East Hendred Museum at Champs Chapel, Oxfordshire and Berkshire Heritage

CHAPTER II WHITE ROAD

The village of East Hendred lies just south of the A417 about four miles east of Wantage. When we turn south from the main road, we find ourselves in White Road. It is now tarmacadamed with good surface water drainage and efficient curbs, but the name carries us back to a time, not many decades ago, when the road was indeed white, for it was repaired with chalkstone from the parish pit on the Downs. In heavy rains the white dust would turn to white mud and then to a milky stream flowing down the hill towards the village.

Fifty years ago the road lay between grass verges and trees, and with no house beside it. The first improvement was to surface the road with stone, some of it brought by rail from as far away as Doncaster. It was shot into long piles beside the road and broken fine enough to pass through a two inch mesh. When spread, watered, and rolled, this material produced the macadamised surface (not yet tarmac) which revolutionised England's roads. The last of the men who broke stones and mended roads with them was Mr. Roberts, who still lives in Newbury Road.

Immediately south of the junction between A417 and White Road, two substantial modern houses were erected in 1968, the first occupied by Mr. Cottee, and the second by Mr. McDonagh. The third house south of the A417 is quite remarkable, and so was the man who had it built.

In the decade preceding the first world war there was a vast increase in the playing of golf, and the laying out of golf courses. Mr. Colt was a golf course architect whose first course was at Swinley Forest near Ascot, and Mr. Auguste Legouix was his assistant from the beginning. There was a lull during the war, and Mr. Colt decided to take up fruit farming. He came to East Hendred and bought land for the purpose. Mr. Legouix had had experience as a fruit grower in Jersey: he became Mr. Colt’s manager in East Hendred, and Mr. Colt decided to build a house for him near the orchards.

There was at that time no house between A417 and the cottages near the shop. Mr. Colt’s house was the first to be built there. But it was 1918, and building material was almost unobtainable. Mr. Colt decided to use local material. He got his chalkstone from the pit beside the Hollow Way (Ellaway’s Hill) beside Newbury Road. The pit is still there. The chalk surface has become grey and friable; but no doubt chalkstone could still be obtained. Mr. Legouix’s son, Mr. Joe Legouix, tells me that there was no question of paying for chalkstone at that time. One merely went and dug it.

In 1918 there was no timber for floor joists, so the house was built on a concrete raft which had been covered with an inch of tar and the tar coated with breeze. There were huge crates avail-able at the R.A.F. depot at Milton. These were disassembled and the timber used for flooring. It was excellent timber. Chalkstone will not do for the corners of buildings. Mr. Colt looked out for the necessary great baulks and found them in London, where the old Guy's Hospital buildings were being demolished.

Mr. Colt’s original intention was to stucco the house, but a society in Reading which concerned itself with old buildings and building materials actually paid him not to do so. They wished to test the durability of chalkstone.

Altogether the house was a model of ingenuity, and it is not surprising that an experienced woodworker found employment on it. Mr. William Swadling was a sawyer with the Besleys at Cozens Farm, expert in that highly skilled trade of the handsawing of timber trees at the sawpits there. He did much of the work on the house.

The sewage disposal was similar to that of many houses in East Hendred, indeed superior to many at that time; for the night soil was bucketted and dug in in the orchards. Water was provided from the well, the gear of which can still be seen in the garden.

The house is warm and dry. The walls consist of eighteen inches of chalkstone. The fact that they are not cavity walls is no fault for they stand on a thickly tar-covered raft, and chalkstone is a natural insulator. The house is now vacant. It is hoped that it will be soon inhabited again.

The orchards grow on greensand, a narrow belt of which stretches from the White Horse Vale right through the Hendreds and on to Harwell. It is excellent for fruit growing, and both Mr. Colt and his successor, Major Borwick, won prizes for the best apples and pears grown in the country. Major Borwick was joined by Mr. Lammas, who came to stand in relation to Major Borwick much as Mr. Legouix had done with Mr. Colt. It was these men who made fruit growing a paying proposition in East Hendred. Mr. Joe Legouix bought the orchards north of the A 417 from Major Borwick’s widow, and is a highly successful grower. The orchards to the south are now in the hands of Mr. Cottee, whose new house at the junction of A417 and White Road has already been mentioned.

Many of the old cottages in East Hendred were either pulled down or used as the basis of newer, larger houses. There was a real dearth of housing.

The two pairs of council houses immediately south of Mr. Colt’s house were built as agricultural cottages, actually during the second world war; but the main part of the White Road housing estate was built in 1921. The Couling Close estate was started in 1955 and extended round the bend in the road in 1960. This was followed by the provision of the bungalows in White Road opposite Mr. Colt’s house.

Orchard Close enters White Road from the right. Mr. Charles Robey was a farmer who prospered so well as the result of the Crimean War (1854-56) that he decided to build himself a big new house, Orchard House. He lived in considerable style, and the last Mrs. Robey used to be driven out in her carriage by her coachman. After her death, the house passed through many hands, latterly usually those of race horse trainers. When the last of them failed in business, the racing stables were sold separately; but the house and four and a half acres of land were slow to find a buyer. The house had been occupied during the second world war by the R.A.F. and the grounds had become a waste. Finally the agents offered it to Mr. McDonagh who was then building in Oxford. He bought the house and grounds. Since the house had been standing empty for three or four years and no one wished to buy it, he had it pulled down. He obtained permission to erect 25 houses and bungalows and, in order to be near the job, turned one of the of the R.A.F. huts into a temporary home.

Mr. McDonagh’s architect designed the dwellings so that they show a pleasing variety, and he built and sold them. Orchard Close follows roughly the course of the Orchard House drive, and two of the bungalows stand on the site of the house: those occupied by Major Elliott and Mr. Hannam.

Opposite the junction of Orchard Close and White Road three houses were built and occupied in 1968. They are of very modern type with integral garages and no chimneys. The existing high price of land has caused them to be built rather closer together than such houses would otherwise have been built, and the style could be found in almost any good suburban area in the country; but they are sound houses.

The first of the old village property comes hard past these new houses. It consists of a terrace of cottages built about 180 years ago by a Mr. Spindloss who used the downland chalkstone reinforced with brick. They are called Portway Place, not to be confused with the Portway Cottages along the north of the A417, - the old Portway.

He sold them to a Mr. John Denniss, who left them to a John Dennis and so on until they were at last owned by yet another John Denniss whose house and shop were built across the southern end of the row and facing south. They are now the property of Mr. Luke Kimber.

There are lively memories of the last John Denniss. Just south of his shop stood his bakehouse, the chimney of which had on it the date 1878. This date might refer to a repair but is not unlikely to represent the date the bakehouse was built. The Denniss family had been bakers and biscuit makers for many years, Mr. John Denniss was particularly noted for his black sweets. Mrs. Hitchcox, one of his daughters, has given me a lively description of how his ingredients were boiled together and then poured out to cool. The material was handled with gloves while still too hot to touch, and pulled out into lengths which were cut with scissors into individual sweets of the bull’s eye type. I do not remember how many old Hendredians have mentioned those sweets with nostalgic pleasure, and Mr. John Swadling has told me that Mr. Denniss' were "the finest Banbury cakes ever made".

Amongst other activities, Mr. Denniss used to CQok Sunday dinners. Neighbours living in cottages without proper cooking facilities carried the Sunday joint surrounded by potatoes in a baking tin, and when all had been delivered Mr. Denniss shut them out of the bakehouse until the joints were ready. He charged 1½d. for meat and potato and ld. for cakes. Cooked formerly in an oven heated by faggots such a Sunday joint was delicious. Husbands in shirt sleeves, - clean white Sunday shirts, - carried the joints covered with cloths, and would stay to enjoy a chat while the cooking went on. This ritual continued after Mr. Denniss installed one of the very first steam ovens.

