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Help with writing on photo please.

Lady Penelope

Lady Penelope

master brummie
This photo was taken in 1947 as the Land Army girls were just leaving for work. There are some faint words at the top telling where it was taken but I can't quite read it and I wondered if anyone can work out what it says please? It's believed to be somewhere in Gloucestershire or Worcestershire and another photo mentions Mickleton.

Many thanks.
 

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Thank you Lyn and Brummy-lad. Yes, you're right.

I'm attaching another photo which shows the whole building. I hadn't realised how long after the war the Land Army continued but my friend's Mom wasn't released until August 1948.
 

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Astoness said:
i wonder if the priory is still there pen
Click to expand...

Lady Penelope said:
This photo was taken in 1947 as the Land Army girls were just leaving for work. There are some faint words at the top telling where it was taken but I can't quite read it and I wondered if anyone can work out what it says please? It's believed to be somewhere in Gloucestershire or Worcestershire and another photo mentions Mickleton.

Many thanks.
Click to expand...
Great photos.

My wife's family came from Southam, Warks. If you look at the chapel in the background it definitely doesn't look like any of the churches there so I had a look at Southam, Glos. and there is a medieval chapel there which has a simple belfry & which might be the church in the background of the photograph?

Incidentally, I can't find any mention at either place of a Southam Priory or indeed anywhere else in spite of the very interesting postcard. Anyone any ideas?
 
There is a small "Priory Cottage" only a hundred yards away from the Pidgeon House. Maybe some of the girls were billeted there but took their meals in the much bigger Pidgeon House. - On a map from 1900 the Pidgeon House is still called The Pidgeon House.
 
Surely Post #17 would imply that the Land Girls were housed at the Big Southam House (now a hotel) - also known as Southam De La Bere.

Here's the 1913 map - A is the current Pidgeon House building. B is what is currently called Priory Cottage (too small to accommodate many girls) - C is Southam House "Southam de la Bere".

Southam 1913.jpg

The V&A has a watercolour of "Priory Farm and 13th Century Chapel at Southam de la Bere. - at this link...
collections.vam.ac.uk

The Priory Farm and 13th century Chapel, Southam de la Bere, Nr. Cheltenham | Hartrick | V&A Explore The Collections

Watercolour by Archibald Standish Hartrick, 'The Priory Farm and 13th century Chapel, Southam de la Bere, Nr.Cheltenham' from the Recording Britain Collection (Gloucestershire); England, ca. 1940.
collections.vam.ac.uk

That would suggest either... 1. Priory Farm was another name for the range of buildings in Pidgeon House Farm
or 2. Priory Farm was the name of the range of buildings just to the north of the main Southam House, and Southam House had its own Chapel facing them.

Here is a modern Image of the Pidgeon House building - Clearly the building pictured in Posts #1 and #8.

pidgeon House.jpg
 
I think this is the clincher - This modern snap of the North side of the Church shows buttresses and a roof line that absolutely match up with the watercolour of "Priory Farm" in the V&A. - That picture was painted in 1940 may even show one of the Land Girls returning to her billet. - So Priory Farm is an alternative name for Pidgeon House Farm.

buttress.jpg
Modern View

butress 2.jpg
1940 watercolour
 
My reading of the article in posts 16 and 17 was that the girls were in the Old Priory which had now been bought by the Ratcliff Family who had been living in Southam De La Bere (Southam House). The Ratcliff move to Old Priory left the Southam House empty.
 
I think the use of Southam Priory is just a courtesy title. The standard list of Monastic etc Properies in Glos. doesn't list anything in Southam. But doesn't explain use of "priory" in other properties?

Following on from Dinger's post (20) I think Southam Priory/Pigeon House relates to the main dwelling on what was Pigeon House Farm. The cutting from 1947 confirms that Southam Priory had gone back to a private house [from being a hostel for the Land Army]

A facinating article on the Land Army in Southam confirms that the Pigeon House {also known as the Priory) was indeed the hostel for the Land Army girls [https://www.reading.ac.uk/adlib/Details/collect/16883]
 
Thank you all for this wealth of information. One of the girls was the mother of a friend and I know she'll be thrilled to see all this. We are taking part in an exhibition at Sutton Station to mark the end of the war 80 years ago and Chris happened to mention that her mother had been in the Land Army. Needless to say we had to include this. Other posters will include Steam at War (thanks again to the input of members of the forum), Children at War including evacuation and Women at War both on the home front and the front line.

The photo shows Joan, my friend's mother second from the left.

FRIENDS.jpgAgain, many thanks to you all.

Penny
 
Another thank you to you all, this time from my friend Chris who asked me to pass on her grateful thanks for all this research. She was especially pleased with the cuttings which directly include her mother and we agree with Janice that the lorry is actually taking them to Shurdington. Joan didn't get her release certificate until 1948 so she would have been somewhere on the lorry. Photo shows her at Shurdington.
Lyn, your post #9 was well answered by Dinger in #21 with the up to date photo. Thanks again everyone.

IMG_20250904_0001.jpg

Penny
 
happy to help pen...those land army girls were the salt of the earth along with the other women working in munitions..building aircraft etc..very often they had the worry of would they ever see their loved ones again ..all this stress on top of having to bring up their young children alone...with men away fighting for this country they contributed far more to the war effort than they are very often given credit for...just my opinion

lyn
 
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