Transcript Detail
| Transcript Title | Abel Smith, Ralph (O 2024.2) |
| Interviewee | Ralph Abel Smith (RAS) |
| Interviewer | Peter Ruffles (PAR), Trish Goldsmith (TG) |
| Date | 23/02/2024 |
| Transcriber by | Stephen McEnally (using Otter AI for initial transcript) |
Transcript
Recording No: O 2024.2
Interviewees: Ralph Abel Smith (RAS)
Date: 23rd February 2024
Venue: Woodhall Park
Interviewers: Peter Ruffles (PAR), Trish Goldsmith (TG)
Transcriber: Stephen McEnally (using Otter AI for initial transcript)
************** unclear recording
[discussion] untranscribed material
italics editor’s notes
PAR: Well, this is Peter Ruffles in the company of Trish Goldsmith at Woodhall Park. And we've been invited to chat with Ralph Abel Smith. We've already spoken many times in the past to Dorothy Abel Smith, who was a member of this Group for a good time. Dorothy has made some recordings for us but this time tables are turned a little bit because we're talking to Ralph, her younger brother.
And it is Friday 23rd of February, and the year is 2024. Thank you, Ralph, for giving us some time this morning. I think, what we're really interested in, Ralph, is you explaining to us a little bit about how your family has been in the Beane Valley for so many years and some of the history of the family from member of parliament situations much, much earlier, the effects the family has had and the care the family has given to people living in the area and also really landscape shaping. And we all know the big work that is happening at the moment with the Affinity Water and Woodhall estates with the - the enlarging of the lake and that sort of thing. So, we'll go where you take us, Ralph, but broadly speaking - and we are the Hertford Oral History Group - so our particular interest is – um - things that may be fairly closely related to Hertford and near surround, and may ask you at a later point, what use you today make of the county town in a way that probably is very different from past years, when harness makers and saddlers and all sorts of other provisions were provided for Goldings and, and here. But let's, let's just hear from you, Ralph. Thanks for letting us come -
RAS: Thank you very much for asking me to join this group. I'm very honoured to be here talking to you today.
I think if you want to go back, the family first came into Hertfordshire in 1801 when my great great great grandfather bought Woodhall. He'd been a banker in Nottingham and came down to be close to London to - um - be an MP and run the family bank in London. Four generations of the family lived in the big house, and they were all MPs. And the big house ceased to be the family home when my great uncle died in 1930. The contents were dispersed and it's been a school virtually ever since. And the family have lived in a series of smaller houses on the estate ever since. [short pause] So, we're now up to, shall we say, 1930. My grandfather inherited when my great uncle died - his younger brother - in 1930 and he died in 1937. And my father, inherited in 1937, came here to live and work and move and [indistinct – ? and have his living]. And he married my mother in 1940. And yes, two sisters, born in 1941 and 1942.
And I was born just after the war, in 1946. Um - [pause] - I think it cannot be over-emphasised how difficult agriculture was in those days. It wasn't just agriculture. The economy of the country was in dire straits in the 1930s and 19 - And then on, with the onset of war, things were very difficult indeed. And very little was put into the - very little had been put into the agricultural scene, into the land. There can be no doubt that the periods of the greatest input into the land and its infrastructure and locality coincided with the greatest periods of agriculture. Um [pause] - I suppose we pick up in 1815, in Waterloo, when Napoleon was seen off. Um – Napoleon had been an interventionist. And the fact that he was seen off allowed Britain to expand into about 100 years of great national prosperity. And the - at that time, the Corn Laws were enacted in 1815, which brought in a tariff on imported food. And I think it was supposed to protect the whole food production. But actually, what it did was to benefit the producer and drove up food prices for the consumer. And the Corn Laws were as controversial then, as the EU has been now. They were eventually repealed in 1846, during the prime ministership of, of Peel. And despite all the - um - all the - the - the opposition to the repeal, actually agriculture benefited greatly from the mid 1840s to the mid 1870s.
And an enormous amount of infrastructure went into the estate. And not just this estate, but estates generally. A lot of the farm buildings were built. Good quality farm buildings of brick and slate, houses, cottages, roads and general infrastructure. Because the prosperity was there and it was ploughed back into the land. Um - not only - then we're up into the period when my great great grandfather was in here. He died in 1859 and his son took over then. It was during those periods, though, that the - there was a lot of work done in the locality. Yes, churches were built such as Waterford or enlarged, such as Watton. Schools were built, almshouses created sources of employment, and many other local works, such as what we - then became the training school. It was called the Herts Reformatory, just outside Bengeo.
PAR: That's, Crouch - Crouchfields
RAS: Then it became known as Crouchfields.
PAR: Ah yes. That, that name came later.
RAS: My Father was chairman of it for many years. I was very disappointed when it was closed down by one of the governments and then they - that generation - they were also co-founders of Haileybury.
