The Village in 1878

 

In 1883 The Ordnance Survey produced a six inch to the mile map, surveyed in 1877-78, that gives us ample and accurate detail and the 1881 census gives a much clearer idea of the location of houses than previously.

 

The village itself was by this time in almost the state it would remain for more than 100 years and although there were still one or two old houses that would shortly be demolished, only one or two more would be built during that time. The closure of the old road to Bradfield enabled the section from the Pangbourne Road to Englefield House to be closed to the public, although a right of way was retained between Appleton's Corner and the church. The road was also realigned onto its present course as far as Appleton's Corner, starting off by following the older coach road to Englefield House. The gate screen and lodges on the Pangbourne Road (left), attributed to Richard Armstrong but very much in the style of the slightly later Rectory by PC Hardwick, were built in 1862 to commemorate the marriage of Richard Benyon to Elizabeth Clutterbuck. Note the absence of the pedestrian gate, meaning that villagers using the bus stop at the top of the Englefield Road when the gates were closed had to climb over the wall just out of this picture on the right. The 1883 map shows the old lodge further up the Coach Road, seen in 1844, still standing, although it does not feature in the 1881 census. As it sits some way back off the rerouted, and now private, road it may have been missed, even if still inhabited.

 

 

The Rectory was built in 1870 by Hardwick, the old one demolished and Rectory Cottage built in the same place. The pair of cottages that used to stand on the old road in front of where the Rectory was built had been demolished, probably at the same time, as had the house at Appleton's Corner.

 

At the top end of the Street the new school (possibly also by Hardwick) was opened on part of Loring's Meadow in 1863, with the new schoolhouse attached to it. The old Gardeners' Rooms for the unmarried gardeners that seems to have existed in 1844 within the Gardens was replaced in the intervening period by a new Bothy to the other side of the Head Gardener's house and behind number 4 in the Street. On the other side of the Street, next to Crown Cottage (still so called at this time), is a new pair of cottages (number 2 and 3), probably built in the 1850s, and between them and number 10 is the pair of houses that are now 8 and 9. On the opposite side of the road, numbers 6 and 7 had also been built in the 1860s (picture right).

 

Further down the Street towards the Timber Yard, the old school seems already to have been converted into two dwellings, occupied by the Swadling and Ballard families, by 1871.

 

A little further down the two old houses (12 and 13) are still occupied and the former Chantry Cottage, according to Miss Winchcomb a low, rambling house with a verandah and a long lawn in front running down to Chantry Lane where lived Mrs Webb, who was what was then known as a “rubber”, nowadays called a masseuse, and treated Mr Benyon’s rheumatism seems to have replaced by the current two houses that are 14 and 15. Opposite them the new house ("Elmfields") for the Clerk of the Works was built before 1871 and the old Clerk's house, Pound Cottage, next door has been replaced by another new pair of cottages, completing the row of houses between the pound and the Pangbourne Road, although this one is built to  the "H-plan" then being used for new houses. The old Three Daggers Inn which ceased operating when the New Inn was built shortly after 1861 is now two houses.

 

Across the Pangbourne Road, Dunts's Farm has now been replaced by the present house and two more pairs of houses built just along the road towards North Street. Along the Pangbourne Road towards the new Lodges, Wickcroft Farm Cottages had yet to be built when the map was surveyed but would be before it was printed. In the Englefield Road the new Agency and the two Agency Cottages had already been built by 1878, and the road to North Street realigned. Mr Todd, who had been a clerk when the Agent's offices were at Mayridge, was now the Agent himself.

 

 

The New Village