THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

STRANGE JOB FOR A FINDON LAD

Copyright Valerie Martin 2000

Originally published in Along The Furlong in July 2001.

Luke Luther Berrington was born in Findon in 1815, the son of the Findon huntsman. After many adventures as a guard on the coaches traversing the countryside, he took up employment with the celebrated George Wombwell's Travelling Menagerie of Wild Beasts. This was one of the largest and most popular shows in the country at that time. Here he played as second bugler in the brass band of some sixteen members.

Following this, he joined the Coldstream Guards as an alto trombone player and this lasted for the next three years. He had come a long way from his childhood in the Sussex village of Findon. For the next thirty years he was scarcely ever without evening engagements, playing at such venues as Sadlers Wells, Drury Lane and Covent Garden.

Luke was living at this time in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey.  Coincidentally, Westminster Bridge nearby was the starting point of the old coach route to the Sussex coast.  This coach service progressed down through Epsom, Dorking, Horsham, Steyning, Findon and on to Worthing, passing through no less than fourteen toll-gates en route.  Luke, no doubt, saw the passengers departing for their journey, knowing that some would be passing through Findon.  The last coach to run through the village was in 1846, the year that the first London train chugged via Brighton into Worthing Station.

One day Luke sauntered into Westminster Abbey as a sightseer. This casual act culminated in his being employed on 28th June 1841 as a Guide to the Royal Tombs in the world renowned venerable Abbey . He spent almost fifty years in that capacity. For a child born in Findon he had travelled much and experienced a remarkably interesting life in the nineteenth century.

There were nine chapels through which Luke conducted visitors in Westminster Abbey. His job was to describe the various tombs and monuments, (amounting to around a hundred and spanning one thousand, two hundred years). A strange job for a lad who had been born in rural Findon.

One evening he stayed on at the Abbey rather late to finish a drawing he was doing when the Dean came in with Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. A Findon connection immediately comes to mind here. As an architect, it was Sir Giles Gilbert Scott who had been instrumental in the Great Restoration of Findon Church in 1867, in the days of the Reverend Robert Cholmeley.

On this particular occasion, Sir Giles arrived at Westminster Abbey with the intention of inspecting the coffin of King Henry III. This had been uncovered after its entombment of some six hundred years. Two or three others were also in attendance to see the coffin of the Third Henry.

They all proceeded to the Confessor's Chapel where the sculptured effigy had been removed and raised to the arcade above to be cleaned. From a temporarily constructed raised platform, Sir Gilbert remarked that Luke would now see something that would be very gratifying.

Luke waited while the Dean and company examined the ancient royal relic and was delighted and somewhat astonished on seeing a quantity of oriental cloth of gold entirely hiding the coffin.

The Dean intimated to Sir Giles that the actual covering be raised just a little so that all may see better — Luke guessed the clergyman was inquisitive to see what, if anything, there was on the lid of the actual coffin. Luke held his breath but Sir Gilbert would not hear of it and sharply refuted the idea out of hand, and the Dean at once acceded. Luke assumed a pose of somewhat silent regret as he would have dearly loved to see any inscription there might be and now the moment was lost.

As it was, he could just spy a large ring at each corner of the casket. These had not been touched for six hundred years since mourners had watched the melancholy ceremony of the coffin being carried down the aisle to its last resting place. An eerie thought.

Luke had a further interesting experience in the Abbey. It all happened while an official search was being conducted for the body of King James I. It was thought that this had at some time been removed from its original internment and now the final resting place was a mystery.

It was decided that an opening be engineered at the head of the tomb of Henry VII to get to the vault to make an investigation. Here the missing body of James I was indeed discovered and quite unexpectedly they also came across another coffin.

This turned out to contain the body of King Edward VI, the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour. His reign had been short, from 1547 until 1553. Up until this time it had not been known for certain where this young King had been interred, except that it was somewhere in the Chapel of Henry VII. Luke had set out that day hoping to find one king and he had, in fact, located two.

Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was not present this time. The Dean suggested that Luke and the other attendants gather around to see properly the coffin of the sixteen-year-old king. It was in a dreadful state, broken and much decayed and the Latin inscription was so illegible that Luke had difficulty in reading that the king had died at 8 p.m. on 6th July 1553. Nevertheless, the experience was rewarding and he had certainly come a long way from life as the son of the Findon Huntsman to being a witness in the resting place of kings.

Below is the only existing photograph of Luke Berrington.  I make no apologies for the condition — please remember it has survived the ravages of time since the 1880s.

Luke Berrington died in 1890 at the age of seventy-five years.... he had come a long way from being the Findon Huntsman's son.  He left three children who rather interestingly became celebrated theatrical actors, magicians and pantomimists. They travelled the world between the 1870s and 1890s under the stage name, "The Majiltons" but as far as I can ascertain the Berrington family, unfortunately, had no further connections with Findon.

Wombwells Menagerie was to continue for many years after Luke had left its employment in the 1840s.   Whipsnade Zoo opened to the public on 23rd May 1931 and heard of a circus that was being disbanded after 126 years on the road.   This was Bostock and Wombwell's Circus and Menagerie (as Wombwells had become known).   They were based in Scotland and had many animals needed to be re-homed.    In January 1932 a number of lions, leopards, bears, elephants, camels, wolves, sealions and red kangaroo came to Whipsnade.   The animals travelled by train from north of the border to Dunstable and from there they made their journey to Whipsnade in wagons and lorries.   Some, such as the camels and elephants, walked across the Downs!

It was not until the year 2000 that the Findon lad, Luke Berrington, and his life during the reign of Queen Victoria, came to my attention — all because his father had been the Findon huntsman.

Continue if you would like to read about Lieutenant Colonel George Wyndham and Findon Fox-hunting

This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.