PAR: Yes
RAS: And - um - so they did their best and did their bit to plough in - not just into their own land but into the general area for, hopefully, for the good - for the - for the benefit of people generally. Um - there was a major sea change in about 1875, when there was a collapse in agricultural commodity prices. And that was caused by the railways in America, bringing wheat out of the prairies and thence on ships, bringing, bringing the wheat over into - um - not just Britain, but Northern Europe at a very much - lesser price, than home produced food. And it wasn't just wheat from North America, it was beef from South America. And then the Suez Canal enabled the import of wool from Australia and lamb from New Zealand, all at lower prices. The price of wheat in this country collapsed practically from - overnight from the equivalent of £600 a ton to £330 a ton. And it never really recovered. There were periods, some periods of respite, but it - agriculture really remained in the doldrums for a very, very long time. [pause] Um - a lot of estates were caught out. I think they may have been living beyond their means but a lot of landowners did sell. But forced sales, some to their, their tenancies [?], some to their tenants and some to industrialists who made their money in the Industrial Revolution. But it was probably quite a good thing. At that time, in the 1890s, about 90% of the land was tenanted and 10% in hand. And over the next 100 years or so is virtually reversed into 90% in hand and 10% in tenanted. But that's the - that's the way of the world. What is quite interesting is that a lot of farmers from Scotland came down to live and work in Hertfordshire. And you will see in the farming world, a lot of Scottish names -
PAR: - Yes -
RAS: - Sinclair, Murchie, McCready, Strachan. We've had a family called Little. That's not a Scottish name, but they came from the borders, and a family called Borlase here. They came from Cornwall. All coming into London to try and farm close to London to pick up the London markets. That's what my Father used to say.
So, - my - I think we've more or less got through to 1930s, when my father came. And he had a very great difficulty in re – in restarting the economy of the estate. And had a very, very difficult time during the war. Now the next sea change, in agriculture, came in 1947. There was the Agricultural Act, brought in by the then government. And that, that provided what was then became known as deficiency payments to produce a – a, a, a bottom for agriculture on a sort of concrete platform on which prosperity could then be built. And at the same time, it provided cheap food for the housewife. Um - the - [pause] it was a sort of double Act, to benefit, benefit the farmer and the housewife because I think - it sounds like crying wolf - but on-farm costs are not covered by farmgate prices. Or, put it another way, farmgate prices do not cover on-farm costs.
And so the way it was structured was that - the - if agriculture was subsidised, in turn, it would subsidise the housewife by producing a lower cost of food. So, the taxpayer pays, but the farmer and the housewife benefited. And actually, this is a policy that's been carried through all these years, by all governments of all colours. And, actually, when we went into the EU, that again, the same principle has applied. So, after the war, 1947, agriculture began to be rekindled. And gradually things started improving. At that time there were three quarters of a million men and three quarters of a million horses then directly engaged in agriculture. And now, needless to say, it's no horses. And it's down to about 75,000 people. So, there's been this enormous improvement in agriculture prosperity and productivity. And when I say productivity, that is wheat yields it’s milk yields it’s growth rates in cattle and sheep and pigs. It's disease control in crops and animals.
And so, agriculture has responded to the need to feed the nation very, very strongly indeed. So, it's worth just recording that. [pause] A – a, a, another interesting little statistic that is worth recording also, is that during the days when agriculture worked on muscle power - men and horses - between 15 and 20% of the land area, was required for feeding horses. Oats, hay in the winter, grazing in the summer, and so on. And so, just think of the amount of land that was released for food production, human food production.
PAR: That’s a very interesting angle. Yes.
RAS: When horsepower gave way to tractor power.
PAR: Yes!
RAS: The fuel tank, if you like, was the land. Now it's the diesel tank. So, I came, I came in, in the 19 - yes -, born in 1946, when agriculture was just in that transitional stage. Not only did it benefit the farmer, by just genuinely, steadily, steadily increasing prosperity - and that enabled reinvestment back into the land and back into the infrastructure - it actually reestablished the prosperity of the English estate, because they could then charge, ask - reasonably charge - a greater rent. And then the estate owners were able then, also, to put money back into the infrastructure. And, in a way, it's saved the English country house because, again, they could afford to spend money on English country houses. Many, many had been very, very badly run down through, through the 1930s and 40s.
And there are - there have been some terrible tragedies of losses of lovely country houses and their contents and their parklands. But I think what we have to do is to see, see the glass as half full and not half empty. Because the English country house is, is thriving now. Owners have adapted and changed their opening to the public - their - some have lions like Longleat, some have zoos, like Woburn. But it doesn't matter. Holkham have a huge caravan park. It doesn't matter. What matters is the survival of the house and its contents and the land that surrounds it and supports it.
PAR: Yes.
RAS: So, I - so that, I think is, is worth recording. And yes, yes, we are now doing over, over the years, we've adapted and changed. And just back to the English country house, its survival - generally, survival - I don't think it’s actually fanciful to say that the English country house and its contents is one of England's contributions to the arts. And that has been enabled by – err - by the increasing prosperity. I think what some people forget is that the pound notes do not float down out of heaven. They grow up literally out of the ground. And once it's there it’s there to be spent - positively. [short pause to think]
Now, originally, the - the typical farm - we had 16 in the 1960s. We had 16 tenanted farms. And we're now down to three. And - um - gradually farmers have given up as the costs have increased and they’re unable to gain an economy of scale. Some are retired. And it's us, and not just us ourselves, but the state generally have taken land into hand. Because the flip side is the more land we have the greater the economy of scale and we can farm more efficiently. Does it terribly matter whose, in whose land, in whose hands it’s in provided it's well - it's well, well looked after and nurtured in the right and proper way. It's easy to forget that there was food rationing for 14 years from 1940 to 1954. And - um - at that time, there was this push by all governments to produce more and more land - more and more food from the land. As I said, that did sort of - the prosperity did feed on itself.
