The Village in 1810

 

Richard Benyon's plan shows us some interesting new information not seen on other maps of the village at this time.

 

By 1810 the village of Englefield had more or less the same limits as it does today, straggling along the road from Appleton's Corner towards North Street.

 

At the top, Wimbleton's Farm is shown but with no details and between Englefield House and the church is the old rectory (C) and further towards Appleton's Corner two more houses (A & B). Close to these, in pencil, is another building that may have been the Englefield House stables. The two houses and the stables are shown on the plan of 1822 for the Pangbourne Road but the houses are in grey, presumably meaning unoccupied, and the the choice of letters rather than numbers (with no occupants listed) here may mean they were scheduled for demolition. The old rectory is not seen on the plan for the road so seemingly had gone by then. At Appleton's Corner is the house (34) of which George Appleton was later the freeholder but here lived in by Jesse Povey.

 

In the park near Cranemoor Pond is a house (32) with the widows Giles and Davis and between that and the new rectory is another house, unnumbered but annotated Welch (Baker). Certainly a last relic of the old village, though not lettered (as presumed for demolition) it is crossed through and had apparently gone before the Pangbourne Road plan was drawn. The Giles/Davis house remains on that plan, though in grey and presumed uninhabited. Not seen here is the house between the new rectory and the junction where Green Lane turns off the road the Theale, though it is on the road plan. Perhaps this was one of the new houses then, rather than a last relic of the old village.

 

The situation at the top end of the new village street down as far as Chantry Lane and Chantry Cottage (39) is confused and difficult to relate to what is shown elsewhere, and what we know must have been the case. The Pangbourne Road plan shows a house set back from the road opposite Chantry Lane, probably part of Chantry Farm earlier and this may be the one marked 37/38 here. There is then a range of three (34-36) which may be the ones seen on the road plan about where the fire station now is, though if so they are wrongly located here with respect to what must be, on the opposite side of the road (O and 33) the later numbers 12 and 13. No occupants are shown for any of these though numbers 12 and 13 were lived in as late as 1891. Next, at N, must be Thomas Horne's house of 1762 and at latest by 1841 the schoolhouse, annotated here with Porter. Then comes Fisher at L, which must be what is now number 10, and Welch (K) at the current number 1. The house marked G has apparently already been demolished. On the other side of the road must be modern 4 and 5 (H & I) and, at M, the shop of, at this time, Mr More, though the juxtaposition of all these is wrong. Finally there is another building scribbled-out and without letter or number so may have been just a mistake.

 

There is on the road plan another house set a little way apart in what became the kitchen garden and glasshouses for Englefield House but that is not seen here. It may be the new Head Gardener's house thought to date from about this time.

 

The three pairs of cottages shown on Richard Benyon's plan (41 to 46) constitute the “New Village” at this time with, at the beginning of the new alignment in the vee formed by the old and new roads, the old Pound Cottage (40), on the site of what is now numbers 16 and 17, the pound having been moved here from its former position on the edge of the Great Field. This was home to Charles Mason, a builder, in 1844 and the key has Mason (who is deaf) here at this time too. The last house along the road to North Street is the old Dunts's Farm (47 & 48), still marked as such on the Pangbourne Road plan but no longer that: the land is now farmed from Wickcroft (not shown here but on the road plan) and the house is apparently split between Horn and Wallace. The next house up was the new Three Daggers inn (46) replacing the previous one in the now demolished old village, with Mildenhall living next door (45). The next pair up the street was occupied by Charles Giles and widow Deborah (44) and Stuart (43), who was a blacksmith and had his forge attached to the house, accounting for the somewhat larger size as seen in the road plan. The third of the new pairs was occupied by carpenter Ilsley (42) and sawyer Whitburn (41), who we learn was son-in-law to Price. The fourth and fifth pairs that are there now must have been built shortly after this for they are both there on the enclosure plan of 1829. Probably the fifth pair (nearest Pound Cottage) was built first for it has the same type of brickwork as the three shown here. The final pair, in a gap between this pair and the last one shown here have brickwork similar to many new houses built in the late 1820s or 1830s. The old road around the back of the new houses still remains at this time, however, and the straight road alignment has not been extended beyond Dunts's Farm towards North Street as it later was.