When you get a spare minute, please take a look at our new Village Story page on the East Farndon village website. This has been designed as a single place where new residents and others can get an overview of our village, complete with useful links to explore the wealth of information that is available on our website. The new page can accessed from the link above, the website menu and directly from the home page. Huge thanks to Caroline and Russell Burton for helping to pull this new page together. Also, huge thanks to everyone who has written articles for the website, giving us such a rich information source. Please email or Whatsapp Mervyn Curtis and / or Caroline Burton with any comments you might have. All feedback, good or not so good, is very welcome 🙂
Many thanks to everyone who joined us us at the East Farndon Village Hall, on Sat 21st Dec, for the Laugh Out Loud Theatre Company, professional production of ‘Beauty and the Beast’. Everyone had a great time and please click this link to see some photos from the evening.
Back in March 2024, Jack Beesley and Will Evans presented a plan to the East Farndon Parish Council to renovate the bench on Lubenham Road, East Farndon, as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award. Jack presented a very eye catching design and the project was gratefully accepted by the Parish Council, with a budget agreed of up to £100 for materials. The renovation team of Jack Beesley, Will Evans and Alfie Freeman set to work to clean up the old metal bench and then re-paint using their design. Click this link to see photos of the team and the renovation work. The project was managed well within budget and reported as complete at the Parish Council meeting in May 2024. The finished bench looks superb and many village residents have commented on how good it looks and that the design very much reflects community life within East Farndon. The Parish Council is very grateful to Jack, Will and Alfie for their hard work, innovative design and excellent support for our community. The team were very professional in the planning and execution of their project and definitely achieved all of the objectives set. They have created a lovely on going asset for the residents of East Farndon to enjoy. Well done Jack, Will and Alfie! Posted on behalf of East Farndon Parish Council.
As part of the West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) development of a new local plan, in June 2024, East Farndon Parish Council (EFPC) responded to submit our drawn Village Confines, 4 nominations for Local Green Spaces and a request to extend the WNC Special Landscape Area within which East Farndon is located. These requests will remain in a pending status until the new WNC local plan is formally accepted and published, this being expected in 2025. In Sept 2024, WNC reported that new housing targets have been set by the new Government. A further 460 houses each year need to be built, which over 17 years is an increase of about 8,000 houses (a 21% increase). This means that WNC have to revise their draft Local Plan and re-consult. The EFPC submissions from June 2024 can be viewed in map form by clicking the links below.
Also, most people will know that East Farndon has medieval settlement remains in the village and this is a Historic England Scheduled Monument. This can be viewed in map form by clicking the link below.
The parcels of land in the WNC spatial options strategy and call for sites documents, identified for potential major housing developments between East Farndon and Market Harborough, remain in the latest / new WNC local plan. The good news is that all of these areas have been marked as not suitable and thefore will not be going ahead into the new housing areas to be developed for this plan. It remains the case that Harborough District Council (HDC) could request these development areas from WNC to include in the new HDC local plan. This is unlikely, but EFPC will continue to monitor closely the development of both the WNC and HDC new local plans.
Home-Start Daventry & South Northants is a voluntary organisation committed to promoting the welfare of families with at least one child under five years of age and living in West Northamptonshire. They offer a unique service, recruiting and training volunteers to support families.
Volunteers visit families in the families’ own homes on a regular basis giving informal, friendly and confidential support that helps to increase parents’ self-esteem and confidence in their parenting ability. The volunteers also help run groups, such as school readiness or fitness and fun groups. Sometimes volunteers go on to develop professional careers in related services.
Last week was Bees’ Needs Week, but you can still get involved. Our bees call on everyone to take five simple actions to help pollinators. To sustain bee populations, people can:
Many thanks to everyone who purchased raffle tickets and those who braved the variable weather to attend our East Farndon Village Fete on Saturday 15th June 2024. Also thanks to the Fete Committee for organising such a great event and special thanks to Nigel for the use of Haynes Field. Cick this link to see some photos from the event. The raffle raised £950 for the church and the other activities raised £1,300 to support local charities and village initiatives.
Judy Hodgetts has created a special history article to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day which took place on Thursday 6th June 2024. The article, together with some WW2 artefacts, were displayed at our East Farndon D-Day 80 commemoration event. Judy’s very interesting article is a must read and it includes reflections from a number of East Farndon residents. The first page is repeated below, please click this link to read the full article.
The D-Day Landings by Judy Hodgetts
In June 1944, five years after the start of World War II, France was under German occupation. On 6th June that year over 150,000 allied troops landed on 5 beaches across Normandy, northern France in what was known as the D-Day landings. The aim of this mission was to drain German resources and to block access to key military sites. Securing a bridgehead in Normandy would allow the Allies to establish a viable presence in northern Europe.
A combined naval, air and land assault, it remains the largest seaborne invasion in history. It was known as Operation Overlord, codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as the D-Day landings. The landings marked the start of a long and costly campaign in north-west Europe, which lasted until 30th August 1944. It ultimately convinced the German high command that defeat was inevitable.
Early on 6th June, Allied airborne forces parachuted into drop zones across northern France. Ground troops then landed across five assault beaches – Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. By the end of the day, the Allies had established a foothold along the coast and could begin their advance into France.
A total of 4,414 Allied troops were killed on D-Day itself, with more than 5,000 wounded. In the ensuing Battle of Normandy (the entire campaign), 73,000 Allied forces were killed and 153,000 wounded. The battle – and especially Allied bombings of French villages and cities – killed around 20,000 French civilians.
Many men and women from East Farndon served in World War II, and although we know where some men were stationed, it is unclear how many landed in Normandy on 6th June 1944. Upon their return home after the war, many men were unable to talk about the trauma they had been through.
Sadly, two men from the village (Sidney Chapman and Brigadier Denis Sanders) were killed in action during the campaign and four other men (Frederick Stanley Allen, Mick Belton, Ernie Piggin and Brigadier Sir Alex Stanier) took part in the landings and survived……….please click this link to read the full article.
