“Sleepy Hollow” – a new slideshow of Hitchin’s history

The Reverend Robert Tebbutt was minister of Tilehouse Street Baptist Church in Hitchin Hertfordshire from 1966 until his death in 1975. Shortly before he passed away, he prepared an illustrated presentation on the history of Hitchin for the members of the church’s Women’s Meeting, using over a hundred of his excellent colour slides.

Bob Tebbut’s daughter, Mrs Gill Clough, kindly passed the slides and audio tape to Sam Hallas, our film archivist, who has used them to produce this unique record of Hitchin. Sam has included a few images from Hitchin Museum’s collection and added more of the town mural, once outside Sainsbury’s store in Brand Street and now on the wall of the public library, to help the flow of the narrative. The mural gives structure to this lovely, and very informative, YouTube film of Bob Tebbutt’s 1974 presentation, which he called “Sleepy Hollow – a Hertfordshire Town”.

It starts with a short introduction by Sam Hallas, and runs for 23 minutes. We hope you enjoy it. Our thanks to Sam for allowing us to link to it.

You can also see the video on our History of Hitchin page Sleepy Hollow.