Since I wrote the last paragraph, Mrs. Hitchcox has let me see the Indenture by which her great grandfather, John.Denniss (1806-1898) was apprenticed in 1820 to Richard Puzey of Abihgdon “in the Art of a Bread and Biscuit Maker..,.Finding unto the said Apprentice Sufficient Meat Drink and Lodging during the said Term of Seven Years." I have also been shown one of the paper bags in which he sold his goods. On it he claims that the business was founded in 1730. Since the father of the John Denniss apprenticed in 1820 was not a baker, this suggests that a different branch of the family had been baking from the earlier date - this was almost certainly in Cat Street.

My impression is that the last John Denniss was a true representative of this old-established family. They were quietly prosperous as a result of steady application to their business, and they acquired property throughout the village. On land they held across the road, Mrs. Hitchcox and Mrs. Jackson, both of whom are his daughters, now live in comfortable bungalows. The first of these is called Duke’s Orchard: it appears to have been held at one time by a man called Duke. There used to be a barn on this land, and Mr. Ellis Kimber remembers wheat being carried into it from John Denniss's land in White Road, on which council houses now stand.

This may be a useful point at which to mention the way in which a name may recur in East Hendred records. A virgate of land in East Hendred, held in 1274 by Ralph son of Thomas de Hendred by service of a daily Pater Noster for the souls of the Kings of England…was granted in 1400 to John Hychecokkes. After the death of Mr. Dennis, his house and bakehouse were bought by Mr. Miller, who pulled them down, and erected the Portway Stores on the site. These premises, now occupied by Mr. Reynard, form a very efficient self-service shop, with a convenient forecourt; but I have heard regrets expressed by some residents that so modern a structure should have been built in the village; but this does not prevent free use being made of its services.

Immediately past the Portway Stores there is a public right of way leading to Rowstock. The traffic along it was once sufficient to account for the presence of the Plough Inn there; but there is now no lane and, though there is legally a right of way, it is hardly distinguishable past the fruit farm which is now the property of Mr. Cottee, and public house business had been transferred to Orchard Lane. The premises included a bowling alley, and this fact is remembered in the name of the allotments, - Bowling Alley Allotments.

