Page 14 - The Long Crendon Connection

Redditch Heritage The Long Crendon Connection

The interior was originally divided into two rooms. An internal wall divides the first room from
the second and has a small doorway. This is clearly bonded into the fabric of the northern wall
and accommodates a fireplace. This fireplace shows a distinct scar of plaster where a covering
or structure has been attached to it. Below this scar is considerable discolouration of the wall
surface by soot or burning. An opening on the side of the chimneystack at a level just below the
top of the scar would indicate that a second flue had been accommodated.
The original floor was of beaten earth: this had a deposit of coal dust, ash and charcoal over and
trampled into it. Set into the floor were four iron fixings, presumably footing for machinery. A
brick plinth in the second room also appears to be a setting for further industrial equipment: a
pipe in the cistern wall may indicate that it was an overflow for a quenching basin.

The building certainly shows signs of an industrial past: certainly it displays unusual features for
a simple garden shed. The fireplace seems out of place in such a structure. It could mark the
building as a hovel dwelling, if it were not for the presence of the scorching, the scars of the
second Hue and the footings in the floor. These are indicative of some form of cottage industry
and appear to be associated with either the hardening process of the needles, or to have provided
heat for the steam scouring mill. The brick plinth and chimney pipe also appear to be associated
with this process.

Contemporary pictures of steam powered scouring engines show that they were not large in size
(Shrimpton 1897) and could have easily been accommodated in a building of these dimensions.
Considering the presence of the coal dust and fixtures within the first room, it is likely that it
housed the steam engine.

The stone footings of the northern wall could represent an earlier building that the standing one
was built off. No return for this stone was seen along the eastern wall, but stone footings were
seen near the centre of the wall. The wording (Donald 1971) of Emanuel Shrimpton s installation
of 1848 would imply that the brick building was already standing, although it may have been
built specially to accommodate the new engine.
From the evidence, it appears that the building is in fact the "brick shed" described in 1848 as
housing the steam powered scouring engine. This brick shed is also likely to be the same one
that Mr. Lovell would use in his spare time to make needles.

Source: David Gilbert - John Moore Heritage Services

Bibliography
Donald, J. 1971 The Crendon Needlemakers. Records of Bucks 19.1, 8-16

Donald, J. 1973 Long Crendon. A Short History, part II 1800-1914
May, M.C. 1991 Needlemaking and Needle-makers: A study of the trade in Buckingham shire,
Warwickshire and Worcestershire during the mid 19th century.
Unpublished Thesis for the University of London Diploma in Genealogy and the History of the
Family. Shrimpton, W. 1897 Notes on a Decayed Needle Land and the Sewing Needle. Redditch
Indicator.

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