Extracts from



The Book of Wargrave

Editor : Rosemary Gray , Sue Griffiths

Published by Wargrave Local History Society, 1986

ISBN 0 9511878 4 8

Held in Wokingham Library ref. L942.294

Extracts taken by R.Kennedy, June 2003

Chapter X Personal reminiscences

Memories of Cockpole Green – by Dorothy Pring

This section records the memories of valued local residents, some too elderly to write their own stories.

As schoolchildren and teenagers in the early 1900s people recall the grandest house in Crazies Hill – Parkwood, later known as Cayton Park and now owned by a Saudi Arabian Prince and called Juddmonte. The house was built by Sir Charles Henry, who, being fond of golf, had a course constructed outside his front entrance, right down to Cockpole Green. He used to ride around in his coach drawn by two black horses, with his coachman Mr Sable driving. Mr Sable lived above the coach house and stables and he later drove Sir Charles’ Rolls Royce car number BL22. Wellington Cottages were built by him for staff and the boy gardeners lived in a bothy near the road to Warren Row.

…

In Crazies Hill, there was a Church or Chapel reached by some steps up on the left-hand side of the road between Hurdlemakers and Rebecca’s Cottage. Several shops used to be kept in Crazies Hill; next door to the hall was a sweet shop kept by Mrs Willis, next to that a shop selling cottons and general stores. Mr Plowman ran a general store and post office nearby and further down the hill, in the last thatched cottage there was a bakery. Milk was delivered by Ted Bacon who carried two buckets on a yoke and the locals brought out their jugs to be filled. Another shop was run by Tom Jones in a cottage opposite Hatch Gate Farm where he sold groceries. At the other end of the cottage lived a crippled man called Mr Burriss. He made and sold garden gnomes, displaying them outside in his garden. Bricks were made and fired at Kiln House and carts used to travel along Penny Lane taking them to Henley for sale.

The Second Book of Wargrave

Editor : Peter Delaney

Published by Wargrave Local History Society, 1998

ISBN 0 9511878 3 X

Held in Wokingham Library ref. L942.294

Extracts taken by R.Kennedy, June 2003

Chapter VIII Personal reminiscences

The Diary of George Beck – edited extracts from his diary

The diary was written in the early years of this century. Its 238 pages are in somewhat ‘poetic’ language, describing the area from many bicycle rides. George Beck was born in 1865, but the record of his death has not yet been found. The Beck family lived in what is now ‘The Old Post House’, which was then two semi-detached cottages.

In January 1872 our family moved to Crazies Hill, it was a dull but mild afternoon, the roads heavy with mud and the ditches filled with water. We came up Worleys Lane a very round about way.

…

Walking up to Bowsey Hill from the north we see many alterations. The home of William Burfoot has passed into the hands of A.H. Bulkeley Esq and has been much enlarged, and all the land at the back except Shadwells has been added to it. On the opposite side of the road, the land which was formerly a number of small meadows with tall hedges has been made into golf links by C.J. Henry Esq, MP, now Sir Charles Henry, and the tall old hedges have been grubbed up and the trees thinned out. It is now a broad expanse of smooth turf.

…

The Fox Inn is now known as Fox Steep, and has been altered and enlarged. Almost opposite the small cottage, for many years the home of the late Richard Piggott, is the Park Wood golf ground, beautifully kept and used both for golf and cricket, and many a pleasant Saturday afternoon is spent there.

The road through to Knowl Hill is very good, but an old inhabitant told me it was not always so. He could remember when the road through to Culham and London Road was a mere cart track, and he also informed me that the big chalk pits of Knowl Hill near the Church were dug and the chalk used to build up the present road. Among the people that used to drive along that road regularly when I was a boy was Mr Matt Oliver, contractor, and Palmer, the carrier from Benson to Henley. The carrier was very unlike the persons of his class at the present day. He was never in a hurry, it seemed not to matter when he got to Henley, so long as he got there. The last time I saw him – or rather his cart, for he was seldom in evidence, but generally well under cover – was on Cockpole Green at 6.30pm. instead of 11.30am. Among the local users of the road was Mrs Goodall, the poultry woman, with her donkey and cart and her terrier dog on the seat beside here, taking snuff in his turn, apparently thinking that it was quite the correct thing. The dog mistress was something of a character in her own way.

…

January 1892. About this time, the safety bicycle was becoming very popular, and after some considerable thought on the subject, I decided to have one. Then I consulted the advertising column of the Star newspaper, I selected a second hand one that I thought would suit me in regard to price; of bicycles themselves I had no knowledge whatever. It must be remembered that the safety bicycle was then in its infancy and rather expensive. Mine only cost me £4.10s.0d., and it had seen plenty of service, and its weight was 56lbs. Its weight in those days was not considered excessive. It goes without saying that a machine of that weight and solid tyres was much more difficult to learn to ride than a modern pneumatic tyre machine.

In spite of its weight, I got considerable pleasure out of it, and my father also learned to ride it before it went to the scrap heap. I well remember the fine evening in early summer when I took a ride as far as Blakes Barn, now known as Kings Farm. On the right before reaching the farm I passed Wargrave cricket club at practice. My next ride took me through Hare Hatch and Warren Row. Another time through Twyford, where I saw Dr Gordon Stables’ caravan the ‘Wanderer’, evidently being made ready for his summer trip, which I believe occupied him several months each year.

9 May – Father met with what might have been a very serious accident. Hiring a tricycle to ride to Twyford and not having much knowledge of it, he started riding from the top of the hill. Reaching the corner and gaining speed, he found the brake would not act, and was thrown off into the ditch and badly knocked about, and was laid up for several days.

On the evening of 6 July, having got my cycle into good running order, for the bearings had been badly broken while learning to ride, Len and I went for a ride through Knowl Hill, by way of the new road. It was a lovely evening, the Bath road was in good order and very smooth.

…

On 26 August, being on a Friday and we leave work a little earlier, I thought, as the days were drawing in, I would have a spin before returning home, and so I went on to Warren Row and on to Knowl Hill and later on I turned to the left and passed the Hill Farm. Returning to the Bath Road, the setting sun was shedding a rich glow over the country and the Piggott School standing dark and somewhat grim like some ancient landmark on the distant hill. On arriving at Kings Farm, I passed Will Fidler who had just returned from his afternoon’s milk round. Before Kings Farm was built by Mr Walter Bond, an ancient barn stood here, and the barn and the land was known as Blakes Barn, and the chalk pit in the field lower down the lane was known as Blakes Pit.

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