East Hendred Museum at Champs Chapel, Oxfordshire and Berkshire Heritage

CHAPTER IX CAT STREET

From Newbury Road we drive north up the hill to King’s Manor, noting the magnificent pine which somewhat cuts off our view of the house, but not of its east gable. Mr. Blllyeald had the gates made locally, almost certainly the woodwork by Richard Besley and the iron work by Joseph Besley: the Harrisons and Besleys did most of Billyeald’s iron work. The gatehouse is early Tudor: the date 1570 is incised at the base of one of the inner door jambs; it may refer to the opening of the door into the next room. Then comes the picture gallery of Tudor type brickwork. Mrs. Tinson remembers helping Mr. Billyeald to hang his pictures. King’s Barn we have mentioned, Barn End was constructed by Mrs. Chatterton who owned King’s Manor from 1924 to 1930. She then sold the house, but before doing so, made Barn End out of stables and a cottage, on the basis of which she erected a very good imitation of a mediaeval frame house.

In Mrs. Chatterton’s time the approach to the yard of King’s Manor was still from Chapel Square; but she blocked this off and built Little End in the then contemporary style as a home for one of her neices. Fortunately Mrs. Stoter, who was born Winnie Collins, has saved a photograph of the north-and eastern sides of the Square taken in 1899. It shows the Wheatsheaf recently thatched and without its ‘mediaeval’ timbering. The cottages beyond are tiled but have not yet been given dormer windows; but perhaps the most unexpected feature is the round-ended hut (two of them) still occupied and newly thatched in 1899. The one in the foreground appears to be built of cob at one end and extended with planks at the other, and it has round it a little fenced-off domain of garden ground.

The only building that remains unchanged is the house in the centre of the three past the Wheatsheaf. When Mr. Tom Collins, who had been master of the East Hendred Drum and Flute Band died, his daughter, Mrs. Stoter, returned to the house and called it The Homestead. It is a very good example of a timber frame house such as were built in the village in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The interior has been papered and only in the sitting room are ceiling joists still visible. The chimney, too, has been covered and there is a modern fire-place; but the depth of the great chimney can be judged by the cupboards on either side.

We have already dealt with Chapel Square as it was in mediaeval times. The Methodist Chapel was built in 1875. A pleasant half-timbered cottage stands beside the chapel and a modern cottage beyond it.

Then we turn into Cat Street. Thirty yards further, on our right, is another half timbered cottage, formerly two dwellings, which is now in a bad state. We anxiously wait to see what its new owner makes of it. Then Valentine: Mrs. Stevenson tells me that the earliest deed is dated 1792, but it seems older. I think it began as a one room chalkstone cottage, possibly not ceiled, but it has, at different periods, been extended at both ends, and so many internal readjustments have been made that one can but guess at the course of its development. The Stevensons are to be congratulated at the way in which they have made it into a delightful modern home without sacrificing its essential qualities.

Across the way from Valentine stands what is now called Orchard House. From the rear it is easy to see how it has been formed from two cottages with a modern extension. Mrs. Borwick, widow of Major Borwick of the fruit farm, had this done, and the resulting house is now occupied by Lord Penney, of international fame as a physicist.

In one of the cottages a shop was kept. Jabes Castle, who was a joiner with the Besleys at Cozens Farm, lived there, and designed and made a sort of bay shop window. When the cottage was sold he moved next door into Lilac Cottage and he took the window with him. I was very puzzled by that window, which suits its present position quite well, but is of entirely different period from its new home. Lilac Cottage was, in fact, The Royal Oak. Mr. Norman Francis who has read the deeds of the house tells me it dates from Queen Anne or early Georgian times, and this is supported by its architecture both inside and out. The stables, stores and other outbuildings have been pulled down leaving a gap.

Past Valentine, comes the range where the Stibbs brothers live. Here again we have cruck construction. The eastern end of the range is a delightful example of a two bay cottage with a half bay added later. We have said so much about cruck buildings that we must be content with complimenting Mr. Bernard Stibbs on his success in adapting this ancient structure to the needs of modern living without losing its character. The western end of the range consists of a double gabled house of much later date. The range has been divided at times into as many as five dwellings. This was easy to do when the basic unit of a range was a bay.

