1735 -  William WINGFIELD was baptised in Pentney,   the son of William and Mary WINGFIELD

William made his home in Castle Acre, By his 2 marriages, to Mary GRIEF and Elizabeth HAMMOND, he had a large family.  Elizabeth, one of his daughters, had a son, James, in 1809, whose father was possibly, James WINKFIELD, of West Bradenham, whom she married soon after.

This younger James, brings the story back to Pentney. He grew up to be a Farmer Butcher, living on Falgate Hill in 1841. He was first married to Ruth Harrison of West Acre.  They had one son, Robert, who in 1852 emigrated to Australia and then New Zealand, and passes out of the Pentney story. Ruth died in 1856, and James later married Jemima (FIRTH) HUDSON.

1770 - John FIRTH married Mary PEEK at Pentney.
They too had a large family, most of whom married in Pentney and had families of their own. I have traced some of these families up to the 1881 Census.

Robert FIRTH, son of John, was a Tailor, who lived all his life in Pentney. He married Martha CHAPMAN, of West Acre.  Their 10 children married into various Pentney families too!

Their youngest daughter, was JEMIMA FIRTH who first married George HUDSON, in 1843.  He was the son of Thomas HUDSON, the Parish Clerk for many years.  Jemima had four sons, Thomas, William, George and Herbert HUDSON.
Then, having become a widow, Jemima married James WINKFIELD.  They lived in Bailey's Cottages, next door to the Bake House.  James and Jemima had 4 children, Robert, (my grandfather), Ruth, Sarah and James. 

Of the 4 WINKFIELD children, we know from the Pentney Church records, that Sarah died in 1881, not long before the death of her father, James, in 1882.
Ruth grew up to marry Thomas Warrington, of Leicester.
Of James, we know very little. In the 1891 Census, aged 20, he was living with William Eagle and his family, in one of Bailey's Cottages.
Their mother, Jemima, was by now the wife of William BROWN, also in Bailey's Cottages.  Jemima lived in Pentney until her death in 1907. 

By 1891, Thomas CALLOW and his wife and family had come to live in the Bake House, next door to Bailey's Cottages.  Thomas, born in Kings Lynn, had retired from the Army, and had first had the Bakery in Narborough. Their daughter, Mary CALLOW married Colour Sergeant Robert WINKFIELD at Pentney in 1892.  They were my grandparents.

Thomas Callow and his wife, Mary, lived in Pentney for the rest of their lives. Mary died in 1916, having travelled all round the world, and been married four times, since she had left her home, in Fermoy, Ireland in 1845.