I was asked a question about Beggars Lane in Weston but I have lost the link to the source. So I hope this information helps.
This extract comes from an oral history given by Geoff Dodd and talks about beggars in the locality. if you would like to listen to the oral history or read the transcript click HERE
Tramps used to go into the mill in the High St and beg flaked oats. Then would perhaps come to my own home and ask my mother for water, take it across to the workshop and boil it up on the forge to make a sort of a porridge.
Ian And was vagrancy a big problem then, I mean were there lots of people living rough?
Geoff …… certainly there were, I mean, out at Weston there is now a Beggars Lane, Beggars Bush Lane. There was a long length of shrubbery between the gate hub and on the right-hand side and Beggars Bush Lane , a long shrubbery along the edge of the fields and tramps kipped in there for the night regularly because they could spend a night at the Spalding ….? they called it, or possibly two nights, but not more and the next likely place they could find a bed was Holbeach. So rather than spend a night in a bed in Spalding and then the next night at Holbeach they would rough it for one night to extend the hospitality, I suppose a bit.
Ian And would they be very itinerant, so would they be going from town to town making use of the facilities?
Geoff I suppose they found a bed wherever they could, course if they’d been on a road a long while they knew exactly how and would tell each other where they were likely to find a comfortable night. The .. quite often, tramps spent the night in the shoeing shed at the workshop which was open, there was no door on the shoeing shed and quite often my grandfather never disturbed them, probably often cooked them up some breakfast in morning in the forge if they’d got anything to heat up.
Ian So it was an accepted part of local life at the time.
