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Ashwell Audio Tour: Episode 2: The Pub Crawl
Our podcasts are available for download on Itunes, Google podcast and Spotify! Hello, and welcome to the Ashwell Walks podcast Episode 2. The Pub Crawl. My name is Sally Fletcher and I have written this Ashwell walk about the long history of brewing in the village. Our walk begins at Ashwell Springs just off the High Street and takes roughly an hour to complete. If you need to drive to the start you may park your car on the road beside the green railings that mark the edge of the Springs. From the High Street, follow the footpath sign opposite number 7 High Street (Spring House), and next to 2 High Street (Springside Cottage). Walk down the steps into the wooded hollow until you are standing next to some stepping stones that cross the water. Pause this podcast until you have reached the stepping stones then re-start it. You are now standing at the start of the river Rhee, one of the main sources of the River Cam, which flows through the centre of Cambridge, then to Ely, where it joins the Great Ouse and eventually reaches the Wash 65 miles away. If you look up towards the High Street you will see the road is supported by a brick wall strengthened with arches. The springs bubble out of the chalk bedrock found along the base of the wall.
Around a million gallons of water flow every day from the chalk and it’s cold, between 4 and 8°C. The water provides an ideal habitat for populations of rare flat worms. These normally live in glacial meltwaters and so Ashwell’s population is regarded as a relic from the end of the last Ice Age. Flat worms may be less than thrilling, but in the nineteenth century the Springs were polluted by sewage and people used them as a convenient spot to do laundry, so the survival of these flat worms, is probably a tiny miracle.
We now leave the Springs and begin our walk. Turn, so your back is towards the High Street, and walk back up the steps you came down until you reach the footpath. Turn right and walk along the track away from the Springs, following it as it curves gently around to the left. Walk on, passing a row of cottages on the right, whose gardens slope down to the river, until the track meets a tarmacked road called Hodwell. Pause this podcast until you have reached the junction with Hodwell then re-start it. Stand on the semi-circle of grass in front of you and turn to look back at the track that you have just walked along. On the left you can see the Ashwell Lock Up. The building is small and square with an impressive studded oak door that has a barred iron grille above. The Lock Up was built in 1800 – so it’s more than 200 years old. It’s one of only four still surviving in Hertfordshire (although nearby Littlington has one, but that’s in Cambridgeshire). It was built by recycling blocks of chalk from a Chantry Chapel that once stood at the north east corner of St Mary’s church a short distance away. The lock up was used as a gaol for anyone making a nuisance of themselves – often disorderly individuals who had drunk one too many pints of ale in the village pubs. After spending an uncomfortable night in the Lock Up they were taken to face the magistrate in Royston the following day. It became apparent that the Lock Up was no longer really fit for purpose as a gaol around 1910. The antics of Amos Pammenter and his friends may not have helped. After getting thoroughly drunk Amos was detained for the night, but his friends gave him more ale through the iron grille with the help of a straw. Once they left him, Amos decided to escape by tunnelling under the door, and then went home to sleep in his own bed. After that the lock up housed the parish fire engine (which was much better behaved, being as it was a two-wheeled cart with a water tank). That is until the start of World War 2, when the fire engine was requisitioned and never returned. Turn again, so the Lock Up is behind you, and walk on down Hodwell towards St Mary’s Church. If you look up, you will see the church tower with its clock a short distance ahead. Just after you pass the Old Rectory on the right, enter the churchyard through the gate in the fence. As we walk there let me tell you a little about St Mary’s. This is one of the largest parish churches in Hertfordshire and was mostly completed by 1381. It was built from chalk quarried from a pit on the road to Hinxworth, that is now the Ashwell Quarry Nature Reserve. The size and splendour of the church shows that Ashwell, as a town able to hold a market, was a wealthy place in the 1300s. The tower at the western end is one of the tallest in Hertfordshire and dominates views of the village in all directions. At the top there is leaded spire sitting on an octagonal base. Inside, graffiti records when the Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague, came to Ashwell in 1349. The inscription describes the misery of those who survived. If the church is open you might like to pause this podcast and go inside to look at the graffiti. It can be found at the base of the tower, which is on the left if you enter from the door on the south side (that’s the side nearest to you from the