The following arrived in the Village inbox via the website at 5:56 AM EST, 12/25/2008
Dear Residents of Perry Village,
Believe it or not, I am writing this Christmas morning from the village of Perry, in the County of Cambridgeshire, U.K. and sending you in Perry, Ohio, every good wish for this festive season, and for 2009.
I am attaching a picture of our newly erected village sign, and a note that explains the sign and tells you something of our village's history. I hope you find it interesting.
Merry Christmas.
Ian J. Burton
The Perry Village Sign
Some may have noticed, when passing through Perry in the last few weeks, that there is a new village sign in place. About eighteen months ago, Perry Parish Council invited village residents to submit designs for a sign to replace the one produced by Tom Gamble RWS that had graced the green for many years but was then in serious need of refurbishment. Sadly, no-one responded and thus I offered to undertake the project. I felt that the sign should tell the story of the village, and I am greatly indebted to Mary Smout for her most admirable History of Perry, produced for The Parish History of Huntingdonshire.
Perry is unusual in that, in effect, it has had two distinct lives separated by the construction of Grafham Water. There is a mention of the village (‘Pirie’) in Domesday Book (1086) when there were 120 acres of taxable land. There was a total of six villagers, three ploughs, a church, four acres of meadow and woodland pasture one league (three miles) long (those six villagers much have been more than a little busy!). It was, therefore, very much a rural community. The top half of the sign reflects this. Perry Wood appears above a fox on the left and a wheatsheaf on the right, linking with the names of the two public houses in the village in the early 1900s. ‘The Fox’ was a thatched building that used to stand approximately opposite and slightly to the East of what is now the entrance to Crow Spinney Lane. The pheasant standing by the wheatsheaf on the sign was something of a surprise addition by the wood carver, but is entirely relevant as pheasants are regular visitors to several houses in the village and, for many years, have been reared in Perry Wood. The small shield in the upper half of the sign bears three golden pears since, at least as early as the 1500s, perry has been the name of a popular alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears. Warden Abbey, which used to stand to the Southeast of the village, included the three pears on its shield, indicating the abbey’s allegiance to the village. Though the abbey was situated just outside the current village boundary, its links with the village were re-enforced by the fact that its monks were known to be managing Perry Wood in 1208. I thought it fitting, therefore, that this should be acknowledged by the appearance on the shield of the bishop’s staff that also featured on the abbey’s shield. Crossing the staff is a key to represent the use of Gaynes Hall after World War 2 as a corrective institution for young offenders, but, of course, it may also be seen to represent the arrival of HMP Littlehey, later, in 1988. During the war, Gaynes Hall was a training school for secret agents, and known to Hitler himself as ‘The Hornets’ Nest’. I could not, therefore, miss the opportunity to include a hornet at the top of the shield.
The lower half of the sign is really self-explanatory, representing, as it does, the advent of Grafham Water in 1966, and its subsequent development to national importance as a centre for water sports, trout fishing and bird watching. The bird depicted is a great crested grebe since, early in its history, Grafham Water boasted the second-largest population of grebes in the country.
The sign was carved by Glyn Mould, at Wansford, who is a specialist in the production of village signs as well as in the intricate carving involved in the restoration of historic buildings. He has produced the signs that appear in several neighbouring villages. The photograph was taken by Derek Greenwood.
I hope you will find this explanation of interest and that it will provide a unique story that you can relate to friends and family who may have the good fortune to visit our rather special village.
Ian J. Burton