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Home About Museum Museum History Disabled Access Heritage Trust Fire Pump Local History Places to Visit Photo Gallery Audio-Visuals Getting Here Events Diary How You Can Help? Contact Us Links	CHAPTER II WHITE ROAD The village of East Hendred lies just south of the A417 about four miles east of Wantage. When we turn south from the main road, we find ourselves in White Road. It is now tarmacadamed with good surface water drainage and efficient curbs, but the name carries us back to a time, not many decades ago, when the road was indeed white, for it was repaired with chalkstone from the parish pit on the Downs. In heavy rains the white dust would turn to white mud and then to a milky stream flowing down the hill towards the village. Fifty years ago the road lay between grass verges and trees, and with no house beside it. The first improvement was to surface the road with stone, some of it brought by rail from as far away as Doncaster. It was shot into long piles beside the road and broken fine enough to pass through a two inch mesh. When spread, watered, and rolled, this material produced the macadamised surface (not yet tarmac) which revolutionised England's roads. The last of the men who broke stones and mended roads with them was Mr. Roberts, who still lives in Newbury Road. Immediately south of the junction between A417 and White Road, two substantial modern houses were erected in 1968, the first occupied by Mr. Cottee, and the second by Mr. McDonagh. The third house south of the A417 is quite remarkable, and so was the man who had it built. In the decade preceding the first world war there was a vast increase in the playing of golf, and the laying out of golf courses. Mr. Colt was a golf course architect whose first course was at Swinley Forest near Ascot, and Mr. Auguste Legouix was his assistant from the beginning. There was a lull during the war, and Mr. Colt decided to take up fruit farming. He came to East Hendred and bought land for the purpose. Mr. Legouix had had experience as a fruit grower in Jersey: he became Mr. Colt’s manager in East Hendred, and Mr. Colt decided to build a house for him near the orchards. There was at that time no house between A417 and the cottages near the shop. Mr. Colt’s house was the first to be built there. But it was 1918, and building material was almost unobtainable. Mr. Colt decided to use local material. He got his chalkstone from the pit beside the Hollow Way (Ellaway’s Hill) beside Newbury Road. The pit is still there. The chalk surface has become grey and friable; but no doubt chalkstone could still be obtained. Mr. Legouix’s son, Mr. Joe Legouix, tells me that there was no question of paying for chalkstone at that time. One merely went and dug it. In 1918 there was no timber for floor joists, so the house was built on a concrete raft which had been covered with an inch of tar and the tar coated with breeze. There were huge crates avail-able at the R.A.F. depot at Milton. These were disassembled and the timber used for flooring. It was excellent timber. Chalkstone will not do for the corners of buildings. Mr. Colt looked out for the necessary great baulks and found them in London, where the old Guy's Hospital buildings were being demolished. Mr. Colt’s original intention was to stucco the house, but a society in Reading which concerned itself with old buildings and building materials actually paid him not to do so. They wished to test the durability of chalkstone. Altogether the house was a model of ingenuity, and it is not surprising that an experienced woodworker found employment on it. Mr. William Swadling was a sawyer with the Besleys at Cozens Farm, expert in that highly skilled trade of the handsawing of timber trees at the sawpits there. He did much of the work on the house. The sewage disposal was similar to that of many houses in East Hendred, indeed superior to many at that time; for the night soil was bucketted and dug in in the orchards. Water was provided from the well, the gear of which can still be seen in the garden. The house is warm and dry. The walls consist of eighteen inches of chalkstone. The fact that they are not cavity walls is no fault for they stand on a thickly tar-covered raft, and chalkstone is a natural insulator. The house is now vacant. It is hoped that it will be soon inhabited again. The orchards grow on greensand, a narrow belt of which stretches from the White Horse Vale right through the Hendreds and on to Harwell. It is excellent for fruit growing, and both Mr. Colt and his successor, Major Borwick, won prizes for the best apples and pears grown in the country. Major Borwick was joined by Mr. Lammas, who came to stand in relation to Major Borwick much as Mr. Legouix had done with Mr. Colt. It was these men who made fruit growing a paying proposition in East Hendred. Mr. Joe Legouix bought the orchards north of the A 417 from Major Borwick’s widow, and is a highly successful grower. The orchards to the south are now in the hands of Mr. Cottee, whose new house at the junction of A417 and White Road has already been mentioned. Many of the old cottages in East Hendred were either pulled down or used as the basis of newer, larger houses. There was a real dearth of housing. The two pairs of council houses immediately south of Mr. Colt’s house were built as agricultural cottages, actually during the second world war; but the main part of the White Road housing estate was built in 1921. The Couling Close estate was started in 1955 and extended round the bend in the road in 1960. This was followed by the provision of the bungalows in White Road opposite Mr. Colt’s house. Orchard Close enters White Road from the right. Mr. Charles Robey was a farmer who prospered so well as the result of the Crimean War (1854-56) that he decided to build himself a big new house, Orchard House. He lived in considerable style, and the last Mrs. Robey used to be driven out in her carriage by her coachman. After her death, the house passed through many hands, latterly usually those of race horse trainers. When the