direction you are walking). When you are finished, exit the church by the northern porch opposite where you came in and walk slightly to your left over to an iron kissing gate. The area beneath the church tower is often closed off due to the danger of falling masonry, so if you are not taking a short detour to see the graffiti, from the gate where you entered the churchyard, walk keeping the church to your left so you walk around its eastern end - that’s the opposite end to the tower. Follow the path around to exit the churchyard through an iron kissing gate on its northern side. Pause this podcast until you have reached the iron kissing gate on the northern side of St Mary’s Church, then restart it. Pass through the kissing gate, turn right onto Mill Street and walk down the slight hill until you reach a road on the left called Fordham Close. While we walk, let me talk a little about Fordham’s brewery that was once located here. Before the second world war Ashwell’s industry was based on farming and brewing. A successful brewery AA 2_relies on a good supply of clean water. Fordhams was Ashwell’s biggest brewer and used the Springs for its water supply. By 1932 over two million bottles of beer were being made by Fordhams every year. Beers brewed included XXXX, three types of stout: Double, Oatmeal and Milk, alongside 7 types of ale, Brown, Pale, Best Pale, Light, Light Bitter, Old Ashwell and the rather intriguing Luncheon ale. Fordhams brewery was founded by George Fordham and his son Edward in 1836, just a few years after the Beer house act of 1830, which was passed during the reign of King William IV. This allowed any rate-payer to brew and sell beer if they had bought a licence costing two guineas. Thousands of new pubs and breweries opened across the country. This increased competition and lowered the price of beer, luring people away from the ruinous consumption of gin. It’s unsurprising that this made William IV very popular. Pause this audio tour until you have reached Fordham Close on the left side of Mill Street. Walk down Fordham Close until you reach the building at the end – now called Dray House. The Fordham family sold their brewery business in 1932 and most of the brewery was demolished in 1973 but this stable block, built in the later nineteenth century remains. The name ‘Dray house’ presumably refers to the horse-drawn carts or drays used to deliver beer. This building also once housed the coopers workshop, where the barrels were made. As you face Dray House to your right, behind some railings you will see the River Rhee again. Here it flows in the remains of a brick-lined channel that directed the river under the brewery buildings to drive a water wheel. This powered some of the brewery equipment. You can still see the water wheel in a new location on Mill Street and we will go and take a look at it in just a moment. For now, walk the short distance back down Fordham Close until you see a tall yellow brick building with a steeply pointed roof on the left side. This is the other remaining building from Fordhams brewery, the maltings, which has now been converted into residences. A maltings is a building where the starch inside cereal grains (usually barley) is converted into sugary maltose. The grain is soaked in water then spread on the malting floor. Sprouting is encouraged by warming the grains and regularly turning them but, just when the barley starts to grow this process is stopped by slowly turning up the heat and drying out the grains. Different beers need different kinds of malts so further gentle heating produces a malted grain for pales ales and lagers, higher temperatures make malts for darker beers all the way through to porters and stouts that look almost black. The dry, malted grain would then be stored for a few months to develop flavour before being used in a brew. At the start of the beer-making process, the malted grain is heated in water to extract all the sugary maltose. The resulting sweet, sticky solution is boiled with hops, which act as both a flavouring and a preservative and then converted to alcohol by yeast added during the fermentation process. The section of the maltings with the pointed roof is where the kiln to supply heat to the malting floors was housed. Now walk around to the front of this building by turning left out of Fordham Close. If you look up you can see the gantry where sacks of grain would have been hauled up to be spread on the malting floors of the second and third levels. The levels underneath these malting floors were used as storage. Look across Mill Street where you will see the water-powered corn mill after which the street is named. There has been a mill on this site since at least 1200. On the right side the older part of Mill House dates to the 17th century. You will see that there is a modern extension on the left, which has a large waterwheel on one side. The wheel can occasionally be seen turning. Don’t be fooled into thinking that particular wheel was part of the watermill. This wheel was moved here in 1977 and is the one I mentioned earlier that was used to power Fordhams brewery. Now retrace your steps back up Mill Street. You are walking towards one of the