This property came to Richard Stibbs by his marriage to Sarah Anne Wise, but he himself stayed on in St. Mary’s Road and died there. His son Frank, on his return from the first world war, set up on his own in Cat Street. Frank Stibbs was in the Berkshire Yeomanry, and took part in the cavalry charge in which George Besley was severely wounded. The Senussi tribesmen resented their conquest by the Italians in 1911 and, when the Italians joined the Allies in 1915, they attacked the Britiah in Egypt; hence this charge at Mersa Matruh. The Yeomanry thereafter lost their horses and fought as infantry.

Behind the range of cottages is the Stibbs builder’s yard. Frank prospered and built himself a house to his own design with direct access to the yard. This was Chantry Cottage, now the property of Mr. F. Bushell, our representative on the Wantage Rural District Council, who showed me over the house.

It is a comfortable house of typically Edwardian style, and with sliding sash windows. I noticed that a casement window had been inserted in the rear (north) wall. Mr. Bushell told me it had been put in the day before by Mr. Hiskins. East Hendred is, as it were, growing and changing even as one watches it.

Next door to the Stibbs’ yard is St. Catherine’s. This was a small house built about 1860 on land then belonging to the Dennisses, from whom the Northcotes first rented and then bought it, and considerably extended it. The main interest about the house is that Mr. Northcote believes he has found in the garden the site of the chantry of St. Catherine, from whom the street gets its name. I have seen the level area where a building has certainly stood. This is not mere guesswork: Mr. Northcote remembers, when he was a boy, the last John Denniss's father showing him some timber which he said had come from the ruined chapel when it was cleared away. When we remember the oak pew and the pig sty, we shall not be surprised that it was being used as a barrel stand in the bakery. This timber has now been discovered in the double-fronted house (Denniss property) in Orchard Lane. I have examined it and have no doubt that it came from a building of religious character and may have been part of a screen.

Next door to St. Catherine’s (not so called until the Northcotes came to it) is the cottage now occupied by Mr. Hiskins. Both these properties were bought by the Dennisses in 1883: Mrs. Jackson has lent me the notice of the sale. Mr. Hiskins says that when he rendered the west wall of the cottage, he covered up a date which was either 1776 or 1767, he does not remember which. The cottage is certainly of eighteenth century style, but has been extended on the ground floor to provide a new kitchen. There was one large downstairs room with a chimney occupying most of the east wall and divided from the larder by a wattle and daub partition still in place. There were two steps down to the larder, which was much larger than anything in a modern house of the size, for it provided room for salting troughs and other equipment which we do not use today. The floor has been raised and the larder is now a room.

Beyond the cottage is a range of what began as four Tudor cottages. Each has a stairway with a door and they rise beside a wide chimney and curve round it to the floor above. Miss Martin is confident about the date and the style supports her judgment, though this style continued for a century or more.

The Martins were a very old East Hendred family. At the first manor court to be held by John Eyston, in 1453, Patricius Martyn held three virgates of land, and the name continues to appear in the records. Miss Martin’s great grandfather farmed King’s Manor but found the rent too high and moved to Cat Street; but the stables and barns have all gone. There is an interesting link with the Harris family. Miss Martin’s great grandfather Robert married one of William Harris’s sisters, and Miss Martin is now the last representative in the village of both these old families.

Miss Martin’s uncle, Ernest Martin, served his apprenticeship as a draper; but during one of his leaves from the army during the first world war, bought a crop of pears and retailed them. The easternmost of the cottages was fitted with a shop window and; on demobilisation, he commenced draper, but soon switched to fruit. He learned a good deal about the trade from Mr. Warner West (the Wests were quite an important village family). Opposite Mr. Hiskins sitting room window was a shed with double doors and there Ernest Martin stored his fruit. It was sold by Ernest Martin to the Eystons in 1945, and has been quite recently reconstructed as a cottage. During the same recon-struction the cottage next door was also reconstructed and is now called St. Aidan’s. The range of cottages along Cat Street to the east of these now has tiles stacked in front of them ready for their turn. One at least of them shows evidence of cruck construction.

The next piece of ground on the south of Cat Street was described in the court rolls of 1560, when the death of George Kirby alias Webbe was reported. He had held a house, garden, orchard and close “in Catstreete in Esthenreth predicta inter le Church-waye ibidem ex parte orientali terram dni vocatam twychens ex parte australi venellam vocat fford-wellane ex parte occidentali et Catte Streat ibidem ex parte boriali." In other words, he held all the land between the lane leading to the church, Ford Lane, Snells and Cat Street.

