Linden House, Haddenham

History of Linden House

1921 Linden House

Henry Thomas Camps, b 1859, farmer retired, b Haddenham

Agnes Elizabeth Pratt, housekeeper, b 1877, b Cottenham

1939 Linden House

Alice Murrells, b 1905

Harry Spencer, b 1879, agricultural worker,

Florence E Spencer, b 1882

Philip E H Murrells, b 1936

Steam Threshing at Linden Farm
Letter to Lorna Delanoy dated 29 May 1996

“My first reference to this arrives from my early impressions as a three-year-old… I was far more fascinated by a steam threshing-engine at work in the Freeman’s stack yard.”

Commentary
This passage preserves a child’s-eye view of harvest-time agriculture and steam-powered threshing before tractors became dominant.

The writer of this and other letters to Lorna Delanoy circa 1990 was Pat Norman whose reminiscences of Linden Farm and Haddenham stretched back to the beginning of the 20th century. He had been born in Haddenham in 1923 serving on numerous official bodies. He was a keen photographer; he died in 2001. The originals of the 35m slides are held by the Haddenham Local History Group.

Part of Lorna Delanoy’s extensive archive hosted on Capturing Cambridge includes a collection of digitalized photographs taken by Pat.

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