8. The Pinfold

Credits for images: from Loveday Album, with thanks to Ian Lawrence, deputy church warden of St. Giles, Balderton; and from historic photographic collection, Balderton Village Hall © Balderton Parish Council.

The text states that the pinfold was in the widened area of Pinfold Lane. In fact, Ordnance Survey maps from 1885 suggest it lay on the land now occupied by the garden at the front of 19 Pinfold Lane.

Robin Cook adds the following [Nextdoor social media post of April 2025]

“The information board says ‘Where the house immediately in front stands stood the old sweetshop’. The sweetshop was actually 20 feet further forward. The wording also says ‘It was later run by a Mrs Holland’ and points to a photograph taken of the house shortly before it was demolished, probably in the late 1950s.”

Mr. Cook continues:

“It shows the house, taken in April 1953 by a Mrs. Laskey who lived at the Pinder's cottage (21 Pinfold Lane). Mrs. Holland had this sweet shop in the 1930s, and perhaps well before then. The sweets were laid out on the kitchen table. The Collin brothers had the house in September 1953 until it was demolished. One brother then went to live in the wash-house at the rear of the garden and contracted pneumonia. He died in hospital of this condition in about 1971.”

In relation to the image in the bottom right, Robin Cook states:

“Numbers 4, 6 and 8 Pinfold Lane were three houses our family used to own before they were condemned by Councillor W. Malcolm Taylor in 1957. I have got a letter from 1959 from Councillor Taylor asking why people were still living in the houses, and why they hadn't been pulled down yet? The owners of condemned houses were responsible for having their own houses knocked down. Many houses were condemned not because there was anything wrong with them, but because they might have one entrance. One family, who lived in between the Turks Head pub and the post office, had such a house, and after theirs was demolished, they were offered a council flat—with one entrance.”