Webbe means webber or weaver. I like to think of a man with such a good Yorkshire name as Kirby coming south attracted by the wool industry. He appears in court rolls for some years as George Kirby alias Webbe, but his son drops the Kirby and becomes just Webbe.

On the eastern part of this land some wretched hovels called the Poor’s houses stood till late in the nineteenth century, the land being then under the King’s Manor. John Allin, then lord of the manor, took them over as they fell vacant and pulled down all thirteen of them. He gave part of the ground to the church for a new cemetery, and part was bought at John Allin’s sale in 1898, and is also now the property of the church. Here the Village Hall was erected in 1908 by public subscription, the main contributor being Lady Wantage to whom much of the Allin estate had passed.

In the corner of this land stands the bier house. This was built for the convenience of the new cemetery at a time when a horse-drawn hearse was still an expensive luxury. It was built by Joe Prater to the design of Mr. Jones who held King’s Manor in 1923-24. It is so good an imitation of a mediaeval building that the surveyors who drew up the Village Plan described it as a shrine: a warning to those who would date a building without adequate enquiry!

Where Cat Street is entered by Ford Lane and turns sharp north, there is, off Ford Lane, a new house, quite out of sight, built for Mr. Jay of AERE. And a bungalow, Cedar Bungalow, immediately at the junction, was built by Mr. Stone from a plan he had seen at an Ideal Homes Exhibition in London.

On the east of the street is Southernwood.

Mr. Coates, a Yorkshireman and a successful business man, came to East Hendred first for holidays. He then bought four cottages. One of these he preserved almost intact, the others he demolished, and on the site erected a vaguely Tudor house, indeed a small mansion. In the house is a sepia sketch done by Mr. Billyeald in 1890; that is, before he bought King’s Manor. It shows the east front of the four cottages as they were, and it is easy to recognise the old cottage (Cherry Tree Cottage) which has been incorporated in the new house.

Like Mr. Billyeald, Mr. Coates went to great trouble to collect old furnishings. In the study is a grate which Mr. Sowdon gave him from the dairy at the Manor House, and he so contrived the mantle-piece as to incorporate an ancient piece of deeply cut wood carving. The central hall is open to the roof to provide a music salon for his American wife. I first passed the house on a dark night and was amazed to catch a glimpse of what looked like a genuine mediaeval hall. We have already noted how the timber beams were all handsawn at Richard Besley’s sawpits at Cozen’s Farm. The well head in the garden has been adorned with a carved beam on timber supports.

Southernwood is a fine house constructed with no apparent limit as to cost and with a delight in old ideas of architecture. I find the old cottage section of the house very restful compared with the rest of the building. Southernwood Cottages, built by Mr. Coates at the same time and now occupied by Mr. Hazel is in keeping with the main house.

Leaving Hickman’s Cottages for a moment, let us pass on to Appledore. It is a large bungalow with a garage for a private motorist to dream about, built by Mr. Coates for his chauffeur. Here again Mr. Coates indulged in experiment. The walls are entirely composed of cob. Several people in the village remember it being built: Mr. Baden Stone and Mr. Baden Hatto actually helped. Chalkstone was dug in the orchard beside the site and in Ford Lane and worked with straw and hair into a thick mud which was then formed into walls, each course drying out before the next batch of cob was ready. Cob is an excellent building material if the mud is sufficiently mixed with binding agents and then kept dry at head and foot. These walls were erected on a strong stone base and are still in good condition.

In the days before petrol pumps, motorists stored petrol in cans but were bound by law to keep it twenty yards from another building. Beside the driveway into Appledore is a little building very like the bier house, and, of course, built by Joe Prater. It was for Mr. Coates petrol store.

Now to return to Hickman’s Cottages, a four bay cruck structure which would be well worth describing in detail if so much had not already been said about cruck. The aspect of this building, now four cottages, which demands attention here is the development of the windows, and I asked Miss Susan Legouix to illustrate it. Her first sketch (l) shows a little window almost hidden below the thatch, the second (2) shows the wall heightened and the thatch cut back to admit windows raised above the floor; the next (3) shows how another range was accomodated.