But that was done at the expense of environment and biodiversity and bird life and plant life and so on. There's now been this big swing into a great - a much greater emphasis on environment and biodiversity and reallocating productive land back into woodlands, what we call wildlife mixtures, and environment that will – and habitat that - that will enhance birds and bees and butterflies and all the things we like to do and see. And we are responding to that here. Land has gone out of direct agriculture. And you'll see how it can show itself up to those who are passing in cars. While you'll see along – a lot of hedges - we did a major hedge planting programme in the 1990s. And now they're, they’re coming into their own. You will see what we call six metres strips on the inside of hedges, on the field side, and they are there for habitat creation. They - those six metre strips - they're the least productive areas for agriculture - um - because the soil gets compacted by tractors turning. And the land is overshaded by the hedge. So it's actually better not to farm them. It’s better to take them out of farming and put them into environment or biodiversity. And we do get paid for not farming those six metre strips. And then there was an additional payment as - as an incentive to use - to provide permissive rights of way. We've got a lot of rights of way over the estate.
PAR: Ah. Trish knows about rights of way!
RAS: What we've tried to do is to connect those statutory rights of way with permissive rights of way so that people can do a - circular walks and rides and so on, throughout -
PAR: There's certainly a lot of public access to your estate, which I think isn't, isn't - err - the case across the nation.
RAS: Well, we try very hard to welcome people and provide the necessary facilities for it. And that is the trend - that is the trend of things nowadays. How’s agriculture changed? It's in the 1950s, yes, wall to wall cropping and maximising food production. It was all mixed farming. Animals and cropping, but the trend of things in Hertfordshire has been to go out of stock - stock and more into pure arable farming. And - but I think if we went further west where the - where there was a greater rainfall, and more grassland, the cheapest form of animal food is, is natural grassland. And that, I think, is where the stock - stock farming is prevalent. Here in Hertfordshire, we have predominantly arable farming. We've only got one tenant farmer with animals. That's Bridget Borlase with her Simmental. We've just got a few sheep here, but otherwise, it’s practically all - all cropping. So, there we are. Now farm buildings, as farming has changed, and farm machinery has got bigger, the traditional form of farm buildings got - err - become redundant. So, the best way of preserving farm buildings is to put them into something financially productive. And we've done a lot of changes to sets of farm buildings. We've got more to go but we’ve made a good start. And we have gained what we, in planning terms, you'll know, must be B1, B8 Planning Consent which is for light industrial and associated offices. [B1 planning consent covers Offices/Research and Development/Light Industry, and B8 Storage and Distribution] And we've got a wide variety of users of these buildings throughout the estate.
PAR: So that translates into employment opportunities for – yes, yes.
RAS: Exactly. The traditional farm - set of farm buildings - would have - some of very high quality -
built, as I said, in the 1840s,1850s. You'll see them from the roadside, brick and slate roofs and they were sort of complexes in themselves. They were – um – graneries, stables, chaff house, hay store, building for milking cows, cattle sheds, pig sties, wagon houses, back yards, straw - and so on and so forth. And we’ve - there would have been a great community working in those buildings. They steadily, steadily reduce and reduce and reduce, but now we’ve rejuvenated them with newer buildings or new uses for the old buildings, and, with it, bringing in new skills and new ideas. A
nd I think if - if it's a way of preserving the buildings and providing employment, that can only be for the good. And just to give a taste, we've got an equestrian centre, we've got a doctor’s surgery in, in Watton, we've got a joinery shop, we've got plumbers, we've got wood stores. And somebody who makes window blinds, to name just a few. There’re about 30 - now about 30 commercial units throughout the estate, large and small. And our son, Thomas, has now taken over. He has - he reckons there’s over a thousand people who live and move and have their being [?] and get taught in - within the community, within the Woodhall estate.
TG: That’s fascinating.
PAR: Well, Trish, tell me if I'm - out of the water -
RAS: Have I, have I diverted from what you expected - ?
TG: No, no, that’s absolutely fascinating.
PAR: No, no, no, that's, that's useful.
TG: I'm, I’m more interested to say to you - if you're prepared to say - as a small boy growing up here, what was life like?
RAS: Well, OK. I was – yes - born in 1946. And [pause] had a very happy, carefree boyhood. And I think every, each day each week sort of merged itself into, into, into each other, which I think is a sign of being happy and content. My mother was always there. And my father worked in the estate office. So, I saw more of him than had he been catching the seven o'clock train every morning. And life just drifted by very, very nicely. Of course, there were landmarks in life. I can just remember the death of, of the King. But I remember the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11 more, more vividly. There was great national rejoicing. And I think it was - the sort of attitude was, the war was over, in a sort of ‘ring out the old, ring out the new’ feeling. And I remember flags and bunting all over the place. And it was the first time - it's the other way in which I remember it - the first time I ever saw television.
