East Hendred Museum at Champs Chapel, Oxfordshire and Berkshire Heritage

CHAPTER III HIGH STREET

Some twenty yards south of the Portway Stores is a cottage unlike any other in the village. It belongs to the Eyston estate but Mr. Eyston tells me that there is no record of its date of constr-uction. The style, - rounded ends, pointed windows and other indications, - suggest late regency or early Victorian, when there was for a time a fashion for "romantic" and highly fanciful archit-ecture. It was probably built as an estate cottage. It is very pleasant to look at with its thatch and its old world garden. And across the occupation road from it is Park Cottage, built about 1840 as a catholic presbytery after the Catholic Emancipation Act. It is half hidden from the road by trees: a sound house for its period, let to lay tenants since the new presbytery was built beside the new Catholic church in 1865.

At this point the road, which was formerly Pound Lane, becomes known as High Street. It swerves right before straightening out into the main village street, and here we enter another world.

Immediately ahead we see a black and white half-timbered cottage which almost but not quite conceals a fifteenth century chapel, now disused. And just beyond that, stands what was until 1967 a thatched barn with plank walls which has been sensitively reconstructed as a dwelling by Mr. and Mrs. Schlaffenberg. Immediately past it is a building in Tudor type brick and beyond that a gatehouse. If we go a few yards further south we see the eastern gable of the King's Manor.

We have here what was, until recent times, one of the main hubs of the life of East Hendred.

Lands in Hendred were held by the kings of Wessex, later of England. They were taken over by William the Conqueror and transferred to the Norman Count of Evreux, who, in turn, transferred them to the monks of Noyon in Normandy. There was nothing strange at that time in a Norman lord giving English land to a Norman monastery; but national feeling developed over the centuries and, when he was at war with France, Henry V confiscated the property of foreign monasteries. The lands and rights of Noyon were transferred to the Prior of Sheen, to whom Henry V gave (or confirmed) important manorial powers. The Prior had the right to arrest and punish thieves, to set up a pillory and gallows and also a tumbril, - probably not a death-cart but some kind of cuckingstool. He was also granted the right to hold a weekly market and two fairs, one at the feast of St. Augustine and the other at the feast of St. Catherine. The Prior, as lord of the manor, held the usual two courts, - Court Leet for his free tenants and Court Baron for his villeins.

To understand the village it is necessary to use the imagination. Let us turn right past the chapel and go forward till we stand under the wall beside the Methodist Chapel. Then turn round.

Before us is the remains of a broad green, now much cut up by the tarmacked road. Of what we have before us, only the priest's house and the western gable of the chapel remain as they were in the fifteenth century. We must wish away for the moment the house called Little End (a twentieth century building) and see instead the wide wagon entrance into a great yard surrounded by barns and stables. Here was much coming and going of men, cattle and carts throughout the day as the produce from the Prior's own acres and the tithe corn and other dues from his tenants were brought in.

Where now stand Barn End and Lord Penney’s house were farm buildings and cottages where the serfs lived, and the whole area where now Mr. Jevons and Lord Penney maintain neat gardens and lawns was filled with ricks, cow byres, pig styes, stables.

There was an inn too. The Wheatsheaf has been so reconstructed with imitative timbering and fancy ridge tiles of the period of Edward Vll that it is necessary to study the interior to realise that it may date back as far as the sixteenth century, and an inn must have stood there from very early times. Even after the police powers of the lord of the manor had died away, a county magistrate came on horseback to the Wheatsheaf to hold petty sessions. And close to the inn and chapel was the manor pound. It is appropriate that when a fire engine was provided by the overseers in 1831, it should be housed beside the ancient pound.

It may have been well for East Hendred at that time that the lordship should pass from a Norman monastery to one in a neighbouring county. Noyon almost certainly had a house from which their steward administered their rights in Hendred and it may have stood on the site of the present house; but the architecture of what we now call the King's Manor makes it almost certain that it was built for the monks of Sheen, a wealthy house with pride in developing their new manor.

Monks did not undertake parochial duties, -they left them to the parson. But this thronged green with the daily passage of villeins and serfs, and the many occasions throughout the year of fair, feast and court, and the excitement of pillory and perhaps execution required priest and chapel, and Sheen provided both. There a condemned man could be shriven or a casual passer-by use holy water. Within a radius of some fifty yards was concentrated a large part of the life of East Hendred.