three current pubs in Ashwell, The Bushel and Strike, which you will see on the right side opposite the churchyard. As we walk, let’s talk about the pub’s name. The Bushel and Strike is a reference to measuring grain. A bushel is a wooden tub, bound with iron, in which dry goods are measured. It contains around eight gallons. The grain would be poured in and then levelled off using a thin piece of wood known as a strike. The strike was carefully pulled across the top of the bushel to prevent the grain from being pressed down too much, otherwise the measure would be too generous. Pause this podcast until you have reached the Bushell and Strike pub then restart it. The Bushel and Strike was a beer house owned by Fordhams brewery from the 1850s. It was sold to Charles Wells in 1964 and remains with this brewery to this day. At the back of the pub there is a long room that is now used as a restaurant. Walk down the driveway on the righthand side of the pub and on into the car park. Look left across the beer garden to see the single-storey building attached to the back of the pub. From 1894, this was the headquarters of the Ashwell ‘court’ of the Ancient Order of Foresters. We first came across this friendly society in our walk about foraging in Ashwell. Friendly societies provide their members with savings policies and insurance policies against sickness and death. The Ashwell court was founded in September 1867 but began meeting at the Six Bells another pub we’ll be visiting shortly. Every month, members would come to the meeting room to pay their subscriptions, which were five pence a week. For this you would receive pay of 12 shillings a week if you were ill. The society also organised events such as an annual parade and feast day. Now retrace your steps back to Mill street and the front of the Bushel and Strike. Turn right and walk further up the street leaving the pub behind you until you reach the junction at the top where you will see Ashwell Museum. Pause this podcast until you have reached Ashwell Museum at the top of Mill street then re-start it. Stand with the timbered building that is Ashwell Museum behind you and look towards the junction of Mill Street (where you have just walked) and Swan Street, (which you have just crossed). Across the street and on the right, on the corner where Swan Street meets Mill Street, you will see Swan House. This was previously The Angel, a tavern located here as early as 1609, but in the 19th century it was a pub owned by Fordham's called The Swan. The Picket family ran this pub for over forty years, from around 1855. Before this, in 1830 the publican in the Swan owed the Fordham family money. As he did not pay, they foreclosed on him and took his brewing equipment. I wonder if this was the starting point for their own brewery? Now turn right along Swan Street and walk on a short distance until you reach Number 2, the last cottage on the left before the junction with Church Lane. This house was once the Six Bells pub and if you look up, between the second floor windows a ring of six terracotta bells is set into the wall. The Six Bells was run by the Picking family (not to be confused with the Pickets at the Swan). Gabriel and Susannah Picking are listed as the landlords in the 1851 census. Gabriel died in 1866, but Susannah kept running the pub until at least 1891 when she is still listed as the publican aged 78. A Charles Gallant, was running this pub by 1911 and lived on Swan Street with his wife and six children. He still has members of his family living in Ashwell now. The Six Bells closed as a pub around 1930. The Six Bells was a beer house for the Westbury brewery, also known as Page's, which was located at the western end of Ashwell. You may wonder how pubs belonging to rival brewers could be so close together, the Swan and the Bushell and Strike, were only a few steps away. Please don’t imagine that Ashwell was a village of raging alcoholics. The lack of sanitation and polluted water supply meant that it was safer for everyone (including children) to drink weak beer, which may help to explain why Ashwell had so many more beer houses in Victorian times than it does now. The publicans also did other work and often combined trades such as carpentry, boot making, blacksmithing, or agricultural work with running the pub Turn back along Swan Street until you reach the Museum and walk up Alms lane to the side of it. At the top, where Alms Lane meets the High Street, is a house called Two Brewers. Pause this podcast until you have reached Two Brewers at the top of Alms Lane, then re-start it. Stand at the top of Alms Lane looking at the side of the house Two Brewers. In the late 1870s and 1880s Charles and Mary Summerfield were the publicans here and they combined selling beer with butchery. The dark wooden boards on the side of the house with a slatted window in the middle was where the butchers was. On the other side of Alms lane, numbers 54 and 52 High Street was once the Stag pub run by Benjamin Covington and his wife Emily for over 45 years from 1878 until 1925. After Benjamin died in 1914 Emily continued to run the pub until was sold to become a Co-op shop. The Covington family, have a