Memories of Button End by Deirdre Armstrong (Harston House) and Judith and Lucy Baker (Apple Cottage

This is a very patchy set of notes about people in Button End which you may already have plenty of info about. We were children in the 50s and 60s so our memories are from that time.

At the top of Button End near the church there was a row of small cottages with a shop in one of them. The shop eventually closed and the stock was taken to a dump opposite the Bakers at Apple Cottage, Button End. A sign for Typhoo Tea remained in the window for years afterwards.
In another of the cottages lived a woman who shouted at people . In another lived Mr Swan whom Deirdre remembered as a very quiet man who
smiled but almost never spoke, but she was told that he had fought in the First World war.

Starting down the road to Button End on the right were council houses with lovely front gardens which were lived in many different people over the years. Judith was friends with a girl there called Suzanne. Mr Maling lived in one – he was the ‘ditch man’ and did vital work clearing the ditches all over the village and enabling all the drainage to work..

On the left past the cemetery was a caravan lived in by Mrs Sharp, an excellent art and French teacher. Lucy and Judith Baker’s interest in languages and painting were kindled by her. She also ran an Art Club at Harston Primary School which Deirdrewent to. She rented the land from the Crows. She was a single parent with a daughter Susan who became a good musician and introduced programmes on Radio 3.

On the left as you went further down Button End was Violet Cottage where the Pettys lived. They had 2 sons Ian and Michael and a daughter., Shelly. Their mum was quite exotic with her ‘film star’ appearance. On the left the Northrops lived in a very narrow house. This was possibly a pub called the Golden Fleece at one time? When the coprolite diggings were made in Button End behind the houses on the left, the need for a pub
for the workers may have been the ancestry of the Golden Fleece.

Oliver Sellen and John Baker pushing Lucy, Judith and Philip Baker up Button End c1961

Judith’s family , the Bakers , lived at Apple Cottage which was about half a mile down Button End on the right. There were 8 of her family Barbara, Peter, Timothy, John, Lucy, Judith, Philip and David. The family smallholding supplied them with fruitand vegetables (with a lot of hard work!)

Beech Farm Cottages were near the building yard on the right. They were tied cottages belonging to the Crow family whose farmhouse was on Church St. One family living there was the Carters with 2 sons and a daughter , Janet, in a wheelchair whom Judith was friends with. They moved later to the other end of the village.

There was a pumping station on right going down Button End – thatched cottage near it. Lived in by Peggy Johnson – ‘Dolly drop scone’. The story was ‘that she wanted gold taps and possibly her partner disagreed so she never got married’.

More or less opposite Apple Cottage, Trevor Stubbings from up the High St kept a pony or two – he was passionate about horses. Also opposite were the Sellens – Cyril and Nora and they attended the Quaker Meeting in Cambridge. Cyril always had a bow tie – he was an architect and had
designed their house. It had a ‘tin roof’ – like a biscuit tin according to the Bakers! Their boys were Edward and Oliver. Edward became a ceramicist in Japan. Next to them further towards the bottom of Button End were the Kemps. The wife was Egyptian and taught Judith how to make hummus.

Up a track just beyond Apple Cottage on the left was a caravan lived in by Joan Harvey and her 3 children, Sarah, Richard and Mandy. In spite of the temporary nature of their housing Joan made an amazing vegetable garden. She was a brilliant clothes maker. She was a person of independent ideas, an anarchist with a strong scepticism about the capitalist system. She lived there with her partner , Edmund eventually moving to a commune in Burwell. They lived at this site at two different times, having to move off for some reason (rented to them by the Segraves who had a farm on the Haslingfield Rd. They possibly used the land for other things for a while and then returning a year or two later.
Her daughter Sarah lived in communes for many years after this becoming a conservationist and was a very good gardener like her brother Richard.

At the end of the same track at a slightly different time was Jill and her bus whose story you have covered on this website.

There were also caravans nearly opposite Apple Cottage. Aunty Suk lived in one . She had a son and daughter and she left quite suddenly.
In another caravan lived a woman called Dot with her husband and son. Also a caravan on Apple Cottage land – a holiday one where someone called Mrs Haybittle came to occasionally but rarely in winter. After she left a young man came to stay there. He bought the bit of land with it on
which enabled the Bakers to build an extension to provide a sitting room. The young man’s dad had bought him this place and the caravan. There was possibly some relationship between the dad and some travelling people. They then bought the land and settled there.

Towards the end of Button End on the right was a dark house surrounded with dark trees, where a youngish woman lived and looked after 2 older women. Judith remembers being scared as a young child by one of the older women in an invalid carriage.

At the bottom of Button End: last house on right 3 sisters – one Hilda Baker (unrelated to Judith’s family), the other 2 were the Miss
Bees. Last house on left , red brick bungalow was lived in by Ange and Tony Gatward. They had a camping caravanning site and a pig farm.
A sister of Tony Gatward lived next door in a house called ‘Hollywood’ with 3 sons , Brian the youngest.