Lapwing Hall, Wicken

History of Lapwing Hall

Anthony Day, Turf Village, describes the last of the commercial peat diggers at Wicken. They worked on fields beside Wicken Lode towards Burwell Lode where Josiah Owers, Wicken’s builder and carpenter, Bill Norman, postmaster and shopkeeper, and Mark Bailey, farmer, had land. Next to the Owers’ fields at Lapwing was land owned by a Harrison. In the middle of Lapwing lived another family named Badcock in a simple wooden shack that often flooded. It was nicknamed Lapwing Hall.

The photographer P J Deakin recorded in the 1890s the peat digger’s work at Lapwing and nearby. These photos form part of the Sir Benjamin Stone Collection held by Birmingham Public Libraries.

Turf Pits on Harrison’s land, North Adventurers’ Fen, Wicken 1892 (P J Deakin)

“Mad Jack” John Darnell, Lapwing 1892 Wicken 1892 (P J Deakin)

Robert Butcher crossing Comissioner’s Drain with a load of 100 turves, 1892 (P J Deakin)

Loaded turf boats Burwell Lode, Wicken (P J Deakin)