long history in the area and whilst putting this walk together I have stumbled across a few members of this family– so keep listening to hear more about them later on. From Two Brewers turn right onto the High Street and walk towards the Rose and Crown pub, which is on the opposite side of the road. This timber framed building was built in the late 15th century and is probably the most long-lived pub in the village. It is first noted as a beer house in 1746 when it was called the George Inn. As this is a popular Medieval pub-name it is just possible the Rose and Crown was built as an inn and has always therefore been a pub in one form or another. If you look up you can see the upper floor sticks out further than the ground floor. This is known as jettying and can be seen in other old houses around the village and on the Museum – see if you can spot any more as you walk around. The popularity of jetties, may relate to freeing up space at street level, sheltering lower walls from the weather, using shorter structural timbers or perhaps was just a status symbol. The 1851 census shows that the Rose and Crown was run by Benjamin Edwards, who was a blacksmith. He died in 1876 and the pub was then run by his son Richard, also a blacksmith, until 1904. The Rose and Crown is the only pub in Ashwell that still has a sign panted with a picture that reflects its name. The naming of pubs began in medieval times but because most people could not read, signs reflected the pub names. In 1393, Richard II made it compulsory for pubs and inns to have a sign to identify them to the official Ale Taster (oh to have that job!) The name ‘Rose and Crown’ reflects royalist sympathies and was a pub name that came into being after Henry VIII’s split from the Catholic church in 1533 – although in the case of this pub it seems it was renamed much later than that. If you look carefully at the sign you will see that the rose has both the red petals of the House of Lancaster and the white petals of the House of York. These warring families vied for control of the English throne during the Wars of the Roses, which lasted over 30 years. The wars ended when Henry Tudor (a Lancastrian), killed Richard III of York to become Henry VII in 1485. Henry married Elizabeth of York, Richard’s niece and daughter of King Edward IV thus uniting the two families. Their emblems were combined to form the red and white petalled Tudor Rose but the House of York – having lost the throne – gets a smaller share of the petals. Carry on walking along the High Street in the same direction, away from the Rose and Crown. We are going to the Village Hall at the western end of Ashwell and it is about a ten-minute walk. To fill the time, as we walk let’s think back to the Luncheon Ale that Fordhams made. In the nineteenth century the water supply in towns and cities was often heavily contaminated by sewage. Sadly, Ashwell was no exception. In 1886 a medical officer’s report found that many of the wells were unfit for drinking due to contamination from cesspits nearby. There were two typhoid epidemics in 1896 and 1897 which prompted efforts towards creating a better sewage system but protracted local disputes about who should supply the much-needed water meant it was many years later, in 1914, when Ashwell had fully functioning sewers and a clean water supply. So what does this have to do with Fordhams ale or beer more generally? The beer making process involves boiling the brew, so beer was free from the bacteria and viruses that caused disease. It was therefore safer to drink beer than water. I suspect the Luncheon Ale did not have a particularly high alcohol content and may have been a so-called small beer made from a second rinsing of the malted grain. The resultant liquid would have less maltose than the first wash resulting in a lower alcohol content. Most people could drink several pints of this type of ale without becoming drunk so it was perfect for a refreshing drink at lunchtime. Now, as you walk along the High Street look out for a wooden sign hanging just above head height saying Farrows Farm. It’s on the right-hand side. Pause this podcast until you have reached Farrows Farm, then re-start it. Farrows Farm was the home of the Sale family for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. If you peek through the gateway to the side of the Farrows Farm sign you will see a group of houses that occupy the former farm buildings. Names such as “The Chaff house” gives away their original use. Carry on walking along High Street in the same direction, away from the village centre, and you will eventually reach Colbron Close on the right side. Pause this podcast until you have reached Colbron close, then re-start it. Just to the left of Colbron Close is a gateway with an iron kissing gate. The driveway beyond is lined with spherical bollards. Here too are farm buildings converted to residential use as you can see by their names, Westbury barns, the Coach House or the Granary House. This was once all Westbury farm, belonging to the Christy family and is also the location of the Westbury Spring. In partnership with their neighbours, the Sales, the Christys established a brewery at Westbury