Foreword
Eton Wick and Eton have Anglo-Saxon names, so
it is reasonable to think of their origins as being about one thousand years ago. However, it has been only
for some hundred years,
since the invention of the photographic image, that we have had the benefit of a completely accurate pictorial record of the community
and local events. The History Group is
fortunate in having a considerable number of old photographs amongst its records. The oldest photograph at the
time of preparing this book was taken
in 1885 and is of Boveney Lock; there are several pictures of the floods of
1894, and of local rural scenes taken
by artist George Henton in 1894/95 (courtesy of Leicestershire Records Office) and some by the Rev. Demaus (Eton Wick
curate 1898-1900), plus a large
number donated from local family albums. Many of these old photographs appear in this book. There is a greater
proportion of pictures relating to the
village than of Eton town because the book has been produced by the Eton Wick History Group, largely financed by a Millennium
Fund grant which was awarded for this
express purpose; also much has already been written about 'town and gown'.
For hundreds of years the village depended
largely on the town and college for employment and trade. Fuel and produce was
supplied to the town before the coming of Eton College in the mid-15th century,
and to both town and college later. School boys were educated at Eton Porny School until
1939 when Slough and Eton (C of E) Secondary School in Ragstone Road, Chalvey, was built. By the end of the
20th century, the development
of Slough Trading Estate and other industries and services, and the vast improvements in transport had virtually
severed this historic link.
Little more than one century ago, when those
first local photographs were being taken of the village, Eton Wick was being spoken and written of as a
hamlet. Perhaps a fair
description, as in 1841 there were only 62 houses in the village, and as
recorded in Dr Judith
Hunter's excellent book The Story of a Village. Eton Wick 1217-1977, this was three times the number existing 40 years earlier. These early
dwellings were built on the
marginally higher ground to the north of today's village; perhaps not
noticeably much higher,
but occupiers of those houses would testify to the importance of the extra inches during years of flood. Some villagers
can still remember March 1947, when many homes were flooded, and yet the farm houses to the north, although
surrounded by the flood
waters, remained high and dry.
The growth of Eton Wick came about in spasmodic bursts and was always influenced and restricted by Lammas regulations and the parish boundary. The areas south and east of the village were Lammas and Common lands, just as they are today. Land to the west of Bell Lane was in the parish of Burnham and much of it belonged to the Palmer family of Dorney, or was part of Bell Farm. Bell Farm House itself lies just east of the boundary. The cottages built mainly for the farm workers, Bell Cottages and Bell Farm Cottages, were across the boundary in Burnham parish (it is said that the latter Cottages straddled the boundary line). It is likely at this time, in the mid-19th century, that the only other dwelling west of Bell Lane was the Shepherds Hut public house.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, most of the
village development was along Common Road between Wheatbutts Field and Sheepcote Road, which was then only a
gated muddy farm
track. These early cottages had very long gardens or smallholdings, stretching in most cases from the building
itself to today's main Eton Wick Road. The buildings backed onto Common Road, giving
ready access to the stream and ponds, and the common, on which many inhabitants
and their livestock depended. A few Exceptions, built on the main road, included the Three Horseshoes public
house and a terrace of ten
small dwellings called Prospect Place (built 1833), with their gardens running down to the common. By the mid-19th
century, the village population had risen from 100 to 300. Numbers were to increase in the 1860s when the
long gardens and other
available infill sites were built on. Many of these houses can be seen along
the main road
today, with construction date plaques on them such as Palmer Place, St Leonard's Place, etc.
By 1880 the population of Eton Wick was
approximately 500, but there was now very little land available within the old village
for further growth. The next big surge of building came in the 1880s to 1890s, west of
the Parish of Eton Wick, when land formerly part of Bell Farm was made available for housing development.
The residential area was known
as Boveney New Town, and comprised of Alma, Inkerman and North Field Roads. It had its own parish council,
and soon housed a population of 500, equalling that of Eton Wick parish. Both Parish Councils were then
independent of Eton, and the
two communities were conscious of their own identities, although very much inter-dependent. Later, new organisations
and infrastructures adopted the combined
two-parish title; for example Eton Wick and Boveney Scouts, Eton Wick and
Boveney War Memorial and Eton Wick and Boveney Institute (later renamed the
Village Hall). In addition to this new
development north of the main Eton Wick Road, a few houses were built along the main road in the
1890s, and to the south, Sir Charles Palmer of Dorney developed a long row of terraced houses in Victoria Road.
Possibly the biggest incremental step in
population came between World War II and the late 1960s, by which time the population
was approaching 3000. Much of the post-war building development was carried out by
the Eton Urban District Council (Eton Wick, which
by now included Boveney New Town, lost its independent council in 1934). The new building covered Tilstone Field, the
allotments which laid between Moore's Lane
and the cattle gate to Dorney Common. Privately owned dwellings were built on orchards and pigsties south of Victoria Road and
Tilstone; older dwellings along Common
and Sheepcote Roads were demolished to make way for houses and flats, bringing the population to much the same size as it
is today.
An important feature of Eton Wick has always
been its surrounding Common and Lammas lands, the Rights of which have been jealously guarded over the years.
In 1965 these lands
were registered under the Commons Registration Act and it is only with the consent of the Secretary of State for the
Environment that such lands can be released for development.
|
Frank Bond Chairman, Eton Wick History Group |
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