Wednesday 31 July 2019

Long Close House

No photographs of this old farm house in its original timber clad state have come to hand. The house is located some half a mile beyond Little Common Farm House, at the north east end of the Common, and borders on Manor Farm and North Field. By the mid-20th century it was no longer a farm, and the house was modernised and brick clad. Before the 1914/18 war until some time after, the Quarterman family ran it as a pig farm. In the mid-1930s the Tutt family used it as a home and smallholding. After the 1939/45 war, it became the home of Bridget Rogers, who ran her Long Close Riding Stables from there. Bridget was also associated with Windsor's Theatre Royal as a stage director. 

Long Close's connection with the stage/film industry has continued up to the present time as the home and vehicle museum of Tony and Paul Oliver. Vehicles are hired out to cinema and television film makers. Among many items that have appeared on screen are Lt. Gruber's 'little tank' and Rene's ice cream van (TV series ''allo, 'allo'), Roger Rabbit's auto, and military vehicles in the film 'Evita'. The museum is occasionally open to the public and attracts visitors from far and wide.


This article was first published in A Pictorial History of Eton Wick & Eton.

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