TG: Yes, me too!
RAS: We went - we didn't have television - we went to somebody's house in Stapleford. And we sat watching the black and white television set.
TG: Staring at the screen.
RAS: So, in fact, that, that was a landmark and then I suppose the other landmarks was first days in school. My first, first school, you will remember, Miss Button.
PAR: Yes!
RAS: In, in Hertford, just beyond the, the North, Hertford North Station.
PAR: That, for our listeners, Miss Button had a private, small - very small - private school in the Wall House, which is between the North Station and the County Hospital.
RAS: That's right. On the left. Now housing.
PAR: Yes. Now Cedar Close and Millstream Close, just to give it a sort of anchor, geographically.
TG: So, you started school, presumably at five?
RAS: Yes, yes. But children didn't start at nursery school. I don’t think there were such things as nursery schools in those days.
TG: We all started, the year in which we were five. I mean, I can remember because I have a summer birthday. I was nearly a year younger than some of the others in my class because you didn't go in as you turned five. You went, you had to wait until you were actually five.
PAR: What happened after Miss Button?
RAS: Well not to put too fine a point on it, I didn't learn much there [general laughter]. My parents thought they should think again. So, they asked the Headmaster of Heath Mount if they would - if he would - take me on as a day boy. For a short time to give me a sort of lift, which I needed, and prepare me for going to private school later. And yes, I did go to Heath Mount for two terms, and - as a day boy. I was the only day boy at the time, I would bicycle up in my bicycle in the shed. I had to be there in time for chapel which was, for the sake of argument, by 9 o’clock. Perfectly normal school curriculum with work and lunch and games. And then I would peel off to bicycle back home about six o'clock when the borders were getting in for their high tea. I enjoyed it. It was - it did me, it did me a lot of good. And I - yes - had a sort of foretaste of private school life. And I learned a lot. I think I learned a lot more than I had with Miss Button. But everybody realised that I needed to go further away to - than Heath Mount - to broaden, broaden my horizons. So, I went to a private school in Wiltshire. I was there for five years.
TG: That was - yes - that was obviously boarding school?
RAS: That was full boarding, yes. My parents were very noble in coming down with quite a long – quite a long day for them to come down on Sundays to take me out because there's no M4 or M25 in those days. But they got up early, took me out and dropped me back in school and came back, arriving back late at night. But they were - they were marvelous in doing that.
PAR: I have to say, I think, at some point, I’ve got a great sympathy with the workings of Woodhall and sort of emotional sympathy, really, because – we’ll - may I mention Nanny Turnbull, Trish, and the, the common interest? My, my own connection with Woodhall is through the family nanny, Nanny Turnbull, who was our next door neighbour in Hertingfordbury Rd in Hertford. And she'd been nanny to your father, really, and that was the strongest connection. But by the time the next generation came on board, which was Dorothy and, and Elizabeth, your sister, and I - who were born, I think, on the same day - and then Ralph, she was sort of ‘superannuated nanny’, but still brought in from time to time or brought herself in, I'm not sure, in connection with Tim’s children [Tim is Ralph Abel Smith’s father]. And so, I sometimes come with her to play in the sandpit with Elizabeth, particularly. But ages matter don't they then, and Ralph hadn't really - Ralph wasn't part of our sandpit thing, because he's several years younger, not many [laughter] And it doesn't - it concertinas at this end of life, but then there's quite a difference but I do have a -
RAS: Yes, my father's nanny. We called her Gran then. We absolutely adored her. She was a lovely, lovely person
PAR: Yes
RAS: And, yes, she came here. And then we would - she lived, yes, No 64 Hertingfordbury Rd. And if we went to tea there, which we did and loved it, Peter was brought in from next door, No 62.
PAR: Yes. I was very used [indistinct] top up company [laughs]. But very good memories.
RAS: I remember thinking, Peter is three years older than me. He's nine and I’m six. It’s just not fair.
[general laughter]
PAR: That’s how it was. But for me, it was an insight, of course, into - particularly the farming side - because the cow sheds and milking happened. And I wouldn't have been near a cow shed at milking time had it not been for that opportunity of coming here. Sometimes -
RAS: - You will remember the cows being brought in from the fields?
PAR: Yes, yes.
RAS: For milking. And will have seen them. In stalls.
PAR: Yes.
RAS: Being, being milked.
PAR: Yes.
TG: Hand milked, presumably in those days, was it - or?
RAS: No, no, we had – it had got beyond that. They were, they were hand milked. But no, there was - there was a machine
PAR: Yes, I remember the machinery, yes.
RAS: The, the milk was pumped along into the dairy and they were - and into churns about four foot high and each churn held 10 gallons. And I remember the lorries coming each day to pick up the churns.
PAR: Yes, yes, so one of the essential things before returning home, walking up the drive to Rosa. Rosa - ?