Farm in 1843, which stayed in production until the 1920s. It was sold to Joshua Page of Baldock in 1876 and was renamed Page’s. It was a smaller rival brewery to Fordham’s. The Ashwell Village Hall occupies what is left of the maltings so walk a short way further until you reach the driveway for Ashwell Village Hall then walk up the drive to see the hall itself. At the entrance to the drive is Westbury Cottage. This was the brewery office. Continue down West End Road (which was High Street) You will soon see a sign for Ashwell Village Hall on your right. Pause this podcast until you are standing at Ashwell Village Hall then re-start it. Early maltings are typically long, low buildings, no more than two storeys high, and this can be seen in the shape of Ashwell Village Hall. Barley won’t sprout if the surrounding temperature is too high so many maltings only operated in the winter. Conveniently, for farmers like the Christys and the Sales this created useful employment for agricultural workers who otherwise had less to do in the colder months. The dried malted barley did not need to be used immediately and would keep until the brewery required it. Note the difference between the size of the Westbury maltings and the Fordham maltings. The Westbury brewery was a much smaller operation. Now we will walk back to the main road again, exiting the Village Hall driveway by turning to the left and walking back towards Westbury Farm and Colbron Close. Look out for a thatched cottage on the opposite side of the road. Pause this podcast until you can see the thatched cottage, then re-start it. In front of you there is a thatched cottage called Chantry House, which dates to the 15th century. You can see the outline of two stone windows (now blocked up) at one end. These are probably not original to the house – but taken from somewhere far grander and installed here. This house was a beer shop called the British Queen from 1867 to 1886. The landlady, Elizabeth Bray, had the nickname the Queen of Sheba (or should that be She-beer?) Now walk back along the main road towards the centre of the village until you reach Wilson’s Lane on the right. Turn right and walk along Wilson’s Lane until you reach a T-junction with Back Street. We are walking to take a look at the Engine, another house that was a pub pub from the 1850s until 1993. Between 1937 and 1953 the Engine’s landlord was Albert Covington. I told you the Covingtons would feature again in this podcast. Albert was a popular landlord and had served in the Machine gun corps in WW1. He reached the rank of sergeant and served in Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq. You can find his name on the Roll of Honour in St Mary’s Church and he was awarded the British Medal and the Victory Medal. Pause this audio tour until you are standing at the T-junction between Wilson’s Lane and Back Street. Stand at the T-junction with your back to Wilson’s Lane and look to your right to see the Engine. The name may refer to steam trains or to steam engines used for threshing wheat. The 1881 census places more Covingtons running a pub, the Chaffcutters in Silver Street and we are going there next. Turn left from the end of Wilson’s Lane and walk down Back Street towards the centre of the village. You will shortly reach a junction where several roads come together and you will be able to see Ashwell Primary School on the corner. Pause this podcast until you have reached the junction with Ashwell Primary School on the corner, then re-start it. Cross over the junction and walk along Silver Street in the same direction you have been following. You should keep the school on your right side. Continue down Silver Street until you spot the yard of Day’s Bakery on the left. You will recognise it by the tall flour silo that stands there. Once you have passed the yard immediately look out for a house called Chaffcutters on the left. A chaff cutter was a machine used to chop straw and hay into small pieces before mixing with other feed for horses and cattle. Built in 1851 this was a Fordhams Brewery pub until the middle of the twentieth century. In the 1881 census there are more members of the Covington Family living here. Decimus (yes, Decimus - he was his parent’s tenth child) Decimus was the beer house keeper and he and his wife Mary lived here with their five sons and two lodgers. Look at the house and imagine it full of all those people. It probably had a cosy atmosphere. Walk on to number 32 Siver Street and then turn left down the alleyway or ‘twitchel’ leading back to the High Street. As we walk let’s just think about the relationship between Albert at the Engine, Benjamin at the Stag and Deciumus at Chaffcutters. These three men were all distantly related as they are all descended from a George Covington who was christened in Ashwell in 1767. Benjamin and Decimus were of a similar age. Albert was much younger, but they probably all knew each other. Pause this podcast until you have walked down the twitchel and are standing back on the High Street, then re-start it. Turn right out of the twitchel to walk along the High Street. Ahead you will see a timber framed building called Beams Cottage (45 High