Crossword-Solution: HELPSTON 8 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 13

Helpston consists of two streets, meeting at right angles, the main thoroughfare being formed by the old Roman road from Durobrivae to the north, now full of English mud, and passing by the name of Long Ditch, or High Street.

Some thirty years previous to the birth of John, there came into Helpston a big, swaggering fellow, of no particular home, and, as far as could be ascertained, of no particular name: a wanderer over the earth, passing himself off, now for an Irishman, and now for a Scotchman.

When grown into manhood, and yet not feeling sufficiently strong for the harder labours of the field, he took service as a shepherd, and was employed by his masters to tend their flocks in the neighbourhood, chiefly in the plains north of the village, known as Helpston Heath.

When John Clare had reached his seventh year, he was taken away from the dame-school, and sent out to tend sheep and geese on Helpston Heath.

But though often disturbed in the enjoyment of those delightful recitations, they nevertheless sunk deep into John Clare's mind, until he found himself repeating all day long the songs he had heard, and even in his dreams kept humming-- 'There sat two ravens upon a tree, Heigh down, derry, O! There sat two ravens upon a tree, As deep in love as he and she.' It was thus that the admiration of poetry first awoke in Parker Clare's son, roused by the songs of Granny Bains, the cowherd of Helpston.