RAS: Rosa Hall -
PAR: Rosa Hall and her mother lived at the Hertford Lodge - the way we came in. And we'd wait for the bus, the 390 bus, there. But the essential duty was to go to the woodyard with a couple of large, empty bags that Nanny Turnbull had brought for the purpose.
RAS: She called it wooding ‘I need to go wooding’.
PAR: Wooding. The wooding and, and so we’d pick up chips for, for the fire lighting. And so, they went back, like shopping bags, back on the 390. And earlier than that, the aforementioned Miss Button - school - and a much earlier duty was to go and make sure Dorothy was safely on the bus because Dorothy also went to Miss Button’s school.
And so, we walked round with Aunt Gert [Miss Turnbull] - as I know she was Aunt Gert to me, although not actually related - round to the County Hospital bus stop. I'm sure Dorothy was capable of reading ‘three nine zero’ and getting on the right bus. But for some reason we had to make sure she did. Perhaps the bus may not have arrived or something like that. And then she would have been brought home. I never knew that happening but for some reason we had to make sure Dorothy was safely on the bus. And Dorothy would get off at the Hertford Lodge and -
RAS: - and walk down –
PAR: - and walk down - So -
RAS: I remember my mother picking, picking me up from school.
PAR: In a little green Wolseley that used to appear. There was great excitement at 64 Hertingfordbury Rd, watching in the bay window for your mother, Alma, to come and park in the - in one of the three parking places within view of the house, which was the entrance to Riversmeet - was a high brick wall and 20 foot high double gates and there was a sort of bay in front of the gates and into that could fit about 3 cars. And so that’s where -
RAS: That wouldn’t happen now.
PAR: No. Not at all - on the dual carriageway. So, I remember, you know, watching from the bay window of next door to - for this car to arrive, which will be your mother's visit. Which leads me on to - I mean - we have recorded your Ma for this Oral History Group [Alma Abel Smith, O1999.16] . So, you're not actually paving the way, Ralph, I'm afraid, here. She, she's in the Museum having chatted to us a bit about Woodhall, I suppose. I can't quite remember the detail of the thing. But her reputation in the village, in the villages, was enormously high. Because of the pastoral - she was so good at the pastoral care of people. And some of whom would have been tenants, I suppose, probably large numbers of them. But popping round with - it, it seemed - but history confuses slightly - that each time she would have some offering, you know, flowers, or a nibble or a something by token. But that side of the pastoral care of - landlord responsibilities - will have changed in modern times, won't it, because Housing Acts and demands and requirements - so the properties would have been let - in - under very different terms?
RAS: Well, yes. One must not underestimate the enormous social changes that have taken place. I must add in, as well. Yes, my mother was an enormous help and support to my father in his, in his period. And my wife, Alexandra, has been just the same help, very, very helpful. Because work life and home life is so inextricably entwined. And I think that's a point to remember in running, in running a place like this. Yes, in the 1950s, I have a feeling that our parents’ generation picked up life after the war, rather largely as it had - socially - rather as it had been before the war. And the big social sea change came in the 1960s. I feel that quite strongly. So, I - we were much freer to do what we thought was the right thing at the right time in the 1950s. But, as you mentioned, with so many housing rules and regulations and acts that were coming in, frankly, we're not allowed to think for ourselves any longer. We just have to obey the rules.
PAR: Yes.
RAS: But that's, that's the way of the trend - that’s the trend of things and we just have to go with the flow, there’s nothing you can do about it. But certainly, my mother did, did do a lot of social work in - at time. Um - but life has changed and we try and make a contribution to the locality and the community, albeit in a slightly different way.
PAR: Yes, yes, indeed. One of the last times I chatted with your mother, who - I did tell Trish on the way here - she was one of the first people to see me after I was born.
RAS: Oh right, right!
PAR: And would always remark on the condition - on the beauty - of my fingernails [general laughter] soon after birth. She came from - I expect Elizabeth had been born then - she came a day or two later from the nursing home in County Hospital round to where my Ma was in the -
RAS: Elizabeth was born in Hertford Hospital.
PAR: Yes, and, and saw me as a baby so she was one of my very first - people coming to pay respects.
RAS: Good!
PAR: But one of the - one of the last times I saw her, she was waiting outside the dentist in St. Andrew Street. And so, given that this is the Hertford Oral History Group, would the family and the estates have had a greater use - I’m suggesting it might have done - of Hertford town facilities, the county town facilities, the dentist, the chimney sweep, and that sort of thing - err - in the past, more than currently? I mean, do, do you today use Hertford?
RAS: Well, how do we all remember Hertford in the 1950s? Every profession was represented. All the shopkeepers, a huge range of, of shops, selling, really everything you wanted. And a lot of services, such as, yes, doctors, dentists, chiropodist and all the things that the community would need. And of course, very little, very little traffic. You could park virtually anywhere you wanted. The ring road was built in the 19s, early 60s?
TG: 70s, yes?
PAR: Yes, 60s, end of the 60s, yes.