Mr. Colt owned these cottages when he was building his house in White Road and Mr. Legouix occupied the one now Mrs. Ellaway’s. He inserted at the rear two casement windows of modern design and carried the thatch over them as his granddaughter has shown in the fourth sketch (4). The second series of sketches shows each of these windows in section.

Next comes Cowdrays, now so called. The Cowderys are the oldest family in East Hendred. Sir Thomas Cowdery was knight of the shire for Berkshire under Edward III, the name of Cowdery continually crops up in court rolls, and there are memorials to the Cowderys in the Parish Church.

Mr. Cowdery says that the house is called Dous House in some of his deeds. He allowed me to invite Mr. Trask to come along with me one evening to examine a deed of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. We found it to be a lease by which three virgates and other lands in East Hendred, which had been taken from the monks at Donnington, were granted by Elizabeth to John Wilson and John Dooe of Wanting in 1600. The name Dooe has been variously spelt over the years as Dooe, Doe, Due and Dow, and I believe that this was the house which the Dooes built soon after they acquired the Donnington lands, and which later passed to the Cowderys.

One wall of the house is definitely timber-framed and wattle infilled, and the upper room and one of the stairways are still much as they were originally built; but it is a large house and has been occupied by people who had the means and the will to make alterationsm and it is not at all easy to unravel the source of its development. All but one of the large barns and other buildings were destroyed in two disastrous fires. The one remaining building, a stable for six horses, now called the granary, is a good example of the use of timber infilled originally no doubt with wattle and daub.

The house was bought by Mr. Coates in 1919, and from him by D.N. Pritt K.C. It was Mr. Pritt who erected the stone building at the junction of the Appledore driveway with Cat St. It was originally a garage; but Mrs. Young, who followed Mr. Pritt, converted it into a bungalow.

Opposite Cowdrays is Woodbine Cottage, a timber framed infilled cottage that is really pretty, and well worth study. There are suggestions that it was once a wheelwright’s shop and that may be so. Our village forefathers did not think of a house being the final result of an architect’s activities on a drawing board, to which the occupant returns from working in an office or factory; but as the place where he lived and worked, or at least kept his domestic animals, and which was to be adjusted to his requirements as they arose.

