When the builders were at work restoring Great Rampsholme cowhouse recently as part of our sister Muker Barn Restoration project, they came across this child’s shoe.
One can only imagine the ticking off the owner got when it was discovered they’d lost it – perhaps while they were hard at work tramping down the hay in the mew one hot summer’s day.
“Oh yes, when they were leading the hay. It was nice to go in there because you were away from the midges, you used to get eaten with the midges…lot of trees around [Park House]. Probably two of us might go in..it was very hot …[dark?] well as the haymew got fuller it was, especially when it got up round the forking hole…There was often a place at one side where they could throw the hay over into the byre and so there was a little bit of light would come in from there, but when that got blocked up you couldn’t…but it was hot and there was dust from the hay…it was nice when you came back out again…[right up into the rafters?] Oh yes, sometimes you did, you were sort of sticking it in… after the hay had been a while it did settle quite a bit.”
Elsie Metcalfe (nee Scott) (83), formerly of Park House farm