Published in Windlesora 20 (2003)
© WLHG
We moved into our new house, 43 Parsonage Lane, in November 1954. It was built on the walled site of a former orchard and the planning authority insisted that the foundations would be sufficiently deep to raise the house above the level of the 1947 floods. Next door was the Council yard and beyond that Clewer Parish Hall which still had an open ditch running in front of it. Gas lamps provided the street lighting and the visits of the lamplighter to check the mantle were a source of interest to my children.
Shopping
At that time very few families owned two cars and, apart from an occasional expedition on the reliable Brown Bus (A Moore & Son) with its friendly and helpful driver to the town centre, all shopping was done locally. Ernest Hicks, the baker of 181 Oxford Road, called at the house three times a week to deliver bread and my family still remember the wonderful smell of freshly baked loaves when he opened the doors of his van. The annual visit of the Breton onion seller, with beret and long strings of carefully graded onions suspended from the handlebars of his bicycle was another eagerly awaited event. All our everyday needs were provided by the local shops — Hernes Oak Stores in Parsonage Lane under the benevolent management of the Levett family was open early and late and was a splendid place to spend the Saturday pocket money. The Colonnade in Clarence Road with its range of shops provided a friendly service: E Wilkinson, Post Office and tobacconist; DA Dadley, butcher; Bijou, hairdresser; Swallows Stores, grocers; and Ben King, greengrocer. Darvill & Son Ltd, on the corner of Vale Road and Dedworth Road, was an early example of a supermarket and the weekly order was delivered by a boy on a bicycle.
Dancing Lessons
Recreational activities for my children were close at hand. The swings in the Clewer Parish War Memorial Ground were popular with the whole family. My daughter Jane attended dancing classes on Saturday mornings at the Studio attached to the house known as Granny’s at 139 Clarence Road, which Joyce Durnford shared with her mother. Miss Durnford had had dancing classes at the Castle Hotel and later at the White Harte before moving to Granny’s in 1928. The Studio was a large room with windows at each end and wall bars for the ballet classes. In the summer there were Greek dancing classes in the garden. Barbara Harris was the pianist and Margaret Beckwith taught the children ballet. During term time Barbara and Joyce visited schools in the area to give dancing lessons. In addition to the classes for children there were adult ballroom dancing classes. I remember Joyce Durnford as a rather severe teacher; she maintained iron discipline and at the end of the lesson each child would say goodbye and curtsey to her. When Granny’s was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the relief road, Joyce Durnford transferred her classes to Wokingham.
The Beginnings of the WEA in Windsor
Social life in Clewer in the 1950s revolved around the Parish Hall and St Andrew’s Church. The hall was used for church socials and the annual Christmas fair; in the evenings there was badminton and in the 1950s the 1st Clewer Guides and Brownies and the St Andrew’s Wolf Cubs and Scouts held their meetings there and attended church parades at St Andrew’s. The 1st Clewer Guides had been started by Mary Baynes in 1945/6 and initially met in a back room of Clewer Rectory. On Sunday afternoons Sister Mary Teresa CSJB ran a Sunday school at the church and she also organised Christmas Nativity plays. St Andrew’s also had a Mothers Union branch and a Young Wives group, which met in the Lodge and later at St Anne’s. Summer fetes were held in the Rectory garden and, in the early years of the Windsor branch of the WEA, the Rectory was used both for courses and committee meetings. Father Cyprian Dymoke-Marr had come across the WEA in a previous slum parish in South Shields where, to quote him, ‘it did a marvellous job’. He suggested the formation of a branch in Windsor ‘to get something going, of a cultural nature, in the town in which there seemed to be no such provision for the ordinary citizen’. The first AGM was held in 1952 and to start with they could not run more than one course at a time. I remember attending a course on TS Eliot’s Four Quartets in the Rectory study, with both Cyprian and his wife Dorothy taking an active part in the discussion. In Autumn 1955 Miss Meriel Tower gave a course of lectures at Windsor Guildhall entitled Looking at Paintings and it was later reported to the committee that ‘this had been a great success with 217 attendances’ — including my own!
New Building
As the 1950s progressed and building materials became available there was considerable development in Clewer. Father Cyprian Dymoke Marr and his family vacated the Georgian Rectory and moved to a smaller modern house at 14 Parsonage Lane. The Old Rectory with its extensive grounds was sold and the first occupant was Revd. Lt Col John B Morgan-Smith DSO TD, who was curate at Holy Trinity Church Windsor 1955-57 and later Vicar of Cranbourne. I remember visiting the Old Rectory at this time and being shown a room, which I think had probably been Canon Carter’s study, where the wall had been stripped of plaster down to the brickwork, and being told this was due to dry rot. After the Morgan-Smith family left the Old Rectory it was bought by Mr T Welbourn. Late in the 1950s the development of the site began. Mr Charlish erected six houses on the site of the former spinney. Architecturally they were in keeping with the soon-to-be-demolished Georgian Rectory. On 13th March 1962 there was a public enquiry because the old tithe barn and several mature trees had been taken down and four houses erected on the site.
Self-building
Other building sites in Parsonage Lane were sold for residential development and in Clewer village the Southall Self-build Group in conjunction with a group from Uxbridge began work. A site had been found in Mill Lane adjacent to Clewer Park and the group of 24, including 12 artisans, agreed to cooperate in providing much-needed houses. After all the arrangements for the land and loan for building were settled, work started in 1953. Each man was expected to work for 24 hours a week — a considerable undertaking as this was in addition to their normal employment — and the work was closely monitored to ensure that they fulfilled this commitment. A builder was contracted to build the shells but all the other work was undertaken by group members. Members of the group started moving into completed houses at the end of 1956. Houses were allocated according to a points system reflecting the needs of individual families and the council loan was transferred to the occupant who took out a mortgage to cover it. At first the houses backed on to the gardens of Clewer Park but the Manor Park Construction Co acquired the site and, in 1958, work commenced on the erection of Clewer Park houses. In November 2002 there are still eight of the original 24 residents living in the Self-build houses in Mill Lane.
A Village Life
The building of the relief road in the 1960s brought considerable changes to Clewer village. In the 1950s it seemed still to be a rural backwater. My children would feed the ducks at the Parish landing and stop to admire the horses stabled at The Limes where Richard Stillwell ran his riding school.
In the yard adjoining the stables they were delighted to watch a mobile blacksmith at work shoeing horses. This blacksmith lived in Windsor and was an ex-cavalryman. On race-days horses from the racecourse stables in Barry Avenue used the public right of way through the grounds of the Old Mill House, which was owned by Mr LC Lammerton, to gain access to the racecourse. In 1960 White Lilies was the residence of Mr HD Badcoe; Stanley Hornsby, the Town Clerk lived at Clewer Court and Clewer Mead was used by the Berks Yeomanry Club. Clewer Village still had two pubs, the Swan and the Duke of Edinburgh, and FW Leith kept a general store in Mill Lane. However, despite new roads and increasing development since 1960 Clewer village still preserves its separate identity; it is part of Windsor but has not been absorbed by it.
Joyce Sampson
Windsor Local History Group 