THE SAWPIT

 

On the grass opposite the churchyard wall by the road into Woodbury Park there used to be a saw pit.  It belonged to the Lord of the Manor who lived at Everton House.  Here any fallen down trees or specifically cut for timber hauled by carthorses using chains. They were positioned lengthways over the pit to allow long slices to be cut from the trunks. These were then piled up and seasoned until they were ready for sale. It took two men ten hours to saw through the length of a medium-sized tree. Using a double handed long saw one man stood in the bottom of the pit and pulled down, the other stood on top of the tree trunk and pulled up. At the beginning of this century they were paid 3/6d (£0.17) a foot. When the pit fell into disuse it was used as a dump for garden rubbish and gradually filled in. A sweet smelling lime tree now stands by it. Just inside the gate to the park there once stood a thatched cottage which was the gatehouse to the Hall. (Hilda Brooker’s notes)

 

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