The carving on the barge board of the priest’s house is now hardly distinguishable, but it is possible to make out a graceful pattern of quartre foils linked by a scroll, which suggests to me a time when people were less wealthy but less anxious than they are today, and ready to spare time for such delicate touches.

The dissolution of the monasteries by Henry Vlll brought change to this part of the village. The chapel became just any old building to be used for any old purpose, and the priest, of course, no longer lived in the priest's house. The chapel is still referred to as Champ's Chapel, after a family which held it for long enough for their name to stick, who used it as bakehouse, wash-house, pigeon loft, and so on. The chapel had become derelict when it was purchased about 1900 by Mr. George Dunn, whose sister was Mrs. John Eyston. It is now the property of the Eyston family. Mr. Dunn had enough work done on the chapel to preserve it from further decay, and Mr. Tom Eyston is now providing it with a new west door.

Henry Vlll kept the lands and rights of the monks of Sheen as crown property and they so remained until 1823. We can gather some idea of what the position was in 1823 from the notice of sales:

"The King’s Manor of East Hendred, Specifications of a desirable Freehold Estate belonging to His Majesty comprising the Manor of East Hendred situated near Wantage and Abingdon Berks with all Courts Baron, Court Leet, Views of Frankpledge and Fines, Heriots, Rights, Members, and Appur-tenances thereto belonging, together with sundry quit rents amounting to £17• 18• 5½. per annum and extending over that part of East Hendred called Westmanside and which may be estimated at about 2,000 acres including three other Manors intermixed therewith and a freehold cottage."

By 1823, a rent fixed many years before to ensure the freedom of the tenant from personal service on his lord's land had often decreased in money value so much as to be not worth collecting; but it gave the lord some power of recovery over the land in case of non-payment.

During the nineteenth century the house and land were, in practice, simply a farm. From 1823 to 1898 they were the property of the Allins and farmed by tenants, including the Dandridge family who were tenants for many years. When it was bought in 1898 by Mr. Arthur Billyeald the house and buildings were in a bad way. The house had been stuccoed, covering the timber frame, the gate house was in use as a butcher's shop, and the outbuildings were ruinous.

Mr. Billyeald’s arrival was a portent. He was a successful London business man who had made money (he was interested, for example, in the Shot Tower which was pulled down in 1954 to clear the south bank for the Festival of Britain) and was prepared to spend it. He cleared away the derelict barn, terminated the butcher's shop and restored the gateway and gate house, had the stucco removed from the east gable and did much to renovate the house. The ruinous stabling he turned into an art gallery and it is there that the Hendreds Society is, by kind permission of Mr. and Mrs. Jevons, to hold its 1969 exhibition.

Mr. Billyeald lived till 1923 and is well remembered as a vigorous, kindly man with a sense of humour, ready to try his hand at anything, including painting. Mr. Jevons has been given a painting which Mr. Billyeald did of the king’s manor house before he set about restoring it, and Mr. Billyeald’s sepia sketch of the cottages in Cat Street as they were before the building of Southernwood is important to the story of the village. He liked old things, and he was even ready to make new things look old. Mr. Stanley Harrison tells of him bringing pieces of new iron work to the forge in Church Street to be given hammer marks to suggest age, and Mr. Harrison says that Mr. Billyeald was quite ready to have a joke at the expense of any solemn Antiquarian who might be misled. Mr. Billyeald also provided the house with a medieval porch in which he inset carved oak from the parish church.

In 1901 Mr. Billyeald, who was indeed Lord of the Manor, used his powers to call together the manor courts, both Leet and Baron, and the whole procedure was carefully followed. Mr. Sowdon, who had the same robust interest in the past, entered fully into the occasion, and it was a great advantage that Mr. Laurence Besley, then a very old man, had actually been cryer at the last genuine court to be held, forty years before. He could tell them just how the ritual went.

One interesting point is that they did not elect a constable. The Royal Berkshire County Constabulary had been set up under an act of 1842.

Mr. Billyeald was so interested in maintaining the manorial customs that he personally collected the farthing a year due from Featherbed Cottage. Miss Dearlove remembers how he used to call there for it.

Opposite King’s Manor is a group of buildings which puzzled me. Then Mr. A. Castle let me see his deeds. The house in which Mr. Castle lives was owned by a Richard Hitchman who died in 1834 leaving three daughters. He had, however, allowed "William West Tailor" to build a house on his (Hitchman’s) land just north of his own house. One of the deeds clears this matter up. West paid £80 to the daughters. The house William West built was one dwelling, but the Post Office used to be kept in the northern end of it with its own door to the street. Not until the Post Office was moved to its present position was the northern end of William West’s house converted into a separate dwelling. It is not possible to be absolutely sure where the boundaries referred to in the deed did in fact lie, for there were then no map references and one line was "to be drawn from the East part of the said messuage to the post to which the field Gate was fixed"• It was interesting to be sitting in Mr. Castle’s room when I came to the words: "Also the new Chimney and Oven belonging to the said messuage And also the rooms in which the said chimney and oven are placed." There were the chimney and oven right beside me.

From Mr. Castle’s deeds, it is clear that the most northern of these buildings had, in 1854, been recently built by William West Tailor (the house now divided one end and occupied by Mr. Reavey's stable lads and the other by Mr. Sadler) and that the house in which the Post Office is now kept had (also recently) been provided with a chimney and oven. Since a Mr. John Denniss acquired the house in 1852, it is likely that the oven and chimney had something to do with baking bread and biscuits. In 1956 the house was bought by Mr. A. Castle from the widow of the last John Denniss. There had been a shop there for many years.

Since both buildings were then occupied by Dennisses (William and Walter) no objection seems to have been raised when the shop, which had previously been kept in the living room of the house and approached by a path between the houses, was moved and filled the whole gap between the houses. The deeds were careful to preserve the right of way, and when the northern house came into the possession of P.C. Legge and later his widow, the Castles would, on occasion, carry things through the shop for them. The right of way was not abandoned until Mr. Reavey bought the house. It is worth the trouble to stand across the road and work out what seems a somewhat complicated situation by studying the roofs and gables.

Mr. Castle’s house faces south, and the Eyston Arms stands exactly at right angles with it and close up to it. It would be interesting to know how this happened. We first hear of it as the Crown. It was bought by the Eystons about 1840. I do not know whether it was ever associated with King’s Manor: it may have been given the name of The Crown by association of ideas. In 1860-61 Joseph Stibbs rendered various accounts to Mr. J. Jeffreys, Eyston Arms for:

"Myself and man taking out
the Brewing Copper 2. 0.
1¾ Day man fixing kitchen
rainge                                            4/6 - 7. 10½.
5½ days Myself taking down
the old brick wall and Re-
fixing the brewing copper 1. 4. 9.
1 day man fixing beer engine                  3. 6.”

On the death of Mr. Thomas Besley the house ceased to be free and to brew its own beer.

The Vestry often met here. The authority of the manor courts was rapidly lost under the Tudors. In its original aspects it went to magistrates, who were appointed by the Crown; but much local administration passed to church wardens in association with the Overseers of the Parish Poor. Constables were still appointed by manor courts but had to be sworn in by magistrates, who could also give positive directions to overseers. A great deal of initiative was, however, left to the vestry and this little body consisting of rector, churchwardens and overseers often met at the Crown. The vestry, in turn, lost authority to the boards of guardians set up in 1834 and bureaucracy’s chilly fingers began their encroach-ment. The overseers were usually a couple of farmers and, though the relief given was not startlingly generous, yet it had a human touch. They made a normal practice of paying for beer for the funerals of the poor: a grant of 4/- for this purpose meant something at not more than a penny a pint. They even paid for a child’s education. In 1829 we have the statement: "Paid Mr. Whitehorn for Godard’s Girl's schooling 14 weeks at 3d......3/6."

In 1832, at a time of severe unemployment the over overseers organised the emigration of thirteen persons to Canada, including 4 Goldings, 2 Goddards, 2 Norrises, and, one each, Mallard, Castle, Giles and Salisbury. This emigration account is given in full detail in the overseers accounts and is well worth studying: it gives cost of garments, postages, travelling in this country, and also the fares to Canada. Major items were:

Passage from Bristol to Quebec as per bill         £ 80. 8. 0.
Provisions from Bristol to Quebec                          43. 11.3½.
Passage from Quebec to York                               16. 15. 0.
Cash advanced to emigrants                                 25. 10. 0
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                             196. 12. 8½.

One can well imagine how The Crown (not yet Eyston Arms) hummed with activity and how long the meetings were at which all this detailed business was thrashed out.

