CONNECTIONS

This page has been created to bring together news and information about people who no longer live in the Chishills but still feel a connection to the local villages and their residents, past and present.
If you have a connection with the Chishills but no longer live here, we would be pleased to hear about you and your memories of friends and relatives. Just email webmaster@greatchishill.org.uk and we will take it from there.
The Andrews family
From Viv Donaldson, Whangarei, New Zealand
Henry ANdrews 1828-1908, Click to see 5 gereations of Andrews
I am a direct descendant of Henry Andrews who took the lease out on the mill in 1721. The picture on the left is Henry Andrews (1828—1908) the brother of Job Andrews who’s son Alfred sold the mill to Mr Pegram Great Great Grandson of Henry Andrews who was the first Andrews to take out a lease on the Mill in Great Chishill who worked the mill.
If you click on the picture you can see five generations of Andrews. The youngest male, Murray is my brother who sadly passed away at the age of 33 with cancer.

The Cane family
The item below came from Gillian Steward
The Past
The Present
My mother was Connie Cane, daughter of Will and Sabina Cane of The Gables, Little Chishill, and I spent many happy holidays there as a child. Her best friends were Jessie Haggar and the Pegrams, and Lily Weeden of Heydon, who is my very dear godmother. I live in Australia but visited U.K. in 2007 bringing our daughter who was keen to see the ancestral areas.
I am in contact with a grand-daughter of Henry and Eliza Cane whose grave is near the church porch as we are both keen on family history. Henry and my great grandfather Philip were brothers, born in Chrishall.
There is also a good contingent of Cane descendants in Australia, with several of whom I am in touch. In the mid 1800s, 7 families from a family of 11 came to Australia, also Thomas Judd and Elizabeth (Cane) and his family, from Shaftenhoend, came to Tasmania.
My mother's godmother was Annie Purkiss, who lived opposite The Gables at Church Farm. Her daughter Maud was another great friend of mother's as was Bill Purkiss although he was a little older. I used to play with Maud's daughters Judy and Kathleen when they were visiting their grandmother, and I especially remember the wonderful old farmhouse, with many stuffed animals in glass cases, (Bill Purkiss was Crossman's gamekeeper) and the wonderful smell of the 'apple room'. In my childhood, Little Chishill was 'Heaven'. Sadly now, The Gables are altered, the outbuildings demolished, the beautiful internal pine lining boards all painted over, and grandfather's prolific and well kept garden reduced in size to a small and unloved 'yard'.
When I visited Lily Negus in 2000 she took me into the Barley shop and introduced me to Mrs. Howlett's grand-daughter. She explained that Mrs. Howlett lived in the farm above 'The Gables', and I had to laugh as I always thought that lady's name was Mrs. 'Owlett' since that is how my grandmother said the name!
My many memories of Little Chishill are too numerous to write down now, but I was pleased to see that the old 'chalky walk' track from the letter box over the fields to Great Chishill, my mother's route to school in fine weather, was still there, and I walked a little way up it and found cowslips still growing under the hedge.
I shall bring your website to the notice of all my Cane relatives (and Carters, since my grandmother was a Carter of Barley!)
We live in Alexandra, a small country town in Central Victoria, Australia. We lived in an outer suburb of Melbourne all our working lives but moved to Alexandra when we retired, as we had always enjoyed visiting this area and had had a small holiday cottage here for 17 years before actually moving permanently. It is a very pretty area in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, with some excellent fly fishing rivers as well as plenty of rabbits for my husband to shoot!
Lily Negus (Weeden) has actually been to Alexandra as she visited in 1985 to stay with my mother after my father died, and we had Lily and Mum at the cottage for several weekends.
Incidentally if there is a copy of that book by Lorna Prior, 'A Tale of Two Villages' I would love to have one. I do have 'Two ears of Barley', full of names and places I recognise and love.