Tales of Tunstall, Norfolk

Trying to source a picture of a Victorian printers, I found nothing suitable available which had not been copyrighted by one of the big picture agencies. I therefore found a picture I took on a trip to Blitz Hill in 2017.    I thought I had come to a complete halt in my investigations, until I started looking at the DNA through my Norfolk ancestors on Ancestry. A descendant of one of Jane Betsy's sisters was a closer cousin than others. This puzzled me, so I investigated the newspaper archives.    I searched Charlotte Allard's widower, Francis Allard. Shortly after his wife died in summer 1880, a report in the Norfolk Press describes a magistrates' court case. It was heard at Norwich Guildhall. Francis, of Park Lane, was fined for being "very much the worse for drink" and striking a police constable on the back with a stick. He claimed he was just brandishing the stick, but admitted being drunk. He was fined 10 shillings with 4/6d costs.    Francis Allard m...

In the 1860s, Jane Betsy (above) and her husband James Pollard Skinner hosted mid-summer Methodist tea parties in Tunstall. They sent conveyances to Yarmouth and back, to pick up visitors and welcomed people from every walk of life. These occasions attracted between 200 and 400 visitors. The Norfolk News on 27th June 1865 reported: "The barn was tastefully decorated and every arrangement made to secure the comfort of those assembled. This with the kindly feeling displayed by the proprietor, who met the numerous visitors to the home-stead with a true old English welcome, and opened his grounds and gardens for promenade, materially assisted in promoting the satisfaction and pleasure experienced by all."    All that ceased when Jane Betsy was widowed. The tragedies in her life had a profound effect on her status and equilibrium. As a widow, rather than being a hostess, she may even have been considered to be a threat to society. Initially she stayed in her home with her survivin...