the new tower. A side-chapel was added, where John Gostwick meant his own last resting-place to be; this was completed in 1541, as the inscription shows. That same year, the king himself came to Willington to visit the lord of the manor, Sir John Gostwick, M.P.

For two hundred years the Gostwick family, county gentry, lived in Willington, the head of their Bedfordshire estate. Many coaches must have trundled through the village to and from the great house in the park (the park was big enough for a park-keeper to be in charge of it). Meanwhile, for another purpose, another form of transport was now being used. Willington people, making hay by the river, must have been surprised to see men dredging there. Not long afterwards they saw barges coming up the river on their way to Bedford, to unload at the wharves there coal brought by sea from Newcastle to King's Lynn, and thence by barges. This was good news, for it was now hard work to find fire-wood enough. Only the miller was not best pleased, when he had to work the sluice gates for the barges, and when they took some of the head of water he needed to run the mill-wheel. Otherwise, the village looked much the same. Mill Field still kept its name, but South Field was now called Brook Field and East Field had changed its name to Conduit Field. At the cross-roads. stood the black-­smith's shop, ready to shoe the horses of passers-by, who might take refreshment while they waited at the White Hart Inn across the way. The vicarage in 1607 was "a poor little vicarage house, thatched," but it had a young orchard, well replenished with apple, pear and warden trees. The sexton in 1704 was paid 6d. a year by every farmer, and 4d. by every cottager having arable land and meadowing. Ill the church there was one holland surplice, and a white damask table-cloth for the communion;  and a beautiful new Bible printed in i6ii. There were new bells, too, added in 1591, 1600, 1671 and 1710; and silver communion plate given by the Gostwicks.

In village life there were some changes. Girls were set to learn the new craft of making pillow-lace in point-ground for fine ladies' dresses  In the village houses there was more comfort than in years before. William Mason, who died in 1620, had in his house no less than twelve pairs of sheets, besides many useful things such as coffers, two blankets, churn, cheese vats, pothooks, salting-trough, and £2-worth of pewter and brass. Potatoes were now grown, and even sugar could be bought (by the loaf), though it was dear.

Perhaps a more important change was that the meeting of the manor-court was no longer the great event it used to be; in fact, it met less and less often, and then only' to register changes of tenancy; and finally it ceased to meet at all. What was becoming more important was the vestry meeting of parish­ioners or householders. Sometimes it was held in the vestry, sometimes at the White Hart, so that refreshment might promote thought. Not more than four or five persons usually attended, but they were the active people in the village. They had to choose certain important village officers. The village must see to the repair of its own roads; that meant that one villager must take the office of "'surveyor" and fix the days when everyone was to turn out with shovel or horse and cart and do statute duty. The village must also see to the aged, the sick and the poor, and collect rates to relieve them. This was the work of the "overseer," in whose accounts are entries such as "paid Thomas Purser 1s. 6d. (weekly)" ; "paid Richard Sext's wife 8d. for nursing Widow Green"; "paid 2s. 6d. for a pare of briches and stokins for John Hoton". And another villager must take over the office of "constable," for there were no county police.

It has been said that Willington had to repair its own roads. But this was hard on the village as far as the Bedford road was concerned, for the constant wear on this road was mainly made by through traffic. The road got worse, and there were complaints. At last, in 1772, the whole length of this road from Bedford to where it joins the St. Neots road beyond Great Barford was taken over by a Turnpike Trust. A turnpike gate was put up just over the Willington-Cople boundary, where the toll cottage stands, and now Willing­ton people must pay toll as they went into Bedford; a different sum according to whether they were in a carriage, on horseback, or on foot. Only when they went to vote at elections they did not have to pay toll.

But now no longer would they be able to vote for a Gostwick as M.P., for the Gostwicks were gone. The last, old Sir William, who had kept great state, and had forgotten the ways of his thrifty, hard-working forebears, died in 1713. His grandson could only sell the estate, which was loaded with debt. Once more Willington passed to distant owners. First the Duchess of Marlborough bought it. Probably it was now that the great house, standing empty and forlorn, was laid low by fire. Then in 1779 the Duke of Bedford took it over, and with many of the old bricks made on the site a substantial farmhouse for a tenant.

The Duke was an active landlord. He was keenly interested in all methods of farming, and in the new "enclosed" system, which had already been introduced into many Bedford-shire villages. Since he owned most of the parish, he could press it upon his tenants, and no Act of Parliament was needed, as in a village where the ownership lay in many hands. He arranged for the redistribution of the old open fields among his tenants, and for the dividing up into fields of the park. It was probably 1802 when this took place, for this was the date when the glebe, which had been inconveniently dispersed in the open fields" was exchanged for "more extensive and valuable pasture  ground" adjoining the vicarage. It was probably then that Hill Farm was built for the convenience of farming land in this end of the parish; and also. Grange Farm for a similar reason. Croots Farm took its name from the family who lived here a little before this; John and Mary Croot had a sad time, for nine of their family of thirteen children died very young.

When Willington changed over to the "enclosed" system of agriculture, there was another reason for urgency. England was at war with Napoleon, and food production was vital. So, too, was defence, for in the summer of 1803 invasion was threatened. In Willington, as in every other village, lists of volunteers and of waggons were made. Several Willington men joined a special troop of horse artillery raised by Major-General Harvey, of Ickwell; their names are still to be seen on its muster roll. They stood prepared till Trafal­gar and Waterloo made England safe.

Now again changes came to the village. The age of machinery was in full swing, and the water-driven mill by the river was less used than it had been in years gone by. Then came the railway, cutting oft the village from the river, breaking into the old Danish camp, and isolating the old mill. So the mill was pulled down, and a new farmhouse, which took the name of Mill Farm, was built on this side of the railway. The railways meant another change, for they could bring trucks of coal quickly, and the slow-moving barges which followed the winding course of the Ouse as their horses moved along the towing-path, could not compete with them; the barges grew fewer, then ceased; and as the years went by the sluice gates fell into disrepair. Machinery, too, was everywhere ousting the old point lace, which took so long to make; till the more openwork Maltese style was introduced, which gave the lacemakers some chance to hold their ground; and once more little girls were sent to lace school.

The Methodist Church, on its present site, was opened for worship in 1868. It is not known that John Wesley ever came to Willington, but he came to Great Barford and Bedford, and perhaps Willington people heard him preach there. The first Methodist services in Willington were held in a private house; then a wooden building was put up near Croots Farm. Finally this was moved across the road to the corner where it now stands, and encased in brick.

Meanwhile, the fabric of the church was getting into a bad state. But the Duke of Bedford, though a distant landlord, was an active one, and he played a great part in restoring and repairing it, helped by the Rev. Augustus Orlebar; and the east window was put in. The Duke, too, built what for that day were model cottages on the way to the church; and the school was put up in 1867. But in 1902 the Duke of Bedford sold the estate.

More than a thousand years have gone by since our forefathers first settled in Willington when the golden willow-catkins were in bloom. From a cluster of huts in uncleared country Willington has become a populous village in which almost every acre is intensively culti­vated. For most of Willington's history it has been part of a great estate; Beauchamp and Mowbray did little for the village; Gostwick and Bedford much. Now we rely on ourselves, and that Willington people will work for the village the Memorial Hall is evidence. Yet one thing has not changed with the years: Willington still bears the name it took hundreds of years ago.