Polly Redcap and Sledder Woods

In today’s tale from Watnall Hall, we learn about the legend of Polly Redcap and Sledder Woods from a few local "children". The picture is from Lady Maud's sketchbook...

The garden of the immediate estate around the Hall was not the only place the Rolleston family used for tranquillity and sport. Until they got quite old, certainly until about 1930, the Colonel and his Lady used to retire to a haven in nearby Sledder Woods, about a mile away from the estate, beyond Hall Farm. To ensure that this tranquillity was not disturbed, they had a "cunning plan". Let a local resident, Mr. Tom Hobbs, who was a child in the 1920's explain.

"When we were very young children...........Colonel (Rolleston) had got those ponds down the Sledder woods, and I used to play with the Clay's children at the Hall Farm. To keep us going out of Sledder Wood and down to where his ponds were - the wood and everything - they used to tell us that [a witch called] Polly Redcap would get little children that go there, put them on a fork and eat them. We were always frightened - I tell you an incident of this.

We went in the field, and a stack had reached ....the flat stage...., before you take a haystack up (to a point) The flat part, well there was a ladder there. Now I know I went up..............brave lad, I was only four and a half, or five or six. That was easy, but, Maisie Clay- I think she was three years old, would be two and a half to three, she come through up, but Iris was the twin – what would you call a twin that weren't quite like the elder twin? - she was like the second twin, if you understand. Well she just managed to get in (up) but the ladder got pushed down and we were up beret. It'd be about...oh...10 or 15 feet at least. And then, we were there. The afternoon were going by, and it were going to start getting dark, and we were crying like hell, 'cos Polly Redcap would come and get us, you know.

Now Edna Clay, she was the eldest of the Clay's- would be in her mid teens. Her and me mother come down this bridal road that led to this field where we were, 'cos I think they'd been all looking round, wondering what had happened to our kids, sort of thing. I remember my mother saying "We were going to belt you, when we get you, " for being naughty and all this, but, when they come, "Oh, Oh, You're all right are you duck. "Edna and me mother put the ladder up, then it were easy for us to come down. I always remember that incident. I don't think I had started school, but these things are still in your memory because of Polly Redcap. No one never seen Polly Redcap that I know, but she used to live in the wood down there. " (Tom Hobbs, 1999)

Iris Clay remembers…

Sledder Woods

"In the Sledder Woods, about half a mile from the Hall were three ponds known as "The Fish Ponds". These were beautifully kept and were stocked with trout. There was a summer house, loggia, duck hut and boat there, and to these nearly every fine summer afternoon went Lady Maud and Sir Lancelot— the former to sit and do her intricate embroidery, and Sir Lancelot to fish. These are now wild and derelict, although one can still see the pampas grass, the red current trees, water lilies and daffodils amongst the undergrowth, but the ponds have been claimed by hordes of frogs which make their appearance every Spring." (Iris Clay, 1960)

Mrs Saxton, aged 91, also recalls the retreat and how Lady Maud protected it. She says that Lady Maud, "had her own piece of woodland down Narrow Road, opposite Crowhill Farm. It was full of daffodils and she used to go and paint quietly there." (Two paintings, one of this area and 10 sketches of her husband, servants and domestic animals, dated 1900 still exist.) "The woods at Bogend were full of violets in their season, and she was very protective of them, making sure the village children did not take too many (a popular pastime). Mrs Saxton recalls that when she was a child she, "and a friend had gone there and filled a straw hat with the prohibited blooms. Met Lady Maud on the way back she said "I hope you haven't been picking violets Alice". to which I replied "No my Lady", pinching the brim of the straw hat together so Lady Maud could not see the contents. I got away with it on that occasion." (Mrs Saxton 2000)

Mr. Dennis Johnston, who was a child in 1940 describes a visit he made to the place at the time, when it was already showing signs of neglect, probably due to the fact that it was now too far to travel there for two nonagenarians. "We we used to call it Colonel's Lakes - lakes were a bit of an exaggeration. They were in fact big ponds - a sort of upper pond and a lower pond, but we didn't call them that, and they were separated by a bank, an embankment. There was a dam, which contained what I thought then was rather exotic, but know now was bamboo.

There was long, sort of cane-like plants growing, and there was also some of the few rhododendrons that I saw then, since they didn't appear in other people's gardens. Now that bank led through the wood and out the other side, sort of north-east, where it crossed the brook. I can't remember how it crossed the brook. Presumably it fed these two ponds.

As you turned sort of right at the brook, so you were facing Watnall Colliery, there was what I know now was a sort of duck flight, a very shallow area of water - an addition to the two ponds. When I knew it, it was full of reeds and nesting ducks and water hens and things like that. It was very shallow but would at one time have been clear. I suspect (it) must have been a duck flight. I have a distinct memory of there being on the west side of this shallow water, on the bank, a sort of cover, a little but made of rushes, with a wooden seat, in which I presume the Colonel would sit with his gun, waiting for the ducks to come down to his duck flight. But this was in the early '40's. It wasn't pristine then. The Colonel was, I presume, dead then. When I knew them the duck flight was past its best and becoming overgrown, and so were the two lakes but it still attracted a lot of wild life. I was finding duck's nests on the duck flight, so it was still attracting birds."

Tom Hobbs well remembers his father and himself meeting the Colonel on the way to his fishing ponds, perhaps not with the humility that one was supposed to show for members of the gentry, recalling that, "...when Colonel used to go fishing every Saturday morning - got his net and his rod and his gun, and two dogs exactly like the dogs on the Black & White Whisky advert. He used to go by and he'd say, "Good Morning Hobbs" - never Mr. Hobbs. "Good Morning Hobbs". I thought you ignorant bugger, but still....Oh sorry about that. Father used to go "Good morning Colonel" and he'd say, "Fine weather isn't it Hobbs?", "Yes Sir, I hope you have good fishing . Good morning" Well, he were a big bloke... " These days, the picture is very different. The exotic bushes and shrubs have vanished totally, and the ponds were now used by Hall Farm as a drinking point for cattle. The entire area has reverted to nature and the top of the earth dam has partially flooded as the nearest pond flows sluggishly across it and then plunges down into the woodland on the other side. As may be imagined, the trampled knee deep liquid and glutinous mud that surrounded the area makes access exceedingly difficult, but the woods are still full of birdsong and it's possible to imagine how it must have been 90 years before when the Rollestons came there with rods and painting box. All the same, the supposedly malevolent spirit of Polly Redcap must have laughed at the writer's struggles to take the photos that appear here.

Source - Watnall Hall and the Rollestons - RA Horton 2000

All the other tales from Watnall Hall can be read here https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/