Brandon Creek, Norfolk

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History of Brandon Creek

1901 Brandon Creek

Ebenezer Barritt [Barrett], 45, carpenter, b Feltwell

Elizabeth, 39, b Littleport

Ebenezer, 13, b Littleport

Lizzie, 11, b Southery Norfolk

Walter Henry, 9, b Southery Norfolk

Bertram, 7, b Southery Norfolk

Mary M, 3, b Southery Norfolk

Robert B, 1, b Southery Norfolk

Walter Henry wrote several books about the Fens and was befriended by Enid Porter for whom he became a significant source of information about folklore and customs in the Fens.

She writes that the caul [membrane enclosing the foetus] in which W H Barrett was born in 1891 was immediately attached by the doctor to a sheet of brown paper. It was later borrowed by relatives and friends of the Barrett family when they were travelling at sea. [It was believed to protect against drowning.] It went, wrapped in oiled silk in a tin, with W H Barrett’s uncle to South Africa in 1899. It was then returned from the Cape only to be reborrowed for the uncle’s homeward voyage in 1902 after the Boer War. A cousin took it in 1905 to Canada and returned it on arrival in Vancouver. W H Barrett’s brother sailed to Malta with it in 1906, returned it, then sent for it again when he left Malta for Egypt. Several soldiers wrote from France during the First World War asking to borrow the caul; they never asked to have it with them on the voyage from England. The caul was later given to the Cambridge Folk Museum.

Leah Brinkley, Brandon Creek Witch

Leah Brinkley, Brandon Creek witch, by W H Barrett

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