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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 IX CAT STREET From Newbury Road we drive north up the hill to King’s Manor, noting the magnificent pine which somewhat cuts off our view of the house, but not of its east gable. Mr. Blllyeald had the gates made locally, almost certainly the woodwork by Richard Besley and the iron work by Joseph Besley: the Harrisons and Besleys did most of Billyeald’s iron work. The gatehouse is early Tudor: the date 1570 is incised at the base of one of the inner door jambs; it may refer to the opening of the door into the next room. Then comes the picture gallery of Tudor type brickwork. Mrs. Tinson remembers helping Mr. Billyeald to hang his pictures. King’s Barn we have mentioned, Barn End was constructed by Mrs. Chatterton who owned King’s Manor from 1924 to 1930. She then sold the house, but before doing so, made Barn End out of stables and a cottage, on the basis of which she erected a very good imitation of a mediaeval frame house. In Mrs. Chatterton’s time the approach to the yard of King’s Manor was still from Chapel Square; but she blocked this off and built Little End in the then contemporary style as a home for one of her neices. Fortunately Mrs. Stoter, who was born Winnie Collins, has saved a photograph of the north-and eastern sides of the Square taken in 1899. It shows the Wheatsheaf recently thatched and without its ‘mediaeval’ timbering. The cottages beyond are tiled but have not yet been given dormer windows; but perhaps the most unexpected feature is the round-ended hut (two of them) still occupied and newly thatched in 1899. The one in the foreground appears to be built of cob at one end and extended with planks at the other, and it has round it a little fenced-off domain of garden ground. The only building that remains unchanged is the house in the centre of the three past the Wheatsheaf. When Mr. Tom Collins, who had been master of the East Hendred Drum and Flute Band died, his daughter, Mrs. Stoter, returned to the house and called it The Homestead. It is a very good example of a timber frame house such as were built in the village in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The interior has been papered and only in the sitting room are ceiling joists still visible. The chimney, too, has been covered and there is a modern fire-place; but the depth of the great chimney can be judged by the cupboards on either side. We have already dealt with Chapel Square as it was in mediaeval times. The Methodist Chapel was built in 1875. A pleasant half-timbered cottage stands beside the chapel and a modern cottage beyond it. Then we turn into Cat Street. Thirty yards further, on our right, is another half timbered cottage, formerly two dwellings, which is now in a bad state. We anxiously wait to see what its new owner makes of it. Then Valentine: Mrs. Stevenson tells me that the earliest deed is dated 1792, but it seems older. I think it began as a one room chalkstone cottage, possibly not ceiled, but it has, at different periods, been extended at both ends, and so many internal readjustments have been made that one can but guess at the course of its development. The Stevensons are to be congratulated at the way in which they have made it into a delightful modern home without sacrificing its essential qualities. Across the way from Valentine stands what is now called Orchard House. From the rear it is easy to see how it has been formed from two cottages with a modern extension. Mrs. Borwick, widow of Major Borwick of the fruit farm, had this done, and the resulting house is now occupied by Lord Penney, of international fame as a physicist. In one of the cottages a shop was kept. Jabes Castle, who was a joiner with the Besleys at Cozens Farm, lived there, and designed and made a sort of bay shop window. When the cottage was sold he moved next door into Lilac Cottage and he took the window with him. I was very puzzled by that window, which suits its present position quite well, but is of entirely different period from its new home. Lilac Cottage was, in fact, The Royal Oak. Mr. Norman Francis who has read the deeds of the house tells me it dates from Queen Anne or early Georgian times, and this is supported by its architecture both inside and out. The stables, stores and other outbuildings have been pulled down leaving a gap. Past Valentine, comes the range where the Stibbs brothers live. Here again we have cruck construction. The eastern end of the range is a delightful example of a two bay cottage with a half bay added later. We have said so much about cruck buildings that we must be content with complimenting Mr. Bernard Stibbs on his success in adapting this ancient structure to the needs of modern living without losing its character. The western end of the range consists of a double gabled house of much later date. The range has been divided at times into as many as five dwellings. This was easy to do when the basic unit of a range was a bay. This property came to Richard Stibbs by his marriage to Sarah Anne Wise, but he himself stayed on in St. Mary’s Road and died there. His son Frank, on his return from the first world war, set up on his own in Cat Street. Frank Stibbs was in the Berkshire Yeomanry, and took part in the cavalry charge in which George Besley was severely wounded. The Senussi tribesmen resented their conquest by the Italians in 1911 and, when the Italians joined the Allies in 1915, they attacked the Britiah in Egypt; hence this charge at Mersa Matruh. The Yeomanry thereafter lost their horses and fought as infantry. Behind the range of cottages is the Stibbs builder’s yard. Frank prospered and built himself a house to his own design with direct access to the yard. This was Chantry Cottage, now the property of Mr. F. Bushell, our representative on the Wantage Rural District Council, who showed me over the house. It is a comfortable house of typically Edwardian style, and with sliding sash windows. I noticed