Street). This was once part of the Bull’s Head and dates back to 1667. The rest of the pub included the two modern houses between Beams Cottage and the twitchel you’ve just walked down. A little further on, roughly opposite where Ashwell Pharmacy can be seen now, was a pub called the White Horse, but this burned down in the Great Ashwell Fire of 1850. This catastrophic event will have to keep for another Ashwell Walk. Keep walking along the High Street until you reach the shop Rhubarb and Mustard. The house opposite, Vine Cottage, was once, briefly, a beer house called the Dun Cow. This was dun as in the colour brown not as in cow that had been swindled. Walk on passing the United Reform Church on your right, until you reach the junction with Kingsland Way coming in from the right. Pause this podcast until you have reached the junction with Kingsland Way, then re-start it. On the corner between Kingsland Way and the High Street is number 21 High Street. This was once a beer house owned by Fordhams called the Australian Cow. It was built in 1852, when many people were emigrating to Australia to seek their fortune in the gold fields. Passengers on the sailing ships were allowed to take a cow free of charge as long as the ship’s crew could have the milk during the journey. Apparently the pub was given its name because the landlord had brought a cow back from Australia on these terms and then walked it about 65 miles from Tilbury Docks near London, to Ashwell. Given that a cow can only walk about 4 miles per day this was a serious undertaking. For those that like to have the maths done – it probably took about 2 and a half weeks. Carry on down the High Street until you see the Three Tuns Pub on the left side. This building was built 1803 but before then it had been two pubs The Three Tuns and the Bay Tree. Until the 1870's the Three Tuns had the only large public room in Ashwell so wedding parties, coroners inquests and auction sales would all be held there (presumably not all at the same time). The name comes from the production of beer in large wooden casks called tuns. Three were needed because at any one time, one tun would be being cleaned and prepared, one would be occupied with a brew and one was full of beer that was ready to serve. If the pub is open you can go in and see, behind the bar, the old sign showing these three large barrels. The census shows George Bonfield ran the Three Tuns for at least 30 years. He is recorded as the publican aged 28 in the 1851 census and is still the publican aged 57 in 1881. By the 1891 census his third oldest son John is running the pub but by 1901 he had moved to Swan Street and was working as a stable master. Walk on keeping the Three Tuns on the left until you are back at Ashwell Springs where we will end our walk. Let’s just recall the breweries, beer houses and families we have discovered during this walk. We have visited both Fordham’s and Page’s breweries, the village’s three existing pubs and tracked down another ten or so of yesteryear. We have also become acquainted with some of Ashwell’s families that have long-running associations with beer houses. There are a few pubs we haven’t reached – the Cricketers on Lucas Lane for example, and we haven’t been to the Fordhams other Maltings at the eastern end of village. Further afield there were other beer houses such as the Chalkman’s Knoll, the Hit and Miss or the Labour in Vain, serving thirsty farm workers, coprolite diggers and the navvies who built the railway. Perhaps we’ll visit these on another pub crawl in the future. You have been listening to the Ashwell Walks podcast, Episode 2, The Pub Crawl with Sally Fletcher You may feel in need of refreshment after our walk together. If so, I hope one of Ashwell’s pubs is open and ready to serve you a cold beer. I’d like to thank Lisa Dear and Vinny Hall for getting in touch with their stories about Ashwell pubs. Thanks too to my mum, Kathleen Irving, for all her help in tracing the histories of Ashwell families, which leads to me thanking the Covingtons for indulging my interest in their very distant relatives. Last but not least, many thanks to David Short for all his very helpful contributions. If you have a something to share with the Ashwell walks team please do email us on [email protected] . Songs in this podcast can be found on Free Music Archive Marwood Williams, “I’m Walking” Roger McGuinn “Follow the Drinking Gourd” Roger McGuinn “Drunken Sailor” The Trumpeteers “Little Wooden Church” Dazie Mae “Drink Beer (Till the Day I Die)” Kandia Crazy Horse and Spirit of 76 “Walk on Boy” Tiny Folk “In the Museum” Food Will Win the War “Ice cream and a Beer” Mr and Mrs Smith “Beer Bottles for Breakfast” Kathleen Martin “Major Melon Farmer (remaster)” The Shivers “Who’s Gonna Walk My Baby Home” The Clientele “We Could Walk Together” Steve Bartolomei “Big Engine” Grievous Angels “Seven Engines” Nic Waterman “Crowded Closet” Derek Clegg “Holy Cow” Cletus Got Shot "Pour Me Another"
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AuthorAshwell Walks have been created by Dr Sally Fletcher and produced by Diane Jacoutot. Archives
October 2020
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