May 2012 - Ollerton with Marthall

Charles and Emily Wood lived at Oak
Tree Farm positioned roughly where
there is now a row of garages belonging
to the residents in Woods Close.
The Wood forefathers had busy lives and
passed on their rewards in Knutsford.
Without exception the male members
of the family followed the occupation
of iron manufacturing. John Wood who
died in1899 had a large machine shop
and foundry and manufactured agricultural
and other implements, his oldest
son Harry Wood was born in 1856 and
had a public school education. From a
small boy he learned the trade of a machinist
and was determined to sustain
the family reputation for excellent work.
His ambitions for the sea were strongly
commingled with those of mechanics
and in 1873 went to sea as a member of
the engineering crew of the Allen Line
Steam Ship Company, and for four years
worked as second assistant to the Chief
Engineer of the Company and became
recognised as one of the finest engineers
ever to manipulate an engine. This
training admirably fitted him to take
charge of his father’s business in Knutsford
when he decided to return to dry
land. He finally decided to immigrate to
America in 1880, carried on with engineering
and became one of the best manipulators
of mechanical and electoral
devices in the States. He married and
had six children and explains the many
letters which past between England and
America which outline the family history
related to Knutsford.
I now refer to a letter ( in part) dated
September 1936 from Mrs Emily Wood
wife of Charlie, sent in reply to their
niece Helen Wood living in California
who had previously written to them :-
‘’ The portion of your letter is just like
the struggle we had to get the business in
Knutsford going and to keep on our feet,
there have been many ups and downs but
the downs have got short of wind and
we decided to give up the struggle and
we have bought a small farm in Ollerton.
We now have an old house inside
old beams, perhaps anything from 300
to 400 years old, restored and altered on
the outside walls but on the whole antique
– part of our lives in fact.
Charles loves his new home, its land
and way of life and is summed up in his
phrase ‘’Lemon Grove ‘’. He sees Oak
Farm as something of a rural idyll after
the ups and downs of the business as
makers of agricultural implements. The
idea of early retirement is not really in
Fashion (Charlie was 56 When he came
to Ollerton pre 1936) but Charlie is keen
to do things his own independent way.
Our farm in Ollerton is on the Knutsford
–Macclesfield road just a little over
two miles from Knutsford with its Parish
Church. To begin we had the House,
farm buildings and about ten acres of
land, and following a sale of local land
we know have 37 acres. To make a living
we do the occasional agricultural job and
anything involving metal. We have poultry,
cattle and a horse to do the work,
or should do. Hedge rows of thorn, wild
rose’s oak trees holly and fields of greenhow
green, only the seeing of it tells you
of a carpet of green underfoot. Charles
pride in his small farm and his love of
nature and the seasons and sense of
traditions goes with his love of the writings
of Elizabeth Gaskell and her book
CRANFORD.
Charlie died in 1960 and predeceased
his wife, what went wrong in the latter
stages of his life?, resulting in them having
to leave Ollerton and Oak Farm, and
the loss of their property and land, to go
and live in Rusholme Manchester. ----
George Littler