The Butchers of Lacey Green & Loosley Row.
From Lacey Green History
Butchers to come to the premises were needed to slaughter the pigs, such as the man in the photo below who is thought to have been called "Bill". Others are listed in various census as follows :-
1813 in Local Directory listed as - Henry Parslow aged 28 butcher, beer retailer and turner at Loosley Row. Note this is before the Enclosures of 1823. click Henry & Drusilla Parslow for more about Henry
1871 Jesse Burrows, widower born Loosley Row, farmer and pork butcher in Loosley Row married Emma Bearfoot born 1833 in 1871 (her 1st marriage)
1881 Henry Parslow age 40, butcher and publican. click The Crown
1915 Arthur "Toey" Lacey enrolled for WW1 stating that he was a butcher. click Arthur (Toey) & Louisa Lacey also Crooked Chimney
1917 Alfred John Janes enrolled for WW1 stating that he was a butcher. Click George & Ellen Janes for Alfred's family
1939 Arthur G Drayson aged 50 butcher. click Kingswood Farm
There have been a few butchers shops in Lacey Green and Loosley Row over the years as follows :-
Lacey Green Main Road 1862-1871 At some point during these years Albert Joseph Floyd had a butchers shop at Wayside Cottage Main Road, (since demolished and rebuilt), between Belle Vue Cottage no 1 and Ardengrove.
click Wayside Cottage for the history of this property
Lower Road, Loosley Row. George and Annie Floyd, Henry Janes's daughter, inherited the stores built by Henry in 1864.
They moved into the premises in the early 1890's.
George developed other enterprises in conjunction with the shop. He kept and fattened pigs and also bought fat pigs for slaughter. Annie cured the bacon and the hams and ran down the lard, all of which they sold in the shop. Every market day he would collect fish and newspapers from High Wycombe. . . click George & Annie Floyd for the family
Below. All gather to celebrate the pig slaughtering
Upper Woodway, Loosley Row In the census of both 1891 and 1901, William and Ruth Anderson had a grocers shop in Loosley Row the last property on the left before the left hand bend going down Woodway. William had there a small farm, his shop specialised in his own chicken and also fish.
Click William & Ruth Anderson for more about the family
Click Shops for other retail outlets in Lacey Green and Loosley Row.
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It was very common practice for people to rear a pig in their garden, in fact Charles Ede wrote in his autobiography while living at Parslows Hillock in 1900 of the stink of pigs in Lacey Green - “Now my father wanted to find a church to go to. He also wanted me to see the school that I was to go to. He had heard they were nearby. Father and I walked a mile, when we turned left and commenced to go down the village of Lacey Green. The first thing I remember about it was the stink; I think everyone must have kept a pig and some not far from the road." click 1908 Charles Ede for his full story
Friends would both rear a pig to be killed six months apart, then they would share the meat when killed.
Beatrice Dormer (Fred & Beatrice Dormer) It was the normal thing to have a large pot over the fire and cook the meat and perhaps two or three vegetables all in the same pot, but Mrs Dormer's daughter can recall her grandmother cooking that way and how much she enjoyed those meals. The potatoes would often be cooked in a net in this pot.
To cook in a brick oven, which was let into the wall and went through to the wood-store outside, the fire was lit inside the oven and fed with long "kindlings" and when it was as hot as necessary all the burning embers were racked out into a bucket, the food to be cooked placed on a spade and let down on to the hot bricks. Delicious bread was cooked that way and such things as "Backone Pie", literally using the backbone of the pig.
A pig was kept in the back garden in a stye, as people have done up to more recent times. It meant very little was wasted from the house as scraps and peelings etc. would feed the pig and in turn most of the pig would be eaten.
The head would make brawn, all the offal would be cooked one way or another, lungs or lights would be jugged, liver, pluck and heart would be cooked in the oven, chitterlings would be cleaned and plaited. boiled and often fried after.
Mrs Dormer recalls the pig hanging and has prepared many a joint for storing by treating it with saltpetre and then putting into the lead salt troughs, while the hams would hang to cure in he living room and when ready would taste like no bacon tastes these days.
They would take the "flear" or "fleer", the long strip of fat near the kidneys and render the lard from it and then make "Crittens Pudding" by using the crittons, that is what was left after lard had been extracted, with brown sugar and flour. This would be baked in the brick oven. Without the sugar it could be baked with a joint over it and be eaten as we do Yorkshire pudding.
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