Mary Challis was born in 1925 and educated at the Perse School for Girls, Cambridge and Studley College for Women, Warwickshire, where she obtained a BSc in Horticulture. She returned home and spent the rest of her life in Sawston. Mary was a Sunday School teacher, Youth Leader and Lay Preacher in the Congregational Church, a keen gardener and photographer and a student of local history. She also kept cats, hens and ducks and encouraged wildlife to come to her garden.
It is only in very recent years that the Challis family’s important place in Sawston over four generations, has been marked with the naming of a road, part of a new housing development at the western end of Mill Lane. This is a very suitable location since The Orchards – the ancient house in Mill Lane near the High Street, also once belonged to the family.
Since the late 1700’s when farmer Thomas Challis first settled in the village, the family thrived. Thomas’s son, Jonathan, married a daughter of James Everard of Pampisford which gifted him several acres of land and several houses and shops in the village.
The family business was established in the mid 1800’s in the High Street (where Billson’s opticians is now). Auctioneers first and foremost, they also sold fruit, vegetables and poultry, all grown or reared behind their business premises. They had a horse and cart and would travel further afield, selling their produce – and even furniture they had mended, around neighbouring villages.
In 1852, Jonathan’s son, Arthur, by now well-established and assisted by other family members, set about building his own house. No project was too hard for the clever and enterprising Challis family to undertake! However, frugal in
the extreme, the first decision they made was that a side wall would not be necessary – the new house could share their own shop’s side wall, thus saving them much expense (and creating a deal of trouble to this day!). Secondly – there was no need to invest in expensive bricks when clay bats would suffice… as long as the front which looked out across the High Street, was faced with brick – for effect!
As her father Alfred had been before her, Mary Challis was born in 1925, in this house, then called The Laburnums, and lived there her whole life. Intensely private and proud of her heritage – and despite failing health in her 80’s – she refused all kindly-meant suggestions to leave her by then crumbling home or the by now quite wild two acres of garden for an easier and more comfortable existence in her twilight years. Her heart was there – along with her very many pet cats, chickens and ducks.
Mary was the last remaining Challis and it is a great tribute to her memory that in her will, she left both the House and Garden in trust for the people of Sawston and the surrounding villages, in perpetuity. We thank her.
