[This article first appeared in the Autumn 1947 edition of the late-lamented Bedfordshire Magazine. C.L.F Brown is the married name of Charlotte Dalton, who contributed so much to our knowledge of and affection for the village, and who was brought up in Dean House - Ed.]
BEDFORD folk refer to our part of the county as 'the wilds of North Bedfordshire', and the valley which holds the picturesque village of Dean lies well in 'the wilds'. We were amused by an indignant traveler from Bedford to Clapham when she exclaimed: 'I think it's a disgrace - buses only run here every half-hour'. She was incredulous when we said that where we came from they ran only once a week! This was not strictly true, because a small private bus goes to market on Saturdays, but as it returns before tea-time it is 'no good for the pictures'. Its ancestor was a canvas-covered wagon with a stout horse which took at least three hours to reach the county town, and rather more to return to its stable at The Three Compasses. John Staines, the owner, did many an errand for the elderly folk who dare not venture on such an expedition. [John Stains is mentioned in Kelly's Directory, 1885, as a carrier - Ed.].
Lace-making and soling army boots were then the village industries. They have been killed by the machine age, though the craze for strap sandals a few years ago 'coined gold ' for those with nimble fingers which could thread leather thonging more adroitly than any mechanical device. During the world war, those same fingers assembled delicate electrical apparatus at the urgent call of a war factory in the Eastern region; some of the older men heeled thousands of army boots with steel protectors - a simple job but a vital need. Out of the world in many ways, Dean can do its share when emergency calls. Once, perhaps, war actually came to this quiet spot, for there is a deep ditch on the south side of the village called 'Cromwell's Trench'. No modern bombs fell here, but a string of incendiaries was dropped one night when an unthinking villager was shutting up hens with the aid of a hurricane lamp.
Most of the place-names are connected with the fields: 'Tebbutts' is a corruption of 'The Butts'; 'Thislands' is named on an old map, 'The S Lands', which the local farmer thinks was the result of ploughing with a long team of oxen, though some people think it was to secure good drainage. 'Warrens', no doubt, was the land granted to William de Warrene by the Conqueror in 1086. The origin of 'Pickbones', 'Hellfire Corner', 'Lazarus', and 'Snotchems' is wrapt in mystery. 'Charity Corner' once provided funds for the deserving poor.
Joseph Neale endowed a school for boys in 1702, with the rector as master; he had to preach before the governors on Whit Sunday, and they 'had to take note of his behaviour and the boys' improvement.' At first the boys were taught in the south chapel of the church, later in a little lattice-windowed building which lately was a hardware shop and is now a cottage outhouse. [Peartree Cottage - Ed.] The present school, built in 1876, [a private house since 1973 - Ed.] at one time accommodated over a hundred scholars; to-day there are less than forty. [In 2003 there were 50 (hurrah) but at one time in the 1980s the role was 12! - Ed]. The Neale lands and old school-house were sold and the investment is used to give bursaries to children who are awarded places in the secondary schools.
All Hallows, the parish church, has lost some of its original features, among them wall-paintings on the chancel walls and a sundial over the porch, but most of its beauty remains to charm those who value the work of medieval craftsmen. The decorated tower and string course with heads are worth notice; the spire is a Perpendicular addition. The chancel arch dates from the thirteenth century. But the glory of the church is the splendid roof with richly-carved open-work below the wall-plates, angels with outstretched wings to support the rafters, and intricately designed bosses in the centre of the main beams. The high pitch of the original thatched roof can be traced inside the church on the east wall of the tower. Many pews date from pre-Reformation times; so does the pulpit, the finely carved screens of black oak and the alms box. There is some medieval glass in the restored windows, with vestiges of coats-of arms and figures - one, a priest, styled 'Johnes Lysset.' A good brass on the altar tomb in the south chapel commemorates a rector, Thomas Parker, who died in 1501. Another tomb beneath a l4th century canopy has a Norman-French inscription; nearby is a hagioscope or squint which gave a peep into the chancel before the organ obscured it. This organ once graced the hall of Melchbourne Park before it was presented to the church in memory of a lay rector, John William Rawson Ackroyd, an outstanding character and a great sportsman. Although paralysed, he was out in all weathers in a high-wheeled chair drawn by a shaggy pony; in the shooting season no lane or field was too rough for him. Above the pulpit is a memorial to the Dillingham family; Francis Dillingham, who was born at Dean, was one of the forty-seven men chosen to translate the authorised version of the Bible. The font has an interesting panelled octagonal bowl. A treasured possession is a fifteenth century silver communion cup and cover. One of the bells dates from this time, too, and is inscribed: 'Celorium Xpe placeat tibi rex sonus iste', which might be translated as : 'May that king of heavenly sounds please thee, O Christ'.