Just south of the Eyston Arms is what was once a small farmhouse, but like so many such houses is now a private dwelling, though it retained its barn and its granary until the present decade. It is now called Dancing Hill. The open stretch of grassland over which Mr. Castle’s windows have such an excellent view was common grazing land; but, more than that, it was the scene of fairs and revels. In a court roll of the Manor of Arches held in 1673 Dansin-hill is referred to, and in a roll of 1694 there is recorded an enquiry into the cutting down of a tree, - Arbor que crecebat ad pedem Collis vocat lo dancing Hill (a tree which used to grow at the foot of the hill called Dancing Hill). The oldest men of the manor were called on to give evidence of something which had happened in their youth. When men first danced on Dancing Hill is anybody's guess, but it sounds a pretty old institution to me.

Immediately south of Dancing Hill (the house) stands a cottage which was quite recently covered with rotting thatch and becoming derelict. So six years ago it was taken down and completely rebuilt as a timber-framed cottage infilled with brick: it is an example of the care with which Mr. Eyston approaches such work and of the skill of Mr. Albert Prater, who carried it out. The neighbouring cottage had been similarly recon-structed some years earlier.

Then comes a really beautiful example of early Tudor domestic architecture, now the house of Mr. Wickens and partly occupied by his shop.

We have no evidence of who built this shop or for what purpose. It may have been connected with Abbey Manor across the road; but Dr. Fletcher, who knows the village well and is a recognised authority in such matters, guesses that it was the home of one of the wealthy wool merchants who organised the wool industry for which East Hendred was then famous. The barge boards of the gables are decorated with delicate quatre foil and the timber frame is elegantly harmonious. It stands as it did from the first except for a small addition made to extend the shop at the south end.

When we first have definite information about the house it was already a shop, but, much more than that, it was a hub of local prosperity. A road wagon loaded up every Sunday evening to make the trip to London carrying sides of bacon, lard, and other country produce, and bringing back such luxuries as tea, oranges and sugar. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the shop was kept by Mr. Laurence Besley who served the community in many capacities, including bellringer and constable. He was also a noted gardener and the garden behind the shop reminds us of this.

At right angles to the rear of the house was a range of buildings destroyed by fire early in the morning of 14th June this year. It included a bakehouse, slaughterhouse, a bacon-curing house, stables, and barn. Mr. Wickens showed me over these buildings the day before they were destroyed and I was intending to come back and study them more carefully. Mr. Wickens was told by an architect that they dated from the reign of Queen Anne. The flames which destroyed the buildings were within minutes of destroying the house as well: the timbers of the eastern gable were already smouldering when the brigade arrived.

Then comes Hendred House and its range of barns, stables and other outbuildings, and its fine walled garden which were fortunately un-affected by the fire that raged so close to them.

Hendred House is the headquarters of yet another manor. Godric, Edward the Confessor's sheriff, held land in Hendred before the Conquest. They passed to the family of Turberville, and it was they who obtained papal permission to erect a chapel at the house because of the difficulty of reaching the parish church for mass. This chapel, dedicated to St. Amand, can still be seen incorporated into the south front of the house.

The manor passed into the hands of a family called de Arcibus, - of the Arches, - which was concerned with the wool industry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Though the manor passed by marriage to the Eystons in the middle of the fifteenth century, it is still called the Manor of Arches. In 1453, at the first court to be held in the name of John Eyston and his wife Isabella nineteen manorial tenants came and "recognised" their holdings and the dues that they owed for them. Some of their names are still with us: Martin, Cokkes, Yong, Wise, Roys, etc.

Hendred House has undergone much change. The first part to be built was the great hall, until the nineteenth century still unceiled and open to the rafters which still bear the mark of smoke from the open fire. The first development was the construction of rooms private to the family at the southern end of the hall, followed by kitchen quarters at the north end. A picture of the house done in 1700 shows the date 1661 on the southern most of these gables, but refers most probably to some renovation. The same picture shows that by that time two further narrow and not very symmetrical gables had been added, one at either end. They have both been removed.

Extensive additional building was done in 1813 when the northern gable was pulled down and a much larger, taller wing was added quite disproportionate with the rest of the west front. At the same time a new extension was made on the east on the site of older building, which completed a quadrangle. The rooms it contains are large and lofty, conceived in the Georgian palladian style; later still, the house was provided with dominating, imitation Tudor chimneys.

