The New Village

 

After the old village was abandoned the demolished houses were replaced by new ones along the street and elsewhere around the estate over the rest of the century. The first of the new houses were the ones pictured left, three of which are shown Richard Benyon's sketch map, and on the plan of the new Pangbourne Road in 1822 as the "New Village" built along a new straight alignment of the Street, the rear boundary of the plots on which they are built being along the line of the older road. Actually the one nearest the camera here (number 16/17) is a much later replacement for an older house that stood on this plot, called Pound Cottage.

 

The new houses in the village and around the wider estate, begun by Richard Benyon de Beauvoir in the first half of the 19th century and continued by his successor throughout the second half, were an entirely local product. The bricks were made in the brick yard at Daintylands, from clay dug nearby if the several pits in that area are a guide. The lime for the mortar was made from chalk from the chalkpit and burnt in a kiln there. Both the brick and lime kilns remained into the second half of the 20th century, though long disused by then. Timber came from the estate woods, sawn at the sawmill in the Timber Yard and made into windows and doors there by the estate carpenters.

 

 

The new houses generally conform to three or four different designs, identifying the period when they were built, and are easily recognisable as "Benyon houses" because of this, even when they have been sold to private buyers, modernised and extended. Apart from the houses intended for certain key people, such as "Elmfields" for the Clerk of Works, the Head Gardener's house, farmhouses and number 8/9 (built originally as a Parsonage) they are all in semi-detached pairs and were notable at the time for all having three bedrooms. This was especially noted by the Rector as a matter for celebration in his speech of thanks to Mr Benyon at the Harvest Home in 1891, though the occupiers were enjoined to make the intended use of this living space for the comfort of their families rather than to take in a lodger for the money. Given the size of many of the families, this was little enough space: in 1891 at number 10 in the Street, William and Fanny Horne had six daughters and two sons living with them.

 

The first type, seen above (see also The Three Daggers) and built in the early years of the 19th century, were two-storey with a simple rectangular floor plan and the roofs clad with flat clay tiles. The five pairs built along the new alignment of the road to North Street are the sole extant examples of this style, although somewhat disguised now in that they have had "wings" added at each end to increase the accommodation. This was done during the Second World War with the assistance of German or Italian prisoners of war. Only three pairs, including the new Three Daggers, were built first. These all have bricks laid with irregular bond and were probably built very soon after Richard Benyon came to Englefield for they were certainly there by 1822. The next pair is built in header bond, a style we associate with those built slightly later, but the fifth pair is built in the same style as the first three. As noted above, the final pair were built, probably in the 1860s, on the site of the old Pound Cottage and are of the style of that time.

 

The next type is difficult to date as a group, for the distinctive style of the brickwork is seen in some houses known to have been part of the old village while others appear to be from around the time of Queen Victoria's accession. The common feature is the bricks with burnt ends laid in header bond, although the side and rear walls not directly seen from the road are in (cheaper) Flemish Bond. The majority of these houses are roughly square in plan, although the designs differ in detail, with hipped gables to the roofs covered by slates rather than clay tiles. These houses are found around the outskirts of the village at Parker's Corner Lodge, Bostock Lodges, Victoria Lodges at the entrance to The Lambdens on the Bath Road and slightly further afield, in Sulhamstead, Ufton and Mortimer. Chalkpit Lodge is of similar design with hipped and slated roof but the walls are all in Flemish bond so it lacks the dark hue. Bostock Lodge cannot have been built before 1825, when the new Pangbourne turnpike replaced Powlet Wrighte's old road from Bostock to Hogmoor for it sits squarely across the line of the old road, in the angle between Bostock Lane and the Bath Road but it was certainly there by 1844. Chalkpit Lodge must be about the same time because that is built where the road from Chalkpit was extended back to meet the new Pangbourne Road. "Victoria Lodges" on the Bath Road and "Victoria Cottages" in Ufton surely suggest a date of 1837 or soon after by their names. In the village itself the Head Gardener's house is probably from about the same time.

 

The next type chronologically is characterised by an L-shaped plan with each of the two houses occupying one limb of the L.  These were built extensively around the neighbouring villages and farmsteads but there are only two in Englefield itself. Number 2/3 is one, built in about the 1850s, in Flemish Bond, and the other is number 6/7, built in the 1860s with Stretcher Bond brickwork and probably one of the last of this type to be built, maybe because the size of the site did not allow the bigger H-plan type then being built elsewhere.

 

The final style of houses were these H-plan semis and again these are well scattered around the wider area. Each vertical stroke of the H is one house and the cross-bar is divided between the two. In the village number 14/15 is one, built probably in the 1860s, on the site of the old Chantry Cottage and also 16/17 (above), replacing the former Pound Cottage. Other examples in the vicinity are found at Wickcroft Cottages, Mayridge Hill Cottages but there are many more around the wider area. Some of these have larger, ridged clay tiles and all are built with Stretcher Bond.

 

New houses continued to be built, not only in the village itself but also further afield at May Ridge, Chalkpit, Parker's Corner, Common Hill until nearly the end of the 19th century, the last ones being the new Wimbleton's Cottages. With the exception of a few in the heart of the village, all the other old houses were demolished by this time and this was how Englefield remained for 100 years.

 

The New Village