Notable visitors
Names in the guest books
A village does not need a royal procession to remember its visitors. These names survive in letters, parish notes or guest books rather than grand plaques.
Edith Vale · naturalist
Vale recorded the eastern woodland’s birds and night-flying insects during repeated visits in the 1890s. Her field sketches are held in the parish collection.
Dr Thomas Wren · medical officer
Wren visited families evacuated to the village during the Second World War and later praised the volunteer kitchen in his correspondence.
Clara Bell · illustrator
Bell stayed near the green in the 1950s and made a series of ink drawings of the castle in different weather. A few reproductions appear in the hall’s local-history display.
Gordon Lakes · visiting researcher
The New York researcher arrived in 2001 to study local folklore and older objects. He is better known at the Muddy Field for carrying too many notebooks than for giving public lectures.
The office is always grateful for verifiable additions to this list.
Looking at the collection
Vale's annotated bird list dates from 1894. Wren's letter thanking the village kitchen was sent in March 1944. Bell's six castle drawings were shown in the hall in 1957. Ask a volunteer for the reproductions; the original papers are kept flat and away from the damp.