Wisbech and Peckover House

A Town that has Seen Better Days and a House from its Heyday

Kings Lynn and Wisbech

Cambridgeshire

Fenland

Kings Lynn was the subject of the two previous posts, The Wash & Castle Rising and The Town. Mentally I have always had Wisbech and Kings Lynn pegged together, they are two small towns, over there somewhere in north Norfolk (not an area I am familiar with) and both had football teams in the Southern League at a time (late 60s) when I occasionally watched Hillingdon Borough perform in the same league. As far as I was concerned, they were interchangeable.

But I was wrong. They may only be 13 miles apart, but for a start Wisbech isn’t even in Norfolk, it’s in the Fenland District of Cambridgeshire, and they are not on the same river, Kings Lynn sits beside the Great Ouse while Wisbech straddles the River Nene. Both discharge into the Wash, their mouths only 5 miles apart, but the Nene is narrower and straighter.

Wisbech and Kings Lynn
The many pins are the work of Tour Norfolk from whom I have borrowed the map

Wisbech also feels much smaller. The population of 32,000 is not significantly less than Kings Lynn’s 43,000 (both figures are over 10 years old) but Lynn feels like an urban centre, Wisbech doesn’t. Wisbech also looks considerably less prosperous.

The Birthplace of Influential People

The River Nene flows into Wisbech from the east then turns north. Town Bridge was built across the turn, with the town centre on the downstream side. Upstream the streets either side of the river, known somewhat over-dramatically, as North and South Brink, were lined by the homes of the town’s wealthier citizens.

Octavia Hill

Octavia Hill was born at No 1 South Brink in 1838. In 1851 the family moved into London and under the influence of her grandfather, Dr Thomas Southwood Smith, she became concerned with the living conditions of the poor. She campaigned for improved housing and then for women’s economic independence. Although campaigning throughout her life and being a founder member of the Charity Organisation Society (now the charity Family Action), she is perhaps best remembered as one of the co-founders of the National Trust. The house is now the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum.

Octavia Hill's birthplace and museum, South Brink

Thomas Clarkson

A few doors along in Bridge Street is the birthplace of another social reformer - it must be something in the water. Thomas Clarkson was born here in 1760.

Thomas Clarkson's birth place, Wisbech

The eldest son of an Anglican priest he attended Cambridge University, graduating 1783. In 1785 he entered a university competition for a Latin Essay entitled., "Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?" (Anne licet nolentes in servitutem dare). Always studious, he researched his subject thoroughly and won the prize. While riding back to London after the public reading of the prize-winning essay, he had a moment of epiphany and spent the rest of his life campaigning first for the abolition of British participation in the slave trade and when that was achieved (1808) for the abolition of all slavery everywhere.

A statue of him stands opposite his birthplace.

Thomas Clarkson, Wisbech

Rev Wilbert Awdry

Though not Wisbech born, the Rev Wilbert Awdry was vicar of the adjacent parish of Emneth from 1953 to 1965. During this time he wrote 10 of his 26 Thomas the Tank Engine books.

North Brink: The White Hart Hotel

North Brink offers an impressive array of Georgian frontages.

North Brink from the Town Bridge

Nearest the camara is the Old White Hart, later the Pheonix Hotel and a Chinese restaurant. It burnt down in 2010 and only the façade survived the fire. The owner disappeared leaving behind a gently deteriorating eyesore and when the windows started falling into the street, the Wisbech Society, took it upon itself to tidy up the ruin until a permanent solution could be found. It looks alright now, but aerial photographs show there is nothing behind the whitewashed wall.

The façade of the Old White Hart

The Old White Hart Inn was one of Wisbech’s two coaching inns, with daily services to London. In 1835 a coach carrying the 16-year-old Princess Victoria and her mother paused here to change horses. Two years later she was Queen Victoria and the landlord felt fully justified in painting ‘PATRONIZED BY ROYALTY’ over the inn’s coach entrance. The Wisbech Society have restored the sign. Their website also reproduces an advertising flier for ‘Ye Olde Whyte Harte’ in 1907. It is worth clicking here to see it.

North Brink: Peckover House

When Octavia Hill, along with Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley, founded the National Trust in 1895, she probably never imagined their organisation would one day own Peckover House, just across the River Nene from her birthplace, the two front doors barely 100m apart,…

Peckover House, North Brink, Wisbech

… but when the redoubtable Alexandrina Peckover, adventurer, mountaineer and the last of the Peckovers died at a ripe old age in 1948, she left the house to the National Trust.

The house was built in 1722 and owned by Alfred Southwell, who called it Bank House. It was bought by Jonathan Peckover in the 1790s and remained in Peckover hands until 1948. Although Bank House turned out to be a doubly appropriate name it later became known as Peckover House.

The Garden

We arrived early for our pre-booked guided tour of the house so we had a look at the garden first. Carefully tended by the Peckovers (or their gardeners) for well over a century, the Victorian walled garden is maintained in the appropriate style by the National Trust.

There are orchids in a greenhouse,…

Orchids, Peckover House

…vegetables…

Vedgetables, Peckover House

…an orangery…

Orangery, Peckover House

…a rose garden, a croquet lawn and more.