On the brow of the hill to the north of the valley, is the base of a cross known as the Three Shire Stone' - here Bedford, Northampton and Huntingdon meet. Nearby, beyond one of the old green. 'drift' roads, stands the wreck of a fine post windmill, [Nether Dean mill fell down in the 1950s - Ed.] which was sold in 1620 'for five shillings of good and lawful money'. A brick tower mill was built on Oak Ley Hill nearer the village. The field called Mill Hill was undoubtedly the site of another older mill - pieces of mill-stones have been found in the pond which was once U-shaped and upon which floats probably turned the mill to the wind.
Drain pipes and fine red tiles were made from the clay dug at the foot of Oak Ley Hill; only slight traces remain of the kiln in which they were fired, but the lovely tiles still glow upon roof of cottage and barn. Walls of wattle and daub are still firm after several hundred years' service; beneath the huge chimneys, wherein bacon and hams were once smoked, now stand modern grates. One thatched oven can still be seen and a few picturesque thatched cottages, one of Tudor date, survive. Two of the farm houses were built in the seventeenth century and have steeply pitched tiled roofs beneath which are sharply pointed gables; in one is. a charming panelled room: of the same period. In the ancient thatched cottage near the church small girls were taught to make pillow lace and to read the Bible; next door is the forge with one of the few remaining blacksmiths - his family has followed the trade for over two hundred years, and bears the appropriate name of Tuffnail [See Tuffnail Family (the forge closed in the 1970s) - Ed.] - where one can still see heavy cart-wheels being shod with iron tyres on a blazing pile of brushwood. To-day, the corn is gathered by a combine harvester, but not so very long ago on the Lodge farm, the thrashing was done by a horse-drawn steam engine, not unlike the Rocket of railway fame. In those days: the men brought their dinners of 'Bedfordshire Clanger' (liver and onion in a suet crust) or 'Half and Half' (a long dumpling with meat in one end and jam in the other), which on cold days were set on the engine boiler to 'het up'. After a particularly hard day, home-brewed beer made with water from the brook was dispensed by the farmer's wife. Fifty years ago every cottage kept a pig and all the housewives made wine from cowslips, dandelions or elderberries. Home made bread was baked from gleaned corn ground in the village mills.
Many changes have come in the village's social life but in this sheltered spot the wild life remains much the same. The nightingale sings in the churchyard and there are hosts of jays, magpies, green woodpeckers and owls. About sixty species of birds have been seen within the parish boundary; a few, among them the nuthatch, hawfinch, spotted woodpecker and yellow wagtail, seem to come for a year or so and then depart to reappear again later for another sojourn. Kingfishers flash up and down the brook near the ford in Chare Lane (the name has an origin similar to that of Charing Cross). A stray wild duck or snipe can be put up at times. A corncrake sometimes calls up in the Pinfolds where our shyest resident, the badger, lives; an otter occasionally visits us, wandering up the brook from the River Kim. Wild flowers are abundant; the more unusual are adder's tongue, crested cowwheat, elecampane, bee and butterfly orchis, green hellebore, herb paris and nettle-leaved bellflower. In some spinneys, strawberries and dewberries flourish and grand blackberries are to be found in the hedges which also produce 'sloen' as well as hips and haws in profusion and fine crab apples. Alas, many of these fine old hedges are being cut to the ground or rooted out entirely. Visit Dean in springtime, and smell the delicate perfume of blue and white violets - sweeter far than any flower of the cultivated garden. After the myriads of may blossoms, the thickets are starred with wild roses. Fashions change in village gardens, nowadays gay with lupins, delphiniums and popular annuals where fifty years ago madonna lilies, pinks, lavender, hollyhocks and honeysuckle reigned supreme. Dean's fifty-third annual flower show was held this year. It is owing to this institution; I think, that Dean possesses some of the neatest and most productive gardens in the county. The drive for home grown food was a modified success - very few plots could be persuaded to yield more because the best possible use had always been made of them. Harvest is the peak of the year in Dean for everyone; few old customs remain, but harvest supper is still served at the Prince of Wales Inn, [unfortunately The Prince of Wales closed in 1990s. Harvest Supper has recently been served in the Dalton Hall - Ed.] which stands on the site of a sixteenth century predecessor. Formerly the Foresters paraded to church at Whitsuntide, small boys sang for ha'pence on Plough Monday, and little girls carried garlands from door to door singing the Bedfordshire May Day song.
Changes come slowly to this village in the wilds, but come they do; those who seek a glimpse of unspoiled countryside would do well not to linger too long before they visit our 'haunt of ancient peace.'
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