East Hendred Museum at Champs Chapel, Oxfordshire and Berkshire Heritage

CHAPTER VI CHURCH STREET

From Newbury Road we turn left into Church Street, and immediately on our left is the Old Rectory, (now Church Place). The house we see is late Georgian, but there has been a house on this site for many centuries.

When holdings of lands were scattered in the open fields and when the rights to collect tithes was divided up between monasteries, parsons and lay landowners in a very confused way, it was the practice from time to time to make detailed surveys to establish just what the lands and rights of particular owners might be.

Such a survey (a terrier) was made in 1634 and is now in the Bodleian Library. When opened out it extends for several feet and is very clumsy to transcribe. It begins as follows:

A Terrier taken the xviiith daye of September in the yeare of our lord god 1634 by the honest inhabitants of East Hendred in the county of Berks, whose names are hereunder written. Of all the houses gleabe lands and tithes belonging to the Psonage of the said East Hendred so far forth as wee cane come to knowledg thereof.

Imprimis the dwelling house contayning nyne space and a halfe, one leneto devided into foure litle roomes, one malthouse contayininge seaven space.
One greate new barne contayning five bayes and a porche.
One Stable contayning three bayes and a halfe.
One Pidgeon house being one baye.
One garden and Orchard and backside contayning by estimation one acre or there about.
One new barne in a close called west-courte close contayning iiij bayes, and the close contayning one acre and a halfe.

All which said hosuing belonging to the said Parsonage amounteth to xxxij bayes and a halfe, whereof the nowe incumbent built xvj bayes and a halfe of them, now from the ground, and repared all the rest sufficiently.

This description helps us to understand the principle on which buildings were constructed. The unit is the bay, - the space between pairs of crucks or between the frame work of beams which succeeded them. A bay was often 16½ ft. in length but varied according to the length of timber available: it might be as little as 11 ft. Whether a bay was developed into housing for human beings was incid-ental, and structures were extended by increasing the number of bays. Though a lean-to might be added, it was not part of the basic structure. Another look at Spark’s Farm will make this clear.

The position arising from the commutation of tithes from actual produce to a money payment is indicated from the following letter.

Dear Sir,

East Hendred Rectory.

In consequence of his health Mr. Wapshare finds himself incapable of making such a Terrier as the Bishop of Oxford requires and he has requested my assistance. I therefore beg to inform you that the Tithes of East Hendred have been commuted for a Rent Charge.

That to the Commissioners Award is annexed a Map in which the whole Parish is accurately described and that the Map and Award taken together form a complete Terrier (except as to Buildings) more to be depended on than could be obtained by any other means.

In the yard adjoining the Dwelling House were large Farm Buildings necessary if the Tithes were to be taken in kind but by the Commutation they become not merely useless but an incumbrance. All of them have been destroyed by Fire (except a Stable which still remains) and in lieu of them the other Buildings adapted to the requirements of persons living in the Rectory have been erected.

The present Buildings are

A Dwelling house with range of              ) Old
offices attached.                                     ) or
The Stable before mentioned                 ) Original
A range of buildings consisting               )
of a Coach House and Straw house     ) New
A Wood house and Ash house               ) New
A Barn erected on the arable Glebe       ) New

I am,

Dear Sir,

Yours faithfully,

Wm. Ormond

Wantage 13 Feby 1855

The tithe map is in the Bodleian, as is also the letter. The destruction of the medley of barns must have changed the face of this part of the village. Under the enclosure awards the glebe land, instead of being dispersed, was concentrated so as to make it convenient to build a barn to serve it, and this barn called Parson’s Barn stands just south of Skeats Bush.

The word parson is the English form of the Latin word persona. The parson was the person of the village; a principal landowner and employer, and the collection of tithes in kind meant that he had to keep an eye on farming operations. The size of the Rectory and the extent of its grounds, which were later developed as lawns and gardens and included a bowling green, indicated the standing of the parson. The agricultural depression which set in in the 1880’s and continued with the exception of the first world war years right down to 1939, caused the parson’s income and its purchasing power to fall sharply.

In 1947 the Old Rectory was sold to Mr. Beary, but the church commissioners retained the bowling green and the ground around as a site for the new rectory. The scheme was abandoned when Mr. Colt left St. Amands to the church: the bowling green was sold to Mr. Ashthorpe who built a bungalow on it. The approach to the bungalow is in Horn Lane and bears the name Bowling Over. There had been a bowling club. Mr. Baden Stone has a photograph of it. It includes the Rev. C.W. Fisher, Mr. Colt himself, Baden Stone’s father and brother, Mr. Herbert Chasney, and bearers of such Hendred names as Stoter, Prater and Jeffreys. The loss to the village was serious.

St. Amands, in turn, proved unacceptable as a modern rectory, and a new rectory was built on part of its grounds. It was occupied by the Rev. F.G. Addenbrooke in 1963. The St. Amands grounds extended to Ford Lane. Mr. Colt had developed that area with choice trees. It was bought by Mr. Kent who built his house there.

Just past the Old Rectory (Church Place) is a lane linking Church Street with Horn Lane. Half way up, there is a terrace of cottages built by William Harris in 1870 as his plaque on its north face reminds us. At the Church Street end of the lane is a range of older property which used to be occupied by the Woodleys, blacksmiths, whose forge is still there. These are timber-framed buildings. The lower cottage, now occupied by Mrs. Dean, has just been very pleasantly restored by Mr. Eyston’s team under Mr. Albert Prater. Though the thatch has had to be sacrificed, the tiling has been very skilfully carried out. Old but sound tiles have been so blended that anyone seeing the cottage for the first time would never think they had been so recently hung there.

On the right (north) of Church Street stands a range of cottages of which the most interesting is Wythe Cottage. It is an excellent example of how the ‘open plan’ of such a structure was gradually transformed. The rafters still bear the smoke stain of many years. It is clear that a loft was early inserted but not at first enclosed, for the smoke blackening of the rafters gradually lessens as the rising smoke was diverted by the open loft. Then came the great chimney with its ingle nooks and the stairway crowded into the space beside it.

Such a substantially built cottage, dating from the second half of the fifteenth century, was probably built for someone in the wool industry as is indicated by a small stone artefact found by Mr. England in his garden such as experts think, was used for crushing dyes. This and two other cottages between it and the church are close beside the stream, the water from which may have been used for washing cloth, about which there is a strong tradition that it was dried on the terraces still to be traced on Snells. Mr. and Mrs. England came to live at Wythe Cottage when it was in a lamentable condition, and have made an outstanding success of adapting it to the needs of modern living with a minimum loss of its mediaeval character.

Past Wythe Cottage is a building still open to thatch until the mid-nineteenth century. In 1711, the Rev. Michael Geddes, Rector of the parish, provided a school in it for poor children which remained in use until 1859. When a new school was then provided, this building was bought by Mr. Joseph Besley and turned into a cottage. It is now used as a hardware shop and the bedrooms provide a stockroom for it.

We have heard that Mr. Isaac Besley may have already bought the two cottages now occupied by Mr. England (Wythe Cottage) and Mr. E. Harrison. Just past the shop is the entrance to the works which I think it was Isaac Besley who established or extended. I have examined the premises and believe the stone footings of the buildings are not older than early nineteenth century. The brickwork of the free standing forge strikes me as being of the same period and the timbers are not ancient.

This was the climax of coach-building, coming with the vast improvement of our roads by the macadam road surfacing and just before the railways. By a sort of family understanding, the woodwork of wheels, wagon beds, or of coaches was done at Cozens Farm, and the Iron work; including the tyres of wheels, at Church Street. The great circular stone, something like a vast mill wheel, on which the tyring of wheels was performed is still there with its central hollow to fit the hubs. So is the furnace for heating the tyres before they were shrunk on to the wheel with copious applications of cold water. It was an exciting moment when the assembled wheel with its hub, spokes and felloes was encircled with the red hot tyre. The slightest miscalculation could reduce the wheel to ashes or so compress the wheel as to ruin it.

That forge is an exciting place for it contains a wealth of horse shoes of all kinds and of tools made by the smiths themselves on the spot. The lower part of the main shop has an upper storey where the painting was done and where brushes have been cleaned off against the wooden wall. The windows also are interesting; for, according to normal practice, they were brought from houses the Besleys repaired and one of them is a pattern of coloured glass.

The Harrisons did much iron work for Mr. Billyeald. From somewhere or other the Besleys had brought home little panes of bottle glass and used them in the forge windows. They made Mr. Billyeald’s mouth water. He bought them and used them again in King’s Manor.

Arthur Harrison came as a boy from near Mortimer to join his uncle Joseph. When he grew up he married a Miss Smith, a teacher then lodging at Downside, and Joseph built him Rose Cottage between the church and Spark’s Farm. Arthur Harrison, as he prospered, wanted more garden ground and moved to the house now occupied by Mrs. Dean, where his children were born.

Facing down Church Street is the Church of England school which was built in 1859 and opened in January 1860 with one master, two pupil teachers and one hundred pupils. The initiative was taken by the Rector: in 1864, the annual cost of the school was £123. 10. 0. including salaries and of this the Rector contributed £68. 6. 0. By Dec. 1871 the new infants school and the master’s house were in occupation, and the buildings were complete as they now stand. The cost of the house and infants school combined was £609. 18. 2. of which the Rector gave £166. 3. 2. and £206. 11. 3. came from government grant. The school was closed in 1967, when the new school in Ford Lane was opened. The future of the school buildings is now in doubt: negotiations are proceeding for its possible adaptation as a village community centre.

The road here turns sharp left. On the left used to stand Little Mulfords, called after the Mulfords who used to farm there. It was destroyed by fire, and at the south end of the old farmyard is a new semi-bungalow occupied by Mrs. Allen.

On the right is St. Amands, the house currently occupied by the Rt. Hon Roy Jenkins. It is so called because it was the probable site of the house where the priests serving the chapel at Hendred House used to live. Though the chapel survived the reign of Henry V111, its endowments in land and tithes were confiscated and, early in the eighteenth century came into the possession of the Yorke family, who built the present house in 1712. It is interesting to compare the east front of St. Amands with any other house in the village. It depends for its effect on exact proportions: it has no other decoration. It is in sharp contrast with the west front of Mr. Wickens’ shop, the south front of Downside, or with Little End.

An interesting point about the Yorkes, I find that in 1602 a "John Helder alias Yorke" appears as a customary tenant of the Manor of Arches. In the course of a few years the "John Helder alias" is omitted and Yorke is left. Was this a Yorkshire wool man coming south to share in our woollen industry? It was normal for a man to be called by the name of his place of origin.

When Mr. Colt came to East Hendred, he bought St. Amands and made it the headquarters of his firm of architects of which he was the only active partner. His drawing offices were on the top floor and here his designs for golf courses were converted into plans. Mrs. Jackson (nee Denniss and now living at Wyatts in Orchard Lane) was employed in this drawing office as a girl for about ten years, with one of Mr. F.A. Smith’s daughters as a colleague. Mr. Colt planned courses in many countries including U.S.A. and Mr. Baden Stone worked for him throughout this island, while his brother worked for him in Europe.

Mr. Colt provided employment and of an attractive kind, he fully supported village life and rounded off his services to the village by leaving St. Amands for a rectory. He is buried in the new cemetery. He was truly inventive and ready to follow up ideas. When Mr. Colbeck, the race horse trainer talked to him about the lack of suitable transport for his horses, Mr. Colt took up the suggestions, and the Legouix worked on it at the fruit farm. Mr. A. Legouix took out patents including one for a ramp controller and these have now passed to the Lambourne Transport Services.

As we pass St. Amands we have before us, where the road turns sharp right, the house now called The Old Cottage. It consists of a fifteenth century farm and a cottage, which have now been formed into one dwelling. The wall opposite makes it difficult to appreciate the beauty of that elevation. Its own garden wall is the best surviving example in the village of a cob wall roofed with timber frame and thatched. The barn behind the house remains.

Then, on the right, is the new rectory, well designed in the modern idiom with an interior layout much more suited to present-day requirements. Beyond it is The Croft. I had been informed that this had formerly been a public house known in the village as The Rag and Louse because its customers were largely gypsies and other itinerants. I was then told that it was built in the early nineteenth century. The building, such as it was, was bought by Mr. Warner West not long before his death in 1910, for he intended to retire there. He raised the ridge and built a new roof sloping at an angle that allows it to cover the added accomodation: I examined the rafters of the old roof still in position below those of the new. I see nothing to suggest that The Croft is itself earlier than the nineteenth century. It has, however, thatched and timbered barns which could be considerably older, so there may have been an older building (perhaps the inn) on the site of the present house.

The name of Warner West keeps turning up in connection with different houses and areas of the village. He may have been the son of the William West Tailor mentioned in the deed of 1834 quoted on p. 22 as having built the house north of the present post office. Warner West married a Harris: he became the licensee of the Wheatsheaf, where his children were borne. He was energetic and shrewd, and built up enough capital to take up the tenancy of Broad’s Farm (Abbey Manor). He acquired a good deal of property in the village including Hickman’s Cottages and sundry fields and orchards; for example, he planted the orchard in which stands Mrs. Stone’s Cedar Bungalow in Cat Street. (Mrs. Powell-Wiffen, Warner West’s grand-daughter, has lent me the notice of sale issued by the auctioneers in 1915 when Mrs. Warner West disposed of the property. Mrs. Powell-Wiffen was herself borne at The Croft.

Warner West was a real countryman: the extension he made to The Croft included a dairy. His grand-daughter tells me that he said, "he couldn't retire without a cow”.

After the Croft, Orchard Corner. The front of the house appears to be late Georgian or early Victorian; but the half-timbered work at the rear is earlier and seems contemporary with the thatched barns.

Immediately at the junction with Ford Lane is a house of which some windows have been blocked up. The window tax was introduced in an effort to beat the smugglers by finding money to make up for the reduction in import duties on tea, etc. It was trebled by Pitt in 1797 as a war measure. The early eighteenth century (Queen Anne) saw the growing use of bricks coloured by the mode of firing to produce a softish blue. These were used with normal bricks in a variety of courses to produce quite subtle patterns which the passer-by does not stop to analyse. This blue should not be confused with the mere garish dyed blue machine-made brick which make too many Edwardian chapels unsightly.

These and other indications suggest early eighteenth century for this house. Other houses of the same period will be noticed in Cat Street and Orchard Lane. Attached to this house is a curious building originally one room, and said to have been used as a school (there were several such schools in the village at one time). It has now been adapted as a very pleasant bungalow called Orchard End.

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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 VI CHURCH STREET From Newbury Road we turn left into Church Street, and immediately on our left is the Old Rectory, (now Church Place). The house we see is late Georgian, but there has been a house on this site for many centuries. When holdings of lands were scattered in the open fields and when the rights to collect tithes was divided up between monasteries, parsons and lay landowners in a very confused way, it was the practice from time to time to make detailed surveys to establish just what the lands and rights of particular owners might be. Such a survey (a terrier) was made in 1634 and is now in the Bodleian Library. When opened out it extends for several feet and is very clumsy to transcribe. It begins as follows: A Terrier taken the xviiith daye of September in the yeare of our lord god 1634 by the honest inhabitants of East Hendred in the county of Berks, whose names are hereunder written. Of all the houses gleabe lands and tithes belonging to the Psonage of the said East Hendred so far forth as wee cane come to knowledg thereof. Imprimis the dwelling house contayning nyne space and a halfe, one leneto devided into foure litle roomes, one malthouse contayininge seaven space. One greate new barne contayning five bayes and a porche. One Stable contayning three bayes and a halfe. One Pidgeon house being one baye. One garden and Orchard and backside contayning by estimation one acre or there about. One new barne in a close called west-courte close contayning iiij bayes, and the close contayning one acre and a halfe. All which said hosuing belonging to the said Parsonage amounteth to xxxij bayes and a halfe, whereof the nowe incumbent built xvj bayes and a halfe of them, now from the ground, and repared all the rest sufficiently. This description helps us to understand the principle on which buildings were constructed. The unit is the bay, - the space between pairs of crucks or between the frame work of beams which succeeded them. A bay was often 16½ ft. in length but varied according to the length of timber available: it might be as little as 11 ft. Whether a bay was developed into housing for human beings was incid-ental, and structures were extended by increasing the number of bays. Though a lean-to might be added, it was not part of the basic structure. Another look at Spark’s Farm will make this clear. The position arising from the commutation of tithes from actual produce to a money payment is indicated from the following letter. Dear Sir, East Hendred Rectory. In consequence of his health Mr. Wapshare finds himself incapable of making such a Terrier as the Bishop of Oxford requires and he has requested my assistance. I therefore beg to inform you that the Tithes of East Hendred have been commuted for a Rent Charge. That to the Commissioners Award is annexed a Map in which the whole Parish is accurately described and that the Map and Award taken together form a complete Terrier (except as to Buildings) more to be depended on than could be obtained by any other means. In the yard adjoining the Dwelling House were large Farm Buildings necessary if the Tithes were to be taken in kind but by the Commutation they become not merely useless but an incumbrance. All of them have been destroyed by Fire (except a Stable which still remains) and in lieu of them the other Buildings adapted to the requirements of persons living in the Rectory have been erected. The present Buildings are A Dwelling house with range of ) Old offices attached. ) or The Stable before mentioned ) Original A range of buildings consisting ) of a Coach House and Straw house ) New A Wood house and Ash house ) New A Barn erected on the arable Glebe ) New I am, Dear Sir, Yours faithfully, Wm. Ormond Wantage 13 Feby 1855 The tithe map is in the Bodleian, as is also the letter. The destruction of the medley of barns must have changed the face of this part of the village. Under the enclosure awards the glebe land, instead of being dispersed, was concentrated so as to make it convenient to build a barn to serve it, and this barn called Parson’s Barn stands just south of Skeats Bush. The word parson is the English form of the Latin word persona. The parson was the person of the village; a principal landowner and employer, and the collection of tithes in kind meant that he had to keep an eye on farming operations. The size of the Rectory and the extent of its grounds, which were later developed as lawns and gardens and included a bowling green, indicated the standing of the parson. The agricultural depression which set in in the 1880’s and continued with the exception of the first world war years right down to 1939, caused the parson’s income and its purchasing power to fall sharply. In 1947 the Old Rectory was sold to Mr. Beary, but the church commissioners retained the bowling green and the ground around as a site for the new rectory. The scheme was abandoned when Mr. Colt left St. Amands to the church: the bowling green was sold to Mr. Ashthorpe who built a bungalow on it. The approach to the bungalow is in Horn Lane and bears the name Bowling Over. There had been a bowling club. Mr. Baden Stone has a photograph of it. It includes the Rev. C.W. Fisher, Mr. Colt himself, Baden Stone’s father and brother, Mr. Herbert Chasney, and bearers of such Hendred names as Stoter, Prater and Jeffreys. The loss to the village was serious. St. Amands, in turn, proved unacceptable as a modern rectory, and a new rectory was built on part of its grounds. It was occupied by the Rev. F.G. Addenbrooke in 1963. The St. Amands grounds extended to Ford Lane. Mr. Colt had developed that area with choice trees. It was bought by Mr. Kent who built his house there. Just past the Old Rectory (Church Place) is a lane linking Church Street with Horn Lane. Half way up, there is a terrace of cottages built by William Harris in 1870 as his plaque on its north face reminds us. At the Church Street end of the lane is a range of older property which used to be occupied by the Woodleys, blacksmiths, whose forge is still there. These are timber-framed buildings. The lower cottage, now occupied by Mrs. Dean, has just been very pleasantly restored by Mr. Eyston’s team under Mr. Albert Prater. Though the thatch has had to be sacrificed, the tiling has been very skilfully carried out. Old but sound tiles have been so blended that anyone seeing the cottage for the first time would never think they had been so recently hung there. On the right (north) of Church Street stands a range of cottages of which the most interesting is Wythe Cottage. It is an excellent example of how the ‘open plan’ of such a structure was gradually transformed. The rafters still bear the smoke stain of many years. It is clear that a loft was early inserted but not at first enclosed, for the smoke blackening of the rafters gradually lessens as the rising smoke was diverted by the open loft. Then came the great chimney with its ingle nooks and the stairway crowded into the space beside it. Such a substantially built cottage, dating from the second half of the fifteenth century, was probably built for someone in the wool industry as is indicated by a small stone artefact found by Mr. England in his garden such as experts think, was used for crushing dyes. This and two other cottages between it and the church are close beside the stream, the water from which may have been used for washing cloth, about which there is a strong tradition that it was dried on the terraces still to be traced on Snells. Mr. and Mrs. England came to live at Wythe Cottage when it was in a lamentable condition, and have made an outstanding success of adapting it to the needs of modern living with a minimum loss of its mediaeval character. Past Wythe Cottage is a building still open to thatch until the mid-nineteenth century. In 1711, the Rev. Michael Geddes, Rector of the parish, provided a school in it for poor children which remained in use until 1859. When a new school was then provided, this building was bought by Mr. Joseph Besley and turned into a cottage. It is now used as a hardware shop and the bedrooms provide a stockroom for it. We have heard that Mr. Isaac Besley may have already bought the two cottages now occupied by Mr. England (Wythe Cottage) and Mr. E. Harrison. Just past the shop is the entrance to the works which I think it was Isaac Besley who established or extended. I have examined the premises and believe the stone footings of the buildings are not older than early nineteenth century. The brickwork of the free standing forge strikes me as being of the same period and the timbers are not ancient. This was the climax of coach-building, coming with the vast improvement of our roads by the macadam road surfacing and just before the railways. By a sort of family understanding, the woodwork of wheels, wagon beds, or of coaches was done at Cozens Farm, and the Iron work; including the tyres of wheels, at Church Street. The great circular stone, something like a vast mill wheel, on which the tyring of wheels was performed is still there with its central hollow to fit the hubs. So is the furnace for heating the tyres before they were shrunk on to the wheel with copious applications of cold water. It was an exciting moment when the assembled wheel with its hub, spokes and felloes was encircled with the red hot tyre. The slightest miscalculation could reduce the wheel to ashes or so compress the wheel as to ruin it. That forge is an exciting place for it contains a wealth of horse shoes of all kinds and of tools made by the smiths themselves on the spot. The lower part of the main shop has an upper storey where the painting was done and where brushes have been cleaned off against the wooden wall. The windows also are interesting; for, according to normal practice, they were brought from houses the Besleys repaired and one of them is a pattern of coloured glass. The Harrisons did much iron work for Mr. Billyeald. From somewhere or other the Besleys had brought home little panes of bottle glass and used them in the forge windows. They made Mr. Billyeald’s mouth water. He bought them and used them again in King’s Manor. Arthur Harrison came as a boy from near Mortimer to join his uncle Joseph. When he grew up he married a Miss Smith, a teacher then lodging at Downside, and Joseph built him Rose Cottage between the church and Spark’s Farm. Arthur Harrison, as he prospered, wanted more garden ground and moved to the house now occupied by Mrs. Dean, where his children were born. Facing down Church Street is the Church of England school which was built in 1859 and opened in January 1860 with one master, two pupil teachers and one hundred pupils. The initiative was taken by the Rector: in 1864, the annual cost of the school was £123. 10. 0. including salaries and of this the Rector contributed £68. 6. 0. By Dec. 1871 the new infants school and the master’s house were in occupation, and the buildings were complete as they now stand. The cost of the house and infants school combined was £609. 18. 2. of which the Rector gave £166. 3. 2. and £206. 11. 3. came from government grant. The school was closed in 1967, when the new school in Ford Lane was opened. The future of the school buildings is now in doubt: negotiations are proceeding for its possible adaptation as a village community centre. The road here turns sharp left. On the left used to stand Little Mulfords, called after the Mulfords who used to farm there. It was destroyed by fire, and at the south end of the old farmyard is a new semi-bungalow occupied by Mrs. Allen. On the right is St. Amands, the house currently occupied by the Rt. Hon Roy Jenkins. It is so called because it was the probable site of the house where the priests serving the chapel at Hendred House used to live. Though the chapel survived the reign of Henry V111, its endowments in land and tithes were confiscated and, early in the eighteenth century came into the possession of the Yorke family, who built the present house in 1712. It is interesting to compare the east front of St. Amands with any other house in the village. It depends for its effect on exact proportions: it has no other decoration. It is in sharp contrast with the west front of Mr. Wickens’ shop, the south front of Downside, or with Little End. An interesting point about the Yorkes, I find that in 1602 a "John Helder alias Yorke" appears as a customary tenant of the Manor of Arches. In the course of a few years the "John Helder alias" is omitted and Yorke is left. Was this a Yorkshire wool man coming south to share in our woollen industry? It was normal for a man to be called by the name of his place of origin. When Mr. Colt came to East Hendred, he bought St. Amands and made it the headquarters of his firm of architects of which he was the only active partner. His drawing offices were on the top floor and here his designs for golf courses were converted into plans. Mrs. Jackson (nee Denniss and now living at Wyatts in Orchard Lane) was employed in this drawing office as a girl for about ten years, with one of Mr. F.A. Smith’s daughters as a colleague. Mr. Colt planned courses in many countries including U.S.A. and Mr. Baden Stone worked for him throughout this island, while his brother worked for him in Europe. Mr. Colt provided employment and of an attractive kind, he fully supported village life and rounded off his services to the village by leaving St. Amands for a rectory. He is buried in the new cemetery. He was truly inventive and ready to follow up ideas. When Mr. Colbeck, the race horse trainer talked to him about the lack of suitable transport for his horses, Mr. Colt took up the suggestions, and the Legouix worked on it at the fruit farm. Mr. A. Legouix took out patents including one for a ramp controller and these have now passed to the Lambourne Transport Services. As we pass St. Amands we have before us, where the road turns sharp right, the house now called The Old Cottage. It consists of a fifteenth century farm and a cottage, which have now been formed into one dwelling. The wall opposite makes it difficult to appreciate the beauty of that elevation. Its own garden wall is the best surviving example in the village of a cob wall roofed with timber frame and thatched. The barn behind the house remains. Then, on the right, is the new rectory, well designed in the modern idiom with an interior layout much more suited to present-day requirements. Beyond it is The Croft. I had been informed that this had formerly been a public house known in the village as The Rag and Louse because its customers were largely gypsies and other itinerants. I was then told that it was built in the early nineteenth century. The building, such as it was, was bought by Mr. Warner West not long before his death in 1910, for he intended to retire there. He raised the ridge and built a new roof sloping at an angle that allows it to cover the added accomodation: I examined the rafters of the old roof still in position below those of the new. I see nothing to suggest that The Croft is itself earlier than the nineteenth century. It has, however, thatched and timbered barns which could be considerably older, so there may have been an older building (perhaps the inn) on the site of the present house. The name of Warner West keeps turning up in connection with different houses and areas of the village. He may have been the son of the William West Tailor mentioned in the deed of 1834 quoted on p. 22 as having built the house north of the present post office. Warner West married a Harris: he became the licensee of the Wheatsheaf, where his children were borne. He was energetic and shrewd, and built up enough capital to take up the tenancy of Broad’s Farm (Abbey Manor). He acquired a good deal of property in the village including Hickman’s Cottages and sundry fields and orchards; for example, he planted the orchard in which stands Mrs. Stone’s Cedar Bungalow in Cat Street. (Mrs. Powell-Wiffen, Warner West’s grand-daughter, has lent me the notice of sale issued by the auctioneers in 1915 when Mrs. Warner West disposed of the property. Mrs. Powell-Wiffen was herself borne at The Croft. Warner West was a real countryman: the extension he made to The Croft included a dairy. His grand-daughter tells me that he said, "he couldn't retire without a cow”. After the Croft, Orchard Corner. The front of the house appears to be late Georgian or early Victorian; but the half-timbered work at the rear is earlier and seems contemporary with the thatched barns. Immediately at the junction with Ford Lane is a house of which some windows have been blocked up. The window tax was introduced in an effort to beat the smugglers by finding money to make up for the reduction in import duties on tea, etc. It was trebled by Pitt in 1797 as a war measure. The early eighteenth century (Queen Anne) saw the growing use of bricks coloured by the mode of firing to produce a softish blue. These were used with normal bricks in a variety of courses to produce quite subtle patterns which the passer-by does not stop to analyse. This blue should not be confused with the mere garish dyed blue machine-made brick which make too many Edwardian chapels unsightly. These and other indications suggest early eighteenth century for this house. Other houses of the same period will be noticed in Cat Street and Orchard Lane. Attached to this house is a curious building originally one room, and said to have been used as a school (there were several such schools in the village at one time). It has now been adapted as a very pleasant bungalow called Orchard End. [Back to the Table of Contents]
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