shewhomust | Finchale Memories

Finchale Priory sits in a bend of the river Wear, within walking distance of Durham, although there is no right of way along the river bank. A while ago, investigating whether there were rights of access to the land around the ruins, we asked my uncle Ted what he remembered of his childhood visits there; in reply, he sent us a memoir he had written ten years earlier.

"Finchale is pronounced FINKLE, and my family first came to holiday there a few years after the First World War. My memory of that time is that we all slept in a surplus army 'bell' tent, pitched on a bit of level ground above the river bank, close to the walls of the ruined priory...

"At weekends throughout the 20's and 30's charabancs made their way down the mile-long, rough, unmade lane to the priory. Trays of tea, bottles of lemonade and sweets were sold from the farmhouse, and visitors picnicked by the river. On Bank Holidays, which for most people were their only holidays, visitors came in their hundreds and the place throbbed with life. The sun sets late and the evenings are long in Northern summer and the peace and tranquility returned after the coaches had gone, and you could hear again the sounds of the river. Midges formed columns to rise and sway like smoke from a fire, while swifts exhibited their skills and swooped and soared over the priory ruins.

"There is no doubt that my parents fell in love with the place. The prospect of spending most of the school holidays at Finchale led my father to have a small wooden 'chalet' built, for which he rented a site in the priory field. The 'hut', as we described it, was designed to be as simple and unobtrusive as possible...

"Some of our relatives had cars but we had to rely on public transport, and we did a lot of walking. A few years after we came to Finchale a footbridge was built over the river to the priory, but prior to that Father, going backwards and forwards to Sunderland, used to ford the river. Later he bought a canoe and we used to ferry him across in that.

"To enjoy life it is essential to live in harmony with the people around you, and the 'Hammonds' who farmed Finchale in those days made us feel very welcome. One of my early memories is of the smell of bacon as Mrs Hammond cooked breakfast for a couple of Irishmen who had come to hoe the potatoes. She held the frying pan over the open kitchen fire and every now again the fire blazed up as fat fell through a hole in the pan. My brother David reminded me of one time when we amused Mr Hammond by appearing at the farmhouse decorated with soot from a bonfire claiming to be sweeps come to sweep his chimney. We must have been very young...

"Matthew Arnold, who along with A.E Houseman had some influence over my youthful thoughts, wrote of man "As what he sees is so have his thoughts been." I did move on from my childhood ambition to be gatekeeper and custodion of the priory, but love of the countryside and freedom to roam have made my life quite an interesting experience.

"As school days were coming to an end we sold the hut but my younger brother Tom and I came to the camp at Finchale with a group of friends in 1939. Most of us were waiting to be called up and I had already passed my medical. On Sunday September 3rd we were playing cricket in the priory field when a message came up from the farm to say that war had been declared. That was to last for six years before peace returned but for us our youth was at an end, and could not be regained."

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

In memory of Tom Rogers, 5th April 1920 - 19th January 1998
and Ted Rogers, 14th February 1918 - 5th April 2008

Finchale Memories

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