A bit of local history - now you know

 

where Shep Whites (car park) originates. 

Woodruff “Shep” White was born in Bury, Huntingdonshire in 1846. He was a Shepherd on Holbeach Marsh, Holbeach St Matthew, Lincolnshire. The photo was taken in 1894 at Gedney Drove End, when he was 48 years old, with his Wife and 10 children and his Sheepdog. He was also a Marsh Guide for gentlemen Wildfowlers around the 1900’s. The family lived in a marsh cottage beside the Wash Old Sea Wall, by the turning into today’s Shep White’s car parking. The cottage was demolished in the 1950’s or 1960’s and the old cottage footings can still be seen today.

In 1901 he purchased a farm-house and barn with 6 acres of farmland at Penny Hill, Holbeach for £620 from the late H.C. Finsley (Lot 6 at Auction). “Shep” White became a Cottage Farmer. He died in 1931 aged 85 years, and he has a fine stone cross & border gravestone in Holbeach Cemetery.