At the Reformation, St. Amand's chapel lost its endowments and fell into disuse. When the Catholic King James 11 came to power it was restored and re-dedicated, in 1687 though it suffered superficial damage by a party of soldiers in the army of William of Orange, it has been in constant use ever since. There had, of course, been much maintenance work; for example, in 1852, Joseph Stibbs submitted an account to C. Eyston Esq, for work done at the House including repairing "the Cornice and mouldings of the chapel and repairing and fixing stone work of Piscina."

Minor changes have constantly been made. In Victorian times taste in architecture was sometimes unfortunate: for example, the great fireplace in the hall was removed to the shop where it probably lay in an outhouse till it was returned to its position in recent years. The severely classical doorway was also done away with, probably about 1860, and the present imitation of a medieval porch, much like the one Mr. Billyeald gave to King’s Manor, put in its place.

Though it is possible to be critical of some aspects of the building on technical architectural grounds, it is nevertheless, in its setting at the upper end of its open drive way, a gracious house and a charming central focus of the village as a community. One of the most charming minor features is the entrance to the kitchen garden with its gate, which was made at the Besleys’ forge in Church Street.

Facing Hendred House and its gardens stands Abbey Manor. This house and its buildings formed the administrative centre from which the Abbots of Reading looked after their rights in East Hendred. The Empress Maud, daughter of King Henry I, made over her possessions in Hendred to Reading Abbey, which held them until the dissolution of the monasteries. The land was mainly sheep run, away to the east towards Harwell, but there was a large home paddock, now known as Snells after a man who farmed it for a time. It may well be that the Abbot's sheep were the basis of the wool industry.

The present house, which was known until recently by the name of the farmer who occupied it as Broad’s Farm, has not had the care given it that Mr. Billyeald bestowed on King’s Manor. Its timbers are concealed by stucco, and the most notable feature of it is the chimney stack of the north gable. It is Tudor in appearance and may be so in fact. One of the gables on the west front bears the date 1874, and an amusing foible is the spelling out of the date 1808 on the east slope of the main roof: it is surprising how many people have not noticed it. One gathers the impression that such changes and additions as have been made lack a care for historical feelings.

Below Abbey Manor, and divided from it by Snells, stands Spark’s Farm, one of the most interesting houses in the village. It consists of bays under one long thatched roof. It could well date back to the fourteenth century. The interior of such a house was one great open area, housing not only the family but its animals and acting as a barn for its produce, with an open fire placed centrally and the smoke rising to the roof. Then lofts were constructed and, over the centuries, closed off to form upper rooms. The big change came when the chimney was installed. This was like a small room with seats beside the fire immune from the draughts which were inescapable before the use of window glass. Then came the question of access to the upper rooms. This had been by ladder; now stairs were crowded into the space at one end of the chimney, and spiralled so as to fit in.

A further bay was enclosed by a wall of brick. I was wondering when this could have been done. Then Mr. Eyston lent me a volume of the accounts of William Harris, and I found that in 1770 he supplied two quantities of brick for "Mr. Sparcks," one of 1900 at a cost of 18/- and another of 1400 for 15/-. There is no other part of Spark’s Farm where such a quantity of bricks was used, so I believe I am justified in assuming that they are there in that wall. Two bays are still open to the roof one of which contains the remains of stalls for horses or cattle. In the other the loft is still unenclosed.

Another feature of the house which I find most pleasing is that the original line of the eaves has been maintained. In most older houses, the line of the eaves has been interrupted by "eyebrowing" to permit of increasing the size of windows, or dormer windows have been inserted. The panels between the timbers of the frame were originally wattle and daub but these have been removed and their place taken by brick infilling. The work was done by Mr. Joe Prater. The timber frame has, of course, been retained.

Changes have continued to be made in the interior. Our ancestors were not as tall as we are, and the low rooms which suited them do not suit us. To gain height, the ceiling of upper rooms has been raised into the roof and the floor of the downstairs rooms lowered, so that it is necessary to step down as one enters. This process of raising ceilings and lowering floors can been seen in many old houses in the village.

Altogether, Spark’s Farm is a gem of rural domestic architecture, and its growth a fascinating study involving much reasoned guess work. It is not always that a reasoned guess can be supported by evidence as mine was about the wall in Spark’s Farm.

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