RAS: End of the 60s, yes, So Hertford has changed. Stating the obvious, you’ve got the supermarkets, we've got in the Fore St and St Andrew St masses of restaurants, coffee houses, barber shops. Banks have actually disappeared. And so, that is the characteristic of Hertford now.
PAR: Yes, yes.
RAS: So, I suppose do we use Hertford as much as we did? [pauses to think] Well, we do, we do go to – err - M & S and Sainsbury’s and so on. But the – um - where you can get - sort of - which are one stop shops - effectually, rather than walking up and down Fore St for the butcher, the baker, the fishmonger, the grocer, and so on. And I remember going shopping with my mother and we would go, go along and buy what was necessary. And then come home with a basket full of goodies.
TG: I suppose, sort of, tradespeople now, you would find them in the villages as well, like Watton at Stone or -
RAS: Watton at Stone is well served. It's one of the few - my father used to say - it's one of the few villages in the locality that were allowed to grow, that was allowed to grow after the war. So, we've got a mixture of council housing, some of our own private housing along the High Street and a lot of private housing. It's got its station; it's got its doctor's surgery. It's got its Budgens, barber, Bridget, the butcher’s moved out. But it's - it’s a happy community. It's got its Community Hall, War Memorial Hall. And it's [pause] it’s got its clubs, cricket club, football club, and so on. It’s, it’s different. It’s evolved. And I think the great, the great thing, over the years - it’s been evolution, not revolution.
PAR: You offered yourself and were duly elected as a district councillor.
RAS: Yes, we sat on – we sat together didn’t we?
PAR: We sat together, yes!
RAS: Yes. The district council system was brought in, in the 1972 Act?
PAR: Yes.
RAS: And I won the 1976 and 1980 elections. So, we were together for eight years.
PAR: Yes, yes. So, that form of public service then, which must have come at a time when the workload, putting it crudely, here was particularly demanding?
RAS: Well, I did make myself pretty busy in those days.
PAR: Yes, yes, you would have done.
RAS: I was steadily taking over from my father who, who wasn't, who wasn't enjoying the best of health. So, I was sort of dove tailing myself in - to the work here.
PAR. Yes.
RAS: And then trying to look outside to do, do other work.
PAR. Yes. And in his time, it had been Hertford Rural District Council.
RAS: Yes, he sat on that for many years,
PAR: For many years - um - two other things that fascinate - because they're still with us but in a very different form from generations back - that you’ll be able to tell us a little bit about - one is the patronage system in the Church of England, for example, where every - Trish is a Methodist so she knows nothing of this but - every church of England has a patron. And then very often it’s the - well - St Andrew’s in Hertford is the King, currently, but previously the Queen because of the link of St. Andrew's church with the Castle. And - um - sometimes it's – um - the Grocers’ Company, various -
RAS: A lot of Oxford and Cambridge colleges.
PAR: And Oxford and Cambridge colleges. And you, Ralph, are patron of a number of churches. So, I’ll ask you a little bit about that, and how you - presumably that's something that you've inherited, as it were - and how you operate today that system fairly. And the other thing perhaps we've never talked to anyone about on the Oral History thing is the High Sheriff thing. If you could tell us a little bit about how one comes to be High Sheriff. And we ought to say that High Sheriff is not the same as the Lord-Lieutenancy. Let's, let me just make that clear to begin with.
TG: Yes. Because I get confused on that one.
PAR: But yes, everyone does. The Lord - there’s one, Lord-Lieutenant. And it's often a 10-year ‘ish, period.
TG: And is that for the whole of Hertfordshire?
PAR: For Hertfordshire. As is the High Sheriff the whole of Hertfordshire. But it's the High - the Lord-Lieutenant is the Queen’s representative in this place, in this county. And the lieutenancies happen in every other traditional county in the country. But the High Sheriff is the - a one-year job.
RAS: Yes, just going back to the Lord-Lieutenant. Yes, he or she is the - now the King’s representative in the county, and he or she takes precedence over everybody else in the county. And that is for - not just 10 years - is actually until - they're expected to go on till they're 75. And so, some - um - if you start - some can go for 10 years, if they start at 65. Some go for 25 years.
PAR: Yes.
RAS: It's a, it's a very, very - huge job. And it’s an enormous amount of work involved in it and it’s a huge commitment.
PAR: Yes.
RAS: But the High Sheriff is - sort of - elected from within the county. Yes, the Lord-Lieutenant is a royal appointment and the High Sheriff is a - comes up, straight up from within the county. You are asked - you're invited to become a High Sheriff about three or four years in advance. And then your own year comes closer and closer. And you, during your year, you are number two in the county under the Lord-Lieutenant. The traditional role of the High Sheriff the oldest secular office in the - in the country. It was literally to protect the judge from - err - literally with their sword in their hand. But, needless to say, things have changed since. And so, when they carry the sword that is only symbolic. You are - err - you are expected to - um - join the High Court, in our case in St Albans - for some high, high court - to join the High Court judges - um - when they sit three times a year and sit in on the trials. You don't have to sit in on all the trials all the time, but you’re certainly expected to sit in for all the trials for some of the time. And one of your jobs is to entertain the judge in your own home. And in turn, you get entertained by the judge in his lodgings. Or certainly I was. Having said that, there were judge’s lodgings near Harpenden, where you went, I think that's been closed down now as an economy drive. And I think that the judge goes home between his - at night - unless he comes from afar, in which case he stays in a hotel. The other interesting thing that you have to do is to entertain the barristers during their time in St. Albans, and we had a lunch, one held a lunch near the courthouse for the judges and those directly involved with the, with the cases. And I must say, I had some very nice letters. They said, where - sometimes we have to deal with these very gruesome cases. And it's actually very refreshing to get out of the courthouse and have a civilised lunch.