Peckover House gardens

The Peckovers were Quakers and the ‘Friends Meeting House’ is beside the main house. The Quakers Burial Ground, mainly occupied by Peckovers, is beside – or perhaps part of – the garden.

Quaker's Burial Ground, Peckover House

Inside the House

Peckover House is a typical house of a well-to-do merchant in the 19th century. The contents would have changed over the decades, but what was left in 1948 was sold off before the building was bequeathed to the National Trust. Some of the original artefacts have been repurchased, but most of the furniture, while of the appropriate date and quality, comes from elsewhere.

The guided tour started in the main downstairs sitting room. The fireplace is not original, but I believe the elaborate stucco surround for the mirror is. No doubt it was once fashionable, now it borders on the ludicrous.

Elaborate mirror surround, Peckover House

The women of the house would have spent much of their time here, working on embroidery or similar handicrafts. One exquisitely worked footstool survives from all their hours of gentile labour.

Footstool, Peckover House

The Peckovers as Bankers

Jonathan Peckover originally set up business in Wisbech as a grocer. The town was prosperous and he made money, as did other tradespeople. But success brought problems,  money, existing only as silver or gold coin, was bulky, difficult to transport for a major deal, and always vulnerable to theft. It was better for traders to hand their money to one trusted individual with appropriate facilities for keeping it safe.

Traditionally Quakers are known for the probity and integrity. Jonathan Peckover embodied that tradition and by 1782 he held 7 accounts.

It soon followed that major transactions could be made without the physical transferring of cash, all you needed was a signed note to the banker – a cheque in other words. If both parties had the same banker the transfer was carried out in a leger, and the gold coins sat still and untroubled throughout the whole procedure.

Jonathan’s enterprise became the Wisbech and Lincolnshire Bank and was run by his son Algernon and then his grandson Alexander who would become the First (and only) Baron Peckover. A banking hall was built beside the house, but the business outgrew the hall and it was demolished in 1870. In 1896 the bank amalgamated with 19 others to become Barclays Bank; Barclays had originally been another Quaker enterprise.

More of the House

Leaving the first room by a doorway which clearly suggested they saw themselves as carrying on the torch of civilization from ancient Rome….

Internal doorway, Peckover House

…we reached the library. Completed in 1878 for Alexander Peckover’s book collection, the shelving was designed Edward Boardman. The books were sold and the shelves ripped out in the 1948 sale but the woodwork has been replaced to Boardman’s design. The current collection of books is overseen by a portrait of Alexander Peckover.

Library, Peckover House

All the Peckovers were travellers and Alexander was an avid collector. His ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ is a collection of the extraordinary objects he found in his travels in Europe and North Africa.

Cabinet of Curiosities, Peckover House

We continued through the dining room. Electricity was installed in 1920 but Alexandrina and Jane Peckover preferred to dine by candlelight. The reproduction Chippendale chairs and late Victorian bracket clock were theirs.

Dining room, Peckover House

We finished with a descent to the kitchen, where the family rarely came.

Kitchen, Peckover House

More about the Peckovers

The Peckovers were philanthropists, internationally supporting the abolition of slavery and locally doing much to enrich the cultural life of the area.

Despite the restrictions society placed on women, Priscilla Peckover, Algernon’s daughter. was a noted linguist and pacifist and her niece, Alexandrina, was an explorer and Alpinist. Alexander had no male heirs so Alexandrina and her sister Jane, neither of whom ever married, were the last Peckovers to live in the house.

Wisbech Docks

The river upstream from the town bridge might be wide enough for a couple of boats to pass each other, but it looks no place for a ship. Despite that Wisbech was an important port in medieval times and retains its docks.

The River Nene upstream from the Town Bridge

The photo above looking north from an upper window of Peckover House shows how the tidal Nene widens towards the docks a few hundred metres downstream. It is small scale stuff, to quote the Port of Wisbech website our efficient port facilities enable us to load & discharge vessels of up to around two and a half thousand tonnes, so no super-tankers, then, but I find myself strangely impressed that the port runs its own fortnightly service from Riga in Latvia to Wisbech.

Coffee in Wisbech

No rain fell while we were in Wisbech, but it was a dull, dank morning, the sort of day that shows nothing to its best advantage. We had spent our time in what was once the town’s wealthiest quarter, but even allowing for the weather (and the National Trust’s faultless stewardship of Peckover House) many of the dignified old houses gave the impression of needing care and restoration.

We strolled into the town centre in search of coffee. Wisbech did not look well, too many empty shops, too little purposeful activity. Maybe I am doing the town a disservice, I saw a couple of boarded up premises and started looking for the pawn brokers, pay day loans, slot arcades, betting shops and Poundland. I suppose most towns have them but in a small town they cluster together.

We found a Costa Coffee, drank a morning cappuccino and decided it was time to head home.

Before writing this, I took a Google walk round the same streets. Visiting on a sunny day in 2018 their camera cars made Wisbech look a pleasant little place. Had the pandemic changed the town, or was it just a combination of the missing sunshine and a poor first impression? Who knows?

Other Norfolk/Cambridgeshire Posts

King's Lynn and Around: The Wash & Castle Rising (April 2022)
King's Lynn: The Town (April 2022)
Wisbech and Peckover House (April 2022)

Hemingford Grey and Green Knowe (July 2016)