An horrific secret in Old Windsor.

I had a quiet birthday - we went out in the afternoon and on the way I was able to take some photographs of something I'd been meaning to record for some time.

We'd driven almost by accident through Old Windsor and then up towards Windsor Great Park - the Crown Estate.

As we were passing I stopped here;

                                      

These days it's a rather exclusive and expensive housing development;

                             

 

As you can see, the basis of the development is a 19th century building; imposing and well built in the 'Victorian' style.

The old buildings have been stripped of the grime of 150 years of coal smoke - the brickwork is like new. There are apartments carved out of the old buildings.

There are some tasteful new houses which fit in well and everywhere there are big cars and well maintained gardens.

                         

 

 

Was it once a school or a government building?

 

I wandered around, most of the time wondering if the Police would be called out on me.

 

It's so respectable.

 

Around the back, this was what I was looking for;

 

 

                        

 

 

This building hides a dark secret, a shameful secret.

 

 

Before 1834, the poor and unemployed received payments (Poor relief) from their local parish. Everyone knew that farming required a lot of labour at certain times of the year. Employment was high during sowing or harvest but in the winter everybody was out of work.

 

Everybody from farmers, employers and workers was happy with the system but the new capitalists didn't want to pay for it; they needed a workforce when there were orders but they didn't want to pay for them when the orders dried up.

 

 

In 1834, The Poor Law Reform Act was passed, bringing about the 'reforms' that the awful Edwin Chadwick had pushed through.

 

Instead of 'Poor relief', a network of Workhouses were to be built where families were separated and once you were made an inmate it was hard to get back out.

 

For the old it was a death sentence.

 

The Workhouses were set up to cover many parishes which is why they were called 'Parish Unions' and this was intended to exclude anyone who might feel generous to the poor.

 

The new system was bitterly hated and opposed but lasted until the second world war and the 1945 Labour Government which swept it away.

 

Sadly, when The National Health Service was set up, many of the old Workhouse buildings were reused. 'West Middlesex Hospital' is on the site of the West Middlesex Parish Union while Upton Hospital in Slough is the Parish Union for part of Berkshire.

 

Old Windsor served part of Surrey, the next Union was at Guildford.

 

So what's my building at the back of the complex?





It's 'The Spike', or more officially 'The Casual Ward'.

While most people in The Workhouse were permanent residents, it was recognised that some people needed to walk to areas there might be work for them and it was possible to stay for just one night.

This horrific building was for that - it offered accommodation locked in a cell with a minimal and inadequate diet in return for some very hard work.

The Casual Wards were nicknamed 'The Spike' because often that work was breaking up tarry old ships ropes using a spike to separate it into tiny strands that could be recycled into new rope - 'picking oakum'.

In the case of Old Windsor, the work was breaking stones by hand.

Here's an individual cell - you can see the barred windows;

                                          

At night, the inmate would be supplied with a pile of stones and a hammer and in the morning would be expected to break them up before he would be released.

Behind the red hatch at ground level would have been a chute and the inmate would have put the broken stones in the chute, which led to a grill behind the red door which let only those stones small enough for the regulations to pass through.

Each morning the routine was that the inmates would be given their meagre food, the red hatch would be opened and an overseer would walk around checking on progress.

When the work was done, the inmate would be released and unless he wanted to become a permanent resident he would have to walk to the next Spike to stay the night.

It's hard to comprehend the inhumanity behind this and it's also impossible not to see the roots of Thatcherism and Reaganism in it too.

And of course, in the Victorian age it was all about science and efficiency.

So, the cells were as small as they could be, the food as cheap as they could get away with, the task a huge one.

It is the mentality behind the efficient organisation of The Holocaust, where every penny had to be accounted for and how this somehow seemed to obscure the horror of what was actually going on. 

I believe the building is listed and has to be preserved. The casual ward looks like it's being used for storage at the moment.

I would like every local schoolchild to come here to witness the inhumanity of our past, to understand the reality behind the 'Oliver Twist' depiction of the workhouse and the true basis for our Industrial Revolution.

 

 

Oh, by the way, the whole 19th century was blighted by periods of very high unemployment completely unaffected by The Workhouse system.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)
Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com



In a hole - 53000 thanks!