PAR: Yes.
RAS: And then they go back, they go back in refreshed. So that's, that’s an important point. And then you can really fashion your year’s shrievalty to however you want. And you can put whatever, whatever emphasis you, you want onto your year. The, the High Sheriff before me was called Joan Stuart Smith, and she was wife of a high court judge. She really focused on acknowledging the role of magistrates whereas, you know, a more recent high sheriff was focused on slavery in the county, for example.
What I focused on was to try and acknowledge the role of what you might call the unsung heroes, those who actually go out into the field, gymkhanas, what d’you call them? - high? - Red Cross, and St Johns who actually go out into the fields. Local doctors, local policemen, those who are - they’re doing a huge job - useful to the community that don't always get acknowledged. So, what, so, what I did was to focus on the annual High Sheriff services in St Albans Abbey. And I wrote round to 100 friends and associates in the area and invited them to send me 10 names from those who they knew in their localities. And so, I sent invitations out to all those people. And I said, wear your uniform if you want. And we filled the Abbey completely. And I made sure that the service was slanted towards acknowledging their role. And again, I had some very, very nice letters for that. So, it just shows how each High Sheriff can do their own thing. And that is actually what keeps the High Sheriff post fresh because everybody's changing, and everybody’s only for a year. And because you're there for a year, you really go at it hard.
PAR: Yes.
TG: So, when, when was your year?
RAS: 1984. I came off the District Council because I was going to become High Sheriff. That's why I did just the two terms.
TG: Just for the record.
[general laughter]
RAS: And then after that, I really got fully focused into running this place.
PAR: Yes. And the obscure question of church -
RAS: Church patronage. The church patronage is a legal entity. It's known as an incorporeal hereditary right. I'm not sure how far back the practice goes. But you inherit that right. And I'm patron of five churches: Watton, Sacombe, Bengeo and - um - Stapleford and Bramfield. You mentioned the Grocers’, you mentioned Waterford. The Grocers’ are patrons of Waterford church. So, when there's a - so when there's a vacancy, we work together.
PAR: And you'll be working with the church authorities who are -
RAS: Yes. So, if we just go back a step, my father used to say that the, the patron had really autonomous right in nominating a rector for induction. And the bishop was obliged to induct the -incumbent, the candidate of his choice. The only way in which a bishop could decline to induct was if you consider the candidate to have lack of learning, quote, unquote. And once inducted into a parish he was deemed to have the freehold of the glebe and therefore could not be dislodged. And the old saying was that the only way in which he could be dislodged was if he was drunk in the pulpit. [general chuckling]
But things have changed. My father - obviously out of good manners - he did consult the, the churchwardens and the PCC. But now it’s - I’m sure it’s right that he should be moved into being a much more democratic process of selection. And, yes, it’s the, it’s the PCC and the archdeacon and the bishop all have a strong say in it. And I remember at collective meetings when there's a vacancy - arises. But at the end of the day, the patron does present capital P - the inner ceremony which you’ll have seen, in the church - to the bishop and takes responsibility for it.
PAR: The Queen sent the chaplain of the Savoy Chapel to represent her at the last time that there were- there were interviews for St. Andrews in Hertford. He actually was very helpful in helping the church wardens to have the, the appointment that we thought was best at the end of the interview. And the church authorities, the bishop and the archdeacon, were a little bit pulling us away from that, but we're grateful to Her Majesty, and, and the chaplain of the Savoy Chapel who, who sort of tipped the scales our way and -
RAS: And did it, did it stand up to the test of time?
PAR: Yes, it's been fulfilment for us. We've had 16 or 17 years of very good ministry at St Andrew’s. But that's, that's a bit on the personal side. The other things to - if you're happy, Ralph, and not too tired - to talk about are what I would call shaping the landscape, as it were. We mentioned earlier that the Abel Smith family actually built the Kings highway between Waterford church, let's say, and the cemetery at Hertford - North Road - in order to move the highway further away from the then, Abel Smith Goldings estate. And so that's a bit of real shaping of the landscape. But much more recently, for example, you've worked with Affinity Water on shaping the landscape, literally, of the estate. But what's, what's happened there with the lake?
RAS: You will have passed it as you drove down the drive. In the [pauses to think] 18th century - um - or early 19th century the River Beane, which rises at Walkern and flows through the estate. That was dammed up to create a lake or a lake effect. And we've, we've always called it the Broadwater. And so, the, the lake was the river and the river was the lake. One flowed through. And a lot of silt built up and so it got shallower and shallower and one day it burst its banks. There was one flash flood from Stevenage too many - and it burst, burst its banks.