last of them failed in business, the racing stables were sold separately; but the house and four and a half acres of land were slow to find a buyer. The house had been occupied during the second world war by the R.A.F. and the grounds had become a waste. Finally the agents offered it to Mr. McDonagh who was then building in Oxford. He bought the house and grounds. Since the house had been standing empty for three or four years and no one wished to buy it, he had it pulled down. He obtained permission to erect 25 houses and bungalows and, in order to be near the job, turned one of the of the R.A.F. huts into a temporary home. Mr. McDonagh’s architect designed the dwellings so that they show a pleasing variety, and he built and sold them. Orchard Close follows roughly the course of the Orchard House drive, and two of the bungalows stand on the site of the house: those occupied by Major Elliott and Mr. Hannam. Opposite the junction of Orchard Close and White Road three houses were built and occupied in 1968. They are of very modern type with integral garages and no chimneys. The existing high price of land has caused them to be built rather closer together than such houses would otherwise have been built, and the style could be found in almost any good suburban area in the country; but they are sound houses. The first of the old village property comes hard past these new houses. It consists of a terrace of cottages built about 180 years ago by a Mr. Spindloss who used the downland chalkstone reinforced with brick. They are called Portway Place, not to be confused with the Portway Cottages along the north of the A417, - the old Portway. He sold them to a Mr. John Denniss, who left them to a John Dennis and so on until they were at last owned by yet another John Denniss whose house and shop were built across the southern end of the row and facing south. They are now the property of Mr. Luke Kimber. There are lively memories of the last John Denniss. Just south of his shop stood his bakehouse, the chimney of which had on it the date 1878. This date might refer to a repair but is not unlikely to represent the date the bakehouse was built. The Denniss family had been bakers and biscuit makers for many years, Mr. John Denniss was particularly noted for his black sweets. Mrs. Hitchcox, one of his daughters, has given me a lively description of how his ingredients were boiled together and then poured out to cool. The material was handled with gloves while still too hot to touch, and pulled out into lengths which were cut with scissors into individual sweets of the bull’s eye type. I do not remember how many old Hendredians have mentioned those sweets with nostalgic pleasure, and Mr. John Swadling has told me that Mr. Denniss' were "the finest Banbury cakes ever made". Amongst other activities, Mr. Denniss used to CQok Sunday dinners. Neighbours living in cottages without proper cooking facilities carried the Sunday joint surrounded by potatoes in a baking tin, and when all had been delivered Mr. Denniss shut them out of the bakehouse until the joints were ready. He charged 1½d. for meat and potato and ld. for cakes. Cooked formerly in an oven heated by faggots such a Sunday joint was delicious. Husbands in shirt sleeves, - clean white Sunday shirts, - carried the joints covered with cloths, and would stay to enjoy a chat while the cooking went on. This ritual continued after Mr. Denniss installed one of the very first steam ovens. Since I wrote the last paragraph, Mrs. Hitchcox has let me see the Indenture by which her great grandfather, John.Denniss (1806-1898) was apprenticed in 1820 to Richard Puzey of Abihgdon “in the Art of a Bread and Biscuit Maker..,.Finding unto the said Apprentice Sufficient Meat Drink and Lodging during the said Term of Seven Years." I have also been shown one of the paper bags in which he sold his goods. On it he claims that the business was founded in 1730. Since the father of the John Denniss apprenticed in 1820 was not a baker, this suggests that a different branch of the family had been baking from the earlier date - this was almost certainly in Cat Street. My impression is that the last John Denniss was a true representative of this old-established family. They were quietly prosperous as a result of steady application to their business, and they acquired property throughout the village. On land they held across the road, Mrs. Hitchcox and Mrs. Jackson, both of whom are his daughters, now live in comfortable bungalows. The first of these is called Duke’s Orchard: it appears to have been held at one time by a man called Duke. There used to be a barn on this land, and Mr. Ellis Kimber remembers wheat being carried into it from John Denniss's land in White Road, on which council houses now stand. This may be a useful point at which to mention the way in which a name may recur in East Hendred records. A virgate of land in East Hendred, held in 1274 by Ralph son of Thomas de Hendred by service of a daily Pater Noster for the souls of the Kings of England…was granted in 1400 to John Hychecokkes. After the death of Mr. Dennis, his house and bakehouse were bought by Mr. Miller, who pulled them down, and erected the Portway Stores on the site. These premises, now occupied by Mr. Reynard, form a very efficient self-service shop, with a convenient forecourt; but I have heard regrets expressed by some residents that so modern a structure should have been built in the village; but this does not prevent free use being made of its services. Immediately past the Portway Stores there is a public right of way leading to Rowstock. The traffic along it was once sufficient to account for the presence of the Plough Inn there; but there is now no lane and, though there is legally a right of way, it is hardly distinguishable past the fruit farm which is now the property of Mr. Cottee, and public house business had been transferred to Orchard Lane. The premises included a bowling alley, and this fact is remembered in the name of the allotments, - Bowling Alley Allotments. 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