Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Bruce Guy Lindeman worked for a railway company in Poplar. He was born in Berkhamsted on 18 November 1873.  His parents were William Lindeman, a Berkhamsted grocer (1861 census), and Harriet Ann Foard. In 1881, at the age of 7 he had moved and was living with his family at 2 Devonshire Place in Brighton, Sussex, where they had 2 servants and a lodger. Between 1891 and 1901, Bruce Guy lived at 272 Richmond Road in Hackney, Middlesex, where his occupation is listed as Railway Clerk in 1891 and Railway Canvasser in 1901. On the 18 August 1904, Bruce Guy married Henrietta Tompkins. She was the niece of Sarah Tompkins (the first wife of Bruce Guy’s father, William Lindeman) and the youngest daughter of local butchers Thomas and Emily Tompkins [Plot 6].  Their wedding picture was taken in the garden of the Manor House (Pilkington Manor) in Berkhamsted, In the 1901 census the Manor House* (Pilkington Manor) was divided into 110, 112,114 High Street - so three separate dwellings. At 114 lived Emily Tompkins, retired butcher, widow, and an unmarried daughter and servant, so this is where the wedding photograph below was taken in Henrietta’s mother’s garden. The wedding was reported in the local newspaper at the time and sounded quite a grand affair! *Between 1920 and 1949, when Pilkington Manor was listed Grade III (old listing), the country experienced a recession and the Second World War, both of which caused considerable difficulties with the maintenance of large buildings. In 1949 Pilkington Manor was already in a sorry state, the west end shored up whilst the remainder was still lived in. By the late 1950s little remained of the original house after alteration to build a row of shops. Today modern flats, bearing the name Pilkington Manor, incorporate a copy of the doorway.