Grateful thanks to Ray Jones who stepped up the plate to give a presentation, at short notice, to our November meeting after a speaker problem. Ray gave a very interesting, illustrated talk around “A Tale of Two Priests, Two Churches and Several Cats”.
Mystery surrounds both these topics. Medieval stained glass panels which were once in St. Margaret’s Church, Old Catton, are now to be found in St. Michael’s Church, Plumstead. near Holt. It would seem that the panels were removed from St. Margaret’s between 1850 and 1867 by Reverend Hart when major alterations were carried out. Research shows that they were stored in Catton Hall and never returned to the Church. It remains a mystery as to why this happened and evidence is lacking. However the panels were gifted to St. Michael’s in the 1950 by Mr and Mrs Coltart of Plumstead (near Holt). Ray has spent much time on researching the story of these glass panels and you can read his in-depth report on our web site.
Mystery also surrounds our village sign, “The Cat on the Barrel”. It would seem that he has been on various jaunts over the years.
Mr Gough, a cardboard box manufacturer, of Crome House, asked the Parish Council’s permission to erect a sign representing the Cat and the Tun on the Village Green at the junction of St Faiths Road and Church Street. The sign was eventually placed there on the 25th April 1937 to celebrate the coronation of King George VI. Its life there was short as he was removed in 1940 as part of a national strategy to remove village signs in order to confuse the enemy. The sign took up residence at the Officer’s Mess in Horsham St. Faith’s. He was reinstated to his original home at the end of 1946. He was removed by merrymakers reportedly from RAF Honingham in 1949. There were sightings of the disappearing cat from many parts of the world. What adventures he must have had! His life since then has not been without incident, again further stories can be found on our web site. Let us hope that he continues to have a settled life in his rightful home.
Margaret White