The Estate in Transition

 

Exactly when the old village was removed in not known but it seems to have taken place over a fairly protracted period after Richard Benyon inherited in 1789 with some of the old houses remaining at least as late at 1870.

 

A census of 1811 shows 68 inhabited houses in the parish and 70 uninhabited ones with a total population of 291, leading us to suppose that this may have been the turning point between the old and new villages with new houses built but the old ones not yet demolished. The main clearance presumably took place over the next ten years for in 1821 there were 78 inhabited houses and just 4 uninhabited ones with a population of 343. Over the next 10 years the number of houses fell to 69 and there were no uninhabited ones. At that time population of the village was 411, its highest figure ever. In the census of 1841 the number of houses had risen again, to 74, but the population had shrunk to 373.

 

A sketch map of the estate exists, probably drawn by Richard Benyon himself, which shows not only the location of all the houses but in a key at the bottom gives the names of the various tenants with some biographical notes. The map seems to  have been drawn first in pencil then inked over, but both the map and the key seem to have been added to or amended at some time. The map is undated but it shows not only the road down the north side of Common Hill (1802) but also the houses on it that could not have been built before the road existed. It does not show the new Pangbourne Road of 1825 however. Richard Benyon obviously updated the details from time to time because some of the houses originally drawn have been crossed through, presumably to indicate demolition, and some of the original occupant information in ink has been amended and supplemented by (presumably) later pencil entries.

 

For example, Robert and Ann Giles are shown living at Piper’s Farm, but Ann's name has been crossed through and “Dead” inserted. Ann Giles died in 1819. Widow Deborah Giles is shown living with son Charles in one of the new houses in the Street (now No 25) and she died in 1826, as did widow Lucy Simmonds at Common Hill, though neither of these are crossed through. Pencil entries also show that John and Hannah Horne have five children and David and Mary Mildenhall have “3 little children”. The Mildenhalls had a third child in 1823 and John and Hannah Horne their fifth in 1824. There is also a pencil entry on the plan itself which appears to indicate (the writing is unclear) that Robert Horne at Parker's Corner had two children and this was only true between 1813 and 1815.

 

Considering all this, the probability is that the plan was originally drawn sometime about 1810, and it was then at least partially updated until about 1823.

 

It seems that some of the new houses were short lived for they appear only on Richard Benyon's plan and are not shown on either earlier or later plans and this probably accounts for the drop from a total of 82 houses in 1811 to only 69 in 1821. Certainly by 1851 relatively few of the houses were in the village itself for the census for that year shows while there 74 houses (the same number as in 1831) in the parish, only 24 of them were in Englefield village itself, the remaining 50 were around the periphery at Hogmoor, Piper's Lane, Parker's Corner, Common Hill, and three still on the site of the old village.

 

Some variation in the numbers of people is obviously due to the fact that official census records only those actually in the house on the night in question so the numbers include any casual visitors staying the night and does not include anyone away from home. In the 1851 census, for example, the only occupants at Englefield House are two servants, and Mary Ann Smales, a coachman's wife, is alone in her house in the village. Mr Benyon was away at his London House, 34 Grosvenor Square, with 18 servants including James Smales. By contrast, 10 years later his successor, Richard Fellowes Benyon was in Englefield with his wife, a daughter, his wife's young brother and 19 servants.