My name is Tim Ashby, I used to live at Shep Whites when I was a child in the 1950’s . Father was interested in shooting, coming from a farming background, and as a family we all shot, (much more acceptable back in the 1950’s), and visits to the Wash were fairly regular shooting on the mud flats.
We used to go out with a guide by the name of Mackenzie Thorpe; his book “Kenzie Wild Goose Man” has pictures of my father and he is mentioned. Kenzie was a poacher but a true character. My father paid £3,250 outright for his home in about 1953, I was 9 years old. He named the house after an old shepherds house on the marsh at Holbeach,and over the years it was fantastic to see the name remaining. If you Google Shep Whites Holbeach Marsh you will find some history. Bob Nash was the local PC and Shep Whites was what was known as his “point”, where he could phone into headquarters. In the middle of the lawn down near the road was the cesspit. At the end of the sheds near the house was a large soft water well, the far end a small Pigsty. The soft water well would be somewhere under the corridor or near to it leading to the barns.
The first room of the barn was my father’s office – he was in the cattle food business, in the next part I built a boat and the last one was used for storage of cases of eggs, each case 30 dozen eggs !! In the days when a lion egg was considered fresh but could still be up to six weeks old!!! The same with eggs today! I certainly can tell you how to know a fresh egg !!! The pigsty at the end was a dark room for my brothers photography.
I started a small business selling eggs from the house and had 50 chickens. Soon it grew to a massive size supplying shops, milk rounds etc and was selling a massive 900 eggs a week, buying in 30 cases a week from a very large egg producer in Ruislip, we are still friends today. The Evening Standard wanted to buy me the Orchard just at the top end of the garden for the story as I was then about 12 years old, but Father said no! and not long after we moved and closed the businesses, one opened up just up the road.
Back to the soft water well, it was an annual job of mine to empty it with a bucket, go down a ladder in to it and scrub it out!!! What would kids think of doing that today? I remember well retiling the shed roof as a kid helping my father and returning everyday from school in Amersham having to clean the mortar off 50 tiles a day!
Next door was Mr Salmon and his wife, his house was for sale from the Estate at the same time as Shep Whites, Father was offered it for £1250, but wrongly his solicitor said he could not own two houses! We moved out about 1961 and I am not sure how much Father sold it for but I do remember Victor Silvester (ballroom orchestra) and his son turning up in matching white Jaguars to view, they didn’t buy it, I think it was about £10,500.
I attach two pictures of Shep Whites, one taken on the marsh, taken I guess in the 1950’s , mother, father, me and a friend (see above).
The other I think is when Father sold it as the colour of burgundy and primrose was as my mother painted it, she used to go right up the ladder to the eves as I hung onto the ladder.
Family living at Shep Whites (No 59) in 1921 (source 1921 Census)
Alex MacGregor, head, age 56, born Perthshire, Estate and Woods Foreman
Mary Annie MacGregor, wife, age 52, born Pembrokeshire, Home Duties
Agnes Annie MacGregor, dtr, age 29, born Yorkshire, Drapers Assistant
Ronald William MacGregor, son, age 25, born Yorkshire, Motor Driver
Clifford Alex MacGregor, son, age 20, born Bedfordshire, Bedford Estate Labourer
The MacGregor family were also living at Shep Whites in 1911 (source 1911 Census)
Occupants of Shep Whites in 1939 (source 1939 Register)
Fred Owen, head, age 63, Estate Foreman
Ivy Owen, wife, age 52, Domestic duties
Elizabeth M Powell, single, age 50, Certified School Mistress
Edith Rose, single, age 48, Certified Teacher