I'm full of holes - well four - but it's enough.

Here's how I got them;

I had to go up to Charing Cross hospital for an infusion for my spine at 1130 am so we were aiming to be there for 9-00am for my blood samples to be taken so that they could do the tests in time.

We drove to Hounslow West, found a parking space and made the long walk to the Tube....except that when we got there the station was closed and the whole Bath Road into Hounslow was shut - it was chaos everywhere. All the roads were blocked, the busses were lost. 

Chaos in every direction.

I was furious - there was no way of getting to the hospital in time and I was told by a police officer the tube would be shut all day.

At the time it was obvious there had been a fight - if it was a suicide the road wouldn't have been shut.

It was just as obvious that it had happened at night because people don't get into that kind of argument at 8 am.

So, if there were forensic tests to be done there was time to isolate those areas and leave the road open.

Back at home I discovered that they opened the tube up at 10 00am anyway.

Doh!

So, because I didn't know that I started roaming the back streets and alleys of West London trying to find somewhere to park near another tube station, which was impossible, of course.

We ended up driving all the way to Brentford and catching a bus instead. Except I had negative money on my oyster card because I was going to fill it up at the tube station.

We got to the hospital an hour and a half late, tired out and annoyed. I would have even thought about getting a cab - except I'd run out of cash - I was going to get some on the way home.

Hole 1.

So I struggled into hospital and took up my place in the huge queue for phlebotomy.

There was nearly a riot.

We used to have two phlebotomists and two spare chairs which meant that when it was busy the receptionists could help out by taking blood samples to cut the queue.

Except that the hospital has just spent a lot of money remodelling the clinic (why?) and now there are only two chairs instead of four and they privatised phlebotomy.

It takes even longer than it did before, the phlebotomists get paid less with less benefits, it costs the hospital more and everybody is unhappy except for the private healthcare providers who are mugging us all.

Holes 2 and 3

So when I sorted out the blood test we got lunch and struggled back to wait at Chemotherapy, where they were so overwhelmed with people they needed extra chairs.

I had my canula put in by a very nice nurse called Paul who was practising, so it took two goes to sort it out.

We got out at about 2-30 which was a bit of a miracle, I got some money on Hammersmith Broadway and then we caught a bus back in the middle of school kids rush hour.

Then we drove to West Middlesex hospital because Robyn needed to see a friend there who is seriously ill.

I dropped her off and searched for a space so I could park for free and then when I got back I couldn't remember his name so I couldn't find them. I spent some time accidently wandering around all the places I connect with the time when my cancer was really raging.

I ended up sitting in the little garden by the side of West Mid's front entrance.

I don't know why I did that because I knew it was going to annoy me.

In the olden days, farm labourers would be laid off work in the winter and a system of 'Poor Relief' developed so that they could survive till spring when there was work.

In 1834 that all changed - our great rulers decided that the poor were having it too easy. No more payments, now if you couldn't manage you were sent to 'The Workhouse'....like in Oliver Twist.

Once in you never got out. Families were separated, partners were too. So husbands and wives could only see each other on Sunday afternoons for an hour. Everyone was given pretend 'work' to do, like in prison.

This horror lasted from 1834 until 1947 when our present system of Social security and the NHS was established.

Except that the old buildings were retained and used for the new National Health Service.

So were the terrible attitudes too.

West Middlesex Hospital was previously the 'Parish Union' for the whole of Middlesex. In other words, because The Poor Law Commissioners' felt that the parishes were being too generous they were merged into giant Workhouses like West Mid.

These were hated institutions and rightly so. Their abolition by the 1945 Labour Government was hugely popular.

So as West Mid has been selling off its precious land for development what has it been doing?

Saving the foundation stones from the hated Workhouse buildings.

Here's a couple;

Me, I would have destroyed them in a ceremony and then had an artwork made from the fragments.

Alternatively, there would need to be some historic explanation and a little memorial to the victims of a system that was designed to punish the poor......for being poor.

Anyway, after all that ranting,  thank you for taking the Blog to 53000, it is very much appreciated on a really lousy day.

 

 

Hole 4?

 

I needed my injection when I got home.

 

Doh!

 

 

Neil Harris

(a don't stop till you drop production)

 

 

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

 

Contact me: neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com