that a casement window had been inserted in the rear (north) wall. Mr. Bushell told me it had been put in the day before by Mr. Hiskins. East Hendred is, as it were, growing and changing even as one watches it. Next door to the Stibbs’ yard is St. Catherine’s. This was a small house built about 1860 on land then belonging to the Dennisses, from whom the Northcotes first rented and then bought it, and considerably extended it. The main interest about the house is that Mr. Northcote believes he has found in the garden the site of the chantry of St. Catherine, from whom the street gets its name. I have seen the level area where a building has certainly stood. This is not mere guesswork: Mr. Northcote remembers, when he was a boy, the last John Denniss's father showing him some timber which he said had come from the ruined chapel when it was cleared away. When we remember the oak pew and the pig sty, we shall not be surprised that it was being used as a barrel stand in the bakery. This timber has now been discovered in the double-fronted house (Denniss property) in Orchard Lane. I have examined it and have no doubt that it came from a building of religious character and may have been part of a screen. Next door to St. Catherine’s (not so called until the Northcotes came to it) is the cottage now occupied by Mr. Hiskins. Both these properties were bought by the Dennisses in 1883: Mrs. Jackson has lent me the notice of the sale. Mr. Hiskins says that when he rendered the west wall of the cottage, he covered up a date which was either 1776 or 1767, he does not remember which. The cottage is certainly of eighteenth century style, but has been extended on the ground floor to provide a new kitchen. There was one large downstairs room with a chimney occupying most of the east wall and divided from the larder by a wattle and daub partition still in place. There were two steps down to the larder, which was much larger than anything in a modern house of the size, for it provided room for salting troughs and other equipment which we do not use today. The floor has been raised and the larder is now a room. Beyond the cottage is a range of what began as four Tudor cottages. Each has a stairway with a door and they rise beside a wide chimney and curve round it to the floor above. Miss Martin is confident about the date and the style supports her judgment, though this style continued for a century or more. The Martins were a very old East Hendred family. At the first manor court to be held by John Eyston, in 1453, Patricius Martyn held three virgates of land, and the name continues to appear in the records. Miss Martin’s great grandfather farmed King’s Manor but found the rent too high and moved to Cat Street; but the stables and barns have all gone. There is an interesting link with the Harris family. Miss Martin’s great grandfather Robert married one of William Harris’s sisters, and Miss Martin is now the last representative in the village of both these old families. Miss Martin’s uncle, Ernest Martin, served his apprenticeship as a draper; but during one of his leaves from the army during the first world war, bought a crop of pears and retailed them. The easternmost of the cottages was fitted with a shop window and; on demobilisation, he commenced draper, but soon switched to fruit. He learned a good deal about the trade from Mr. Warner West (the Wests were quite an important village family). Opposite Mr. Hiskins sitting room window was a shed with double doors and there Ernest Martin stored his fruit. It was sold by Ernest Martin to the Eystons in 1945, and has been quite recently reconstructed as a cottage. During the same recon-struction the cottage next door was also reconstructed and is now called St. Aidan’s. The range of cottages along Cat Street to the east of these now has tiles stacked in front of them ready for their turn. One at least of them shows evidence of cruck construction. The next piece of ground on the south of Cat Street was described in the court rolls of 1560, when the death of George Kirby alias Webbe was reported. He had held a house, garden, orchard and close “in Catstreete in Esthenreth predicta inter le Church-waye ibidem ex parte orientali terram dni vocatam twychens ex parte australi venellam vocat fford-wellane ex parte occidentali et Catte Streat ibidem ex parte boriali." In other words, he held all the land between the lane leading to the church, Ford Lane, Snells and Cat Street. Webbe means webber or weaver. I like to think of a man with such a good Yorkshire name as Kirby coming south attracted by the wool industry. He appears in court rolls for some years as George Kirby alias Webbe, but his son drops the Kirby and becomes just Webbe. On the eastern part of this land some wretched hovels called the Poor’s houses stood till late in the nineteenth century, the land being then under the King’s Manor. John Allin, then lord of the manor, took them over as they fell vacant and pulled down all thirteen of them. He gave part of the ground to the church for a new cemetery, and part was bought at John Allin’s sale in 1898, and is also now the property of the church. Here the Village Hall was erected in 1908 by public subscription, the main contributor being Lady Wantage to whom much of the Allin estate had passed. In the corner of this land stands the bier house. This was built for the convenience of the new cemetery at a time when a horse-drawn hearse was still an expensive luxury. It was built by Joe Prater to the design of Mr. Jones who held King’s Manor in 1923-24. It is so good an imitation of a mediaeval building that the surveyors who drew up the Village Plan described it as a shrine: a warning to those who would date a building without adequate enquiry! Where Cat Street is entered by Ford Lane and turns sharp north, there is, off Ford Lane, a new house, quite out of sight, built for Mr. Jay of AERE. And a bungalow, Cedar Bungalow, immediately at the junction, was built by Mr. Stone from a plan he had seen at an Ideal Homes Exhibition in London. On the east of the street is Southernwood. Mr. Coates, a Yorkshireman and a successful business man, came to East Hendred first for holidays. He then bought four cottages. One of these he preserved almost intact, the others he demolished, and on the site erected a vaguely Tudor house, indeed a small mansion. In the house is a sepia sketch done by Mr. Billyeald in 1890; that is, before he bought King’s Manor. It shows the east front of the four cottages as they were, and it is easy to recognise the old cottage (Cherry Tree Cottage) which has been incorporated in the new house. Like Mr. Billyeald, Mr. Coates went to great trouble to collect old furnishings. In the study is a grate which Mr. Sowdon gave him from the dairy at the Manor House, and he so contrived the mantle-piece as to incorporate an ancient piece of deeply cut wood carving. The central hall is open to the roof to provide a music salon for his American wife. I first passed the house on a dark night and was amazed to catch a glimpse of what looked like a genuine mediaeval hall. We have already noted how the timber beams were all handsawn at Richard Besley’s sawpits at Cozen’s Farm. The well head in the garden has been adorned with a carved beam on timber supports. Southernwood is a fine house constructed with no apparent limit as to cost and with a delight in old ideas of architecture. I find the old cottage section of the house very restful compared with the rest of the building. Southernwood Cottages, built by Mr. Coates at the same time and now occupied by Mr. Hazel is in keeping with the main house. Leaving Hickman’s Cottages for a moment, let us pass on to Appledore. It is a large bungalow with a garage for a private motorist to dream about, built by Mr. Coates for his chauffeur. Here again Mr. Coates indulged in experiment. The walls are entirely composed of cob. Several people in the village remember it being built: Mr. Baden Stone and Mr. Baden Hatto actually helped. Chalkstone was dug in the orchard beside the site and in Ford Lane and worked with straw and hair into a thick mud which was then formed into walls, each course drying out before the next batch of cob was ready. Cob is an excellent building material if the mud is sufficiently mixed with binding agents and then kept dry at head and foot. These walls were erected on a strong stone base and are still in good condition. In the days before petrol pumps, motorists stored petrol in cans but were bound by law to keep it twenty yards from another building. Beside the driveway into Appledore is a little building very like the bier house, and, of course, built by Joe Prater. It was for Mr. Coates petrol store. Now to return to Hickman’s Cottages, a four bay cruck structure which would be well worth describing in detail if so much had not already been said about cruck. The aspect of this building, now four cottages, which demands attention here is the development of the windows, and I asked Miss Susan Legouix to illustrate it. Her first sketch (l) shows a little window almost hidden below the thatch, the second (2) shows the wall heightened and the thatch cut back to admit windows raised above the floor; the next (3) shows how another range was accomodated. Mr. Colt owned these cottages when he was building his house in White Road and Mr. Legouix occupied the one now Mrs. Ellaway’s. He inserted at the rear two casement windows of modern design and carried the thatch over them as his granddaughter has shown in the fourth sketch (4). The second series of sketches shows each of these windows in section. Next comes Cowdrays, now so called. The Cowderys are the oldest family in East Hendred. Sir Thomas Cowdery was knight of the shire for Berkshire under Edward III, the name of Cowdery continually crops up in court rolls, and there are memorials to the Cowderys in the Parish Church. Mr. Cowdery says that the house is called Dous House in some of his deeds. He allowed me to invite Mr. Trask to come along with me one evening to examine a deed of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. We found it to be a lease by which three virgates and other lands in East Hendred, which had been taken from the monks at Donnington, were granted by Elizabeth to John Wilson and John Dooe of Wanting in 1600. The name Dooe has been variously spelt over the years as Dooe, Doe, Due and Dow, and I believe that this was the house which the Dooes built soon after they acquired the Donnington lands, and which later passed to the Cowderys. One wall of the house is definitely timber-framed and wattle infilled, and the upper room and one of the stairways are still much as they were originally built; but it is a large house and has been occupied by people who had the means and the will to make alterationsm and it is not at all easy to unravel the source of its development. All but one of the large barns and other buildings were destroyed in two disastrous fires. The one remaining building, a stable for six horses, now called the granary, is a good example of the use of timber infilled originally no doubt with wattle and daub. The house was bought by Mr. Coates in 1919, and from him by D.N. Pritt K.C. It was Mr. Pritt who erected the stone building at the junction of the Appledore driveway with Cat St. It was originally a garage; but Mrs. Young, who followed Mr. Pritt, converted it into a bungalow. Opposite Cowdrays is Woodbine Cottage, a timber framed infilled cottage that is really pretty, and well worth study. There are suggestions that it was once a wheelwright’s shop and that may be so. Our village forefathers did not think of a house being the final result of an architect’s activities on a drawing board, to which the occupant returns from working in an office or factory; but as the place where he lived and worked, or at least kept his domestic animals, and which was to be adjusted to his requirements as they arose. [Back to the Table of Contents]
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