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King John

Legend has it that when King John fled to Lincolnshire his baggage train lost his jewels as they crossed the marshy ground between Cross Keys and present-day Sutton Bridge. King John himself was not present as he took the longer (and safer) route via Wisbech. Historians believe that he may have used the incident to hide the fact that he had already sold the jewels to pay for his war. An alternative theory suggests that after he died in nearby Newark (from a surfeit of lampreys) his servants stole the jewels from him.

Whatever the facts it has not stopped thousands of people throughout history searching in this area for what would be a vast fortune.

The village sign (placed there by the Women's Institute to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee) depicts King John racing along the route of the old A17 towards Lincolnshire.

A Brief History

St Helen’s

Methodist Chapel

Walpole Cross Keys grew as a last staging post before crossing the narrowest point of the Wash - by a treacherous route known only to local guides. With its sea walls (mistakenly called Roman banks) built in the Dark Ages it was, in common with surrounding villages, reliant on its salt workings (Saltings). There are still signs in the fields of the spoil heaps created in man's struggle to gain this precious commodity. Fence Bank runs from Saint John's Fen End (between Terrington Saint John and Marshland Saint James) where peat was dug and transported along this track to Walpole Cross Keys as a fuel to heat the sea water and extract the salt. It is estimated the salt workings are about 400 years old.

The hamlet grew as an adjunct to Walpole St Andrew and Walpole St Peter. Andrew and Peter were brothers and the crossed keys of heaven and hell are the symbol of St Peter. A mission church was built in Victorian times - followed by a Methodist Chapel - both of these were in use until the 1970s.

The railway age was a boon to Cross Keys as it was the site of Walpole Station on the Midland and Great Northern (Muddle and Go Nowhere) Line. At one time trains carried the harvested crops of the area (mainly fruits of apples and strawberries) regularly delivering the fresh produce to the towns. During the Strawberry Season it was not unusual to see queues into the Station from both sides along Station Road late in the afternoon. This fact became so well known that ice cream vendors set up a pitch with their "Stop Me and Buy One" tricycle. The railway was closed in Dr Beeching’s cuts and closed on 28th February 1959. The railway was taken up in the mid 1960s and its route is now followed (from Sutton Bridge to West Lynn) by the A17 bypass (opened in 1981). The Eva Kemp/Station Garden stands close to the site of the station - this was formally opened by the mayor in July 2009.

Agriculture / Horticulture

Agriculture and Horticulture are at the heart of Walpole Cross Keys, and the reason for the hamlet's existence. The landscape of Walpole Cross Keys has changed dramatically over the last eighty or so years in that from the early 1920s much of the land was farmed with orchards providing a harvest of apples, plums, pears, gooseberries etc. There were less than half of the present houses and much of the area was owned by Cockett Fruit Farms and in fact the cottages along Station Road North were built as tied cottages for the workers. Obviously there would have been a few grass fields in which to graze the cattle and work horses, as there was little or no mechanisation with such crops, and they were very labour intensive. Much of Cockett's gooseberry crop was grown on the field adjacent to White House Farm between Station Road and the C.80 (old A-17) and the fruit was graded and packed in the barns that up to recently formed part of that farm. Almost all of the villagers would have been employed locally on the land. The orchards remained after the fruit farm was split up, and in fact along Station Road North the orchards were not grubbed up until the early 1980s.

As the trees were cleared other crops were introduced into the area, including broad beans, peas, rhubarb, as well as the staple crops of grain, potatoes, etc. Some peas, and most of the broad beans were hand picked and taken to King's Lynn for canning at LinCan, and during the 1950s/60s to Fropax (Donald Cook’s) for freezing. The peas were harvested,dried and threshed. They were then sold for seed or as dried peas for a vegetable for the table. Harrisons Glory being a favourite. Gilletts of Wisbech purchased the seed. Willer & Riley of Boston purchased the dried table peas.

Horticulture was introduced to the area and bulbs were grown in the fields. Greenhouses were then erected to extend the seasons and new crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers were grown, as well as chrysanthemums, cut flowers of daffodils, tulips, etc. and eventually pot grown chrysanthemums, poinsettias, and other cut flowers.

The cottages and council houses had large gardens and everyone worked on the gardens in what little spare time they had growing vegetables for their own use, and fruit (strawberries etc) as a crop to sell to supplement their incomes. The strawberries were sent to Market from Walpole Station. Many of the villagers rented 1 acre allotments which were situated off Fence Bank and King John Bank. They grew crops to sell such as sugar beet and potatoes in addition to the strawberries. The Crown has smallholdings in Walpole Cross Keys and there were shared barn and cattle yard facilities. Most of the smallholders kept cattle and pigs, and practically every household had their own chickens. Many of the pigs were slaughtered and cured for home consumption. It was not unusual to see hams hanging in the kitchen of the average home.

The soil in Walpole Cross Keys is considered as silt to the North of the old railway line (the new A-17) and heavy silt to the South, and is now mainly used for growing cereals and sugar beet. There is a line of peat running from the Marshes through Walpole Cross Keys towards Walpole Highway, and subsidence has been a problem in the last few years with the peat drying out in the long hot summers.

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