And I think this is a point to remember. When the land was agricultural, when it rained, the land absorbed the water. Now we've got hundreds of acres of concrete and tarmac in Stevenage. So it all runs off. And that's why we get these flash floods. And we’d known we needed to do some heavy work on the Broadwater for many years. But this concentrated the mind, and I have to say my son, Thomas, takes full credit for it. Because it fell into his lap, just as he was taking over. We had a lot of help and support from Affinity Water and negotiating with the Environment Agency and the District Council and Natural England and Historic England because it’s in this parkland [?] setting, and he had to sort of coordinate the thinking of all those different groups into saying ‘yes’, at the right place and at the right time. And eventually - it took a long, long time - but eventually he broke through. And the conclusion was that the river and the lake should be separated. And so, you will see a stream running down the side of the lake. And that is - that is the continuation of the River Beane and the river runs down into Hertford, of course. And separately, there's the Broadwater, the lake, which is ringfenced and is self-supplying with water through springs.
And the hydrologist said, if you dig away the mud and re-expose the gravel, it will re-ignite the spring, rejuvenate the springs. Which is exactly what did happen. She, she was absolutely right. And so, it's very satisfactory to see it thriving. And we had to move an awful lot of mud out of it. But luckily, we were able to fill a hole elsewhere on the land with it so it did not have to be transported away. And even in the last few very, very hot, dry summers, the water has continued to cascade over the waterfall. Not as much as you'll see today. It has, it has kept going. And so, the advice to rejuvenate the springs has been very, very accurate indeed. And with it it’s brought a huge amount of wildlife, bird life and wildlife in the banks. And so, obviously, it's very, very satisfactory. And you will see interpretation boards up beside it. And people can - we often see footpath walkers stopping and reading the interpretation boards.
TG: Excellent.
PAR: And I noticed, just in the last week or so, a tweet which describes - and I scribbled down the terms - that there is a future proposal you're working on to ‘re-wiggle’, he called it, the course of the Beane. Has -?
RAS: That’s news to me
PAR: Oh - ?
RAS: No, no. I've retired. And, our son, Thomas, he's in charge - so that will be his, his initiative. [general laughter]
PAR: So, Thomas is in charge of re-wiggling’ ! And it -
RAS: Where did you get that from?
PAR: Oh, Twitter or something like that - social media, I think. And it, it describes and thanks the estate. But it describes it as being for the benefit of nature and community. And I think that we're probably at the ending point of the recording.
That is not a bad position to finish our chat with, Ralph, because the re- wiggling that Thomas is in charge of - wherever it might be happening - the benefit that is recognised and announced is for nature. They don't say ecology but I think that nature probably is the broader term isn’t it? And community? And I think that's what we've recognised this morning that while the estate is a huge business, it's also a huge business with a direct impact and influence and giving benefit to the communities of the Beane valley in one way or another. So, thank you very much.
RAS: Well, we try very hard. We enjoy having school parties here. And there's a man who’s head of forestry called Nick Fox. He takes school children through the woodlands and shows them things and teaches them about [indistinct] particularly Stapleford School. And I think he's getting other schools - I think Tonwell School, I'm not sure, but there are certainly other schools that he brings in. The other one he has done - has started - is called countryside learning. And that is bringing schoolchildren in from the locality in buses, and they spend the day here. And they are shown the way the countryside works. There's about six stands, and then they're taken round those stands in turn. There's one on agriculture, there’s one on forestry, there’s one on environment, there's one on birds, birds of prey. They love the lovely man who comes and does the stand on the birds of prey. And, and the, the children, judging by the look on their children's faces, when they go back to school and the look on the teachers’ faces, it's been a huge success. It’s two, two consecutive days of about 150 children each. It’s a fairly small radius, because the, the buses can't leave until the children’s normal start time at school. And they have to be back in time for the normal, the children’s normal end time at school. So, it's a really small radius of people, of the schools. [A telephone starts ringing in the background, quite loud].
And so, what we are trying to do is to encourage other farmers and landowners to do the same throughout the county and then to try and spread this. But it's, it is, I think, it is helpful in their education. For example, the agricultural one. We, [the telephone stops ringing] we parked a combine harvester in a field with a table in front of it. And literally there is a sheaf of wheat, a loaf of bread, a sheath of barley, and a bottle of beer, and a sheaf of oats and a packet of porridge. And it is, it has been a huge success.
PAR: Yes, yes.
TG: Brilliant.
PAS: And it’s just one, one small thing that we try to do. And it’s one of many that Thomas is, is doing and I know this is an aspect of work, of estate management he’s wanting to expand.
PAR: Yes, yes. Thank you.
TG: Right. Yes.
PAR or RAS:? Are we there?
TG: I think we are. Yes. Do I switch off now?
RAS: Well, at the end of the day, all I can do is to say it's been - um - a very great privilege to inherit and have the ability to run and administer, and then pass on, a piece of England's green and pleasant land.
TG: Fantastic