Photographic History of Eton Wick and Eton - Community Organisations and Social Life - Eton Wick Cricket Club

The Cricket Club was founded c1889 and played in its early seasons on the Great Common. After the 1914/18 War, home fixtures were played on Saddocks Farm, where rural outfield attracted several regular visiting teams. 

Winning Club Team of 1931

The photograph was taken on the occasion of the Club winning the District Cup in 1931 In the back row: Norman Lane, Harry Cook, John Lane, unidentified, Ted Moss. 

Centre row: unidentified, Ern Bryant, Sid Harman, (?) Percy, Arch Bryant, Fred Hammerton, Jack Stacey, Frank Lane, Hugh Haverly, and umpire Mr Henry. 

In the front: the first two on the left are unidentified, Tich Prior, Bill Moss, Edwin Buckland, Ted Morris and resident farmer, Arthur Tarrant. Saddocks Farm House is in the background. 

Leading the team in is Doug Tarrant, in sequence behind him are his brother Reg (sons Arthur), George Lewis (Clerk to Eton Town Council), Doug Slade, Jack Stacey, Stan Allaway, Stan Hewett, Ian Lewis (George's son) and Bert Prior. The photograph was taken in the mid-1950s; the club closed down in the 1960s. 

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

Photographic History of Eton Wick and Eton - Community Organisations and Social Life -Eton Wick Athletics 1952

 

The Eton Wick Minors F.C. changed its name to Eton Wick Athletic when it formed a senior team from former players in 1949/50. In 1952 the two village clubs Eton Wick United and Eton Wick Athletic amalgamated, becoming the Eton Wick F.C. Success was instant and the merged club won the much coveted Slough Town Senior Cup for the first time. They have won the cup again a number of times since. 

Captain Jack Ling is holding the cup aloft in this photograph. The team is, from left to right: 'Tich' Keen, John Batt, Mick Sibley, 'Roily' Woodley, John Grant, Jack Ling, Ron Carter, John Sheehan, Alf Vickers and Ron Pitcher. 

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

Coronation of King Charles III on 6th May 2023

We will all be celebrating on this day, and a number of events are planned in and around the village. which may be covered elsewhere in this magazine edition. The village hall will be handling both ends of the age spectrum, by giving a Coronation mug to every under 18,¹ and providing a lunch in the hall for those who will be now experiencing their second coronation.² 

We have just experienced something that everybody living in the UK today will almost certainly never see, that is a monarch reigning for 70 years in Elizabeth II. The reasons for Elizabeth coming to the throne at the tender age of 27 were pretty unprecedented, namely two world wars. an abdication and a reluctant King who smoked to excess and died in his 50's. 

Although Elizabeth was at a tender age in 1952, she was not the youngest queen. that title belongs to Mary Queen of Scots who came to the throne in 1542 aged 6 days. Henry VI. a local lad born in Windsor Castle. came to the throne in 1429 aged 8 months and 26 days. Henry had an eventful reign. also being king of France, he had his own local issues with Scotland. and also some with the French, so nothing much changes does it? In his spare time Henry set up Eton College and had a pub in Eton named after him. Our own King Charles III now holds the record as the oldest monarch to take the throne at 73. 

Barring tragedies Charles will be succeeded by William V and he by George VII. so if you check their various ages and do the maths you will see why we state that no-one living today will see another 70-year reign. 

Anecdotes — These are a few anecdotes collected from °Wickites" who remember snippets from their childhood at the time of the death of George VI and the coronation of Elizabeth II. 

Apologies in advance if any of them have misremembered, they were very young, and it was an awfully long time ago!! 

"My first memory is arriving at Porny playground. There is an uninterrupted view of the Round Tower. The flag was at half-mast. I burst into tears. I was inconsolable. My world as I knew it had changed forever. My next memory (presumably a few days later) is of the whole school being walked up Castle Hill to watch the procession for the proclamation of Elizabeth II at Victoria's statue. 

Just before coronation day all Porny children were presented with a coronation mug by a local dignitary. My parents had a Coronation party for friends and family at their newly built home in Tilstone Close. I had a new dress (a rare occurrence). It was blue and white with a beautiful. smocked bodice. bought from the Bunny Shop in Eton High Street. I thought it was lovely. 

My maternal grandparents bought me a die-cast model of the Golden coach with its 8 Windsor Greys (I don't know what happened to it). We all crowded around a small piece of furniture. with a 9° screen and a magnifying screen in front of it to watch the proceedings. Afterwards my dad was passing round drinks and cigarettes from a wooden box. I took one. He said -You've taken it lady, now you can smoke it". It was awful. I coughed and coughed. felt sick and dizzy and have never put a cigarette between my lips since!! 

My younger brother remembers standing outside Tom Brown Tailors with his classmates to watch the Queen in an open carriage with lots of horses and soldiers on her way to Windsor. (I have no recollection of this). Nearly everyone eventually went to the ABC Cinemas in Thames Street to watch the coronation on the big screen and see pictures of Hilary and Tensing on top of Everest. We all clapped and cheered." 

Jacquie aged 10½ in 1953 

"Myself, and my younger sister, lived on the main road at the junction with Tilstone Avenue. We had a street party in Tilstone and it was organised by Mrs Wilkes and Mrs Wilson. There were lots of tressle tables and benches (I don't know where they came from). My mum had to borrow lots of small bowls as she was in charge of making the jellies. They were left to set in the back porch and covered with a sheet. She also made lots of rock cakes. My auntie made bowls of fruit punch and Bonds supplied some fruit. We were very excited watching balloons being blown up with a pump. (Could it have been helium?) We went to the brook at Dorney Common edge to let them go. We didn't want to lose them. balloons were a special treat and some of the children got upset. We watched the Coronation on our newly bought SM screen television. The Village Hall had lots of decoration and there was bunting around the rec. 

Pat Cole aged 14 and Nita aged 8 in 1953 

"My father had a position with what was then known as the War Office (later Ministry of Defence) in Whitehall. He had been able to secure tickets for seats at an upstairs window on the route of the Coronation Procession from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace for my brother Philip (15 years old) and me (11 years old). I cannot recall many details now 79 years after the event but do recall how lucky we felt and how excited we were at the time. 

Shortly after Coronation Day there was a Royal carriage procession along Eton High Street which was decorated with bunting. I believe this procession continued over Windsor bridge and up to the castle. Pavements were lined with excited loyal subjects cheering the new Monarch. We lived at 122 High Street. Eton practically opposite the entrance to Porny school and had a balcony which gave us great views of the procession as it passed by. I have a small photograph taken at the time from an upstairs window. I also have feint recollection of a street party along the length of Eton High Street which I feel sure was replicated on a national scale.' 

Mike Newland - 6 February 2023 

I was living with my parents and grandparents in Eton Square and went to Eton Porny School. We didn't have a television, so we went to my aunt and uncles in Spingfield Road, Windsor and watched the Coronation and what I think was a 12" Bush TV with a magnifying glass in front on the screen. We were all excited because my uncle Mac was in the procession and followed the Coronation coach and was the Royal Standard bearer. He was a regimental Corporal Major in the Royal Horse Guards which later become the Blues and Royals. As I recall the weather that day was wet and the only memory I have is seeing Queen Saloti of Tonga who insisted on riding in an open top carriage and getting soaked: 

Barry Alder aged 10½ in 1953 

We thank all the above for their interesting anecdotes. In terms of street parties, we are told they were in The Wheatbutts field and on what was known as the 'new' Rec (opened in 1952 by Prince Philip), alongside numerous gatherings on a street-by-street basis. On a more sombre basis we also received memories of the funeral of King George VI. and his journey from the ceremony to where he is entombed, at Windsor Castle. He was taken to Windsor Central station by special train. 

Children from Eton and Eton Wick were taken to watch the train cross the viaduct from Chalvey to Windsor, those lucky enough to live on the right side of Somervile Road could actually watch from their back gardens! Similarly, those elder children attending Ragstone Road secondary school³ could watch from their playground. For those with an interest in railways the locomotive hauling the train was No. 4082 Windsor Castle'. 

We would hope that all our readers will enjoy the coronation weekend, maybe a unique one in history, hopefully there will be plenty of events in or around the village, and if nothing else the young ones will appreciate another day off off school and extra cakes, as they did on Coronation Day 1953. 

As previously mentioned, the Village Hall trustees will be organising Coronation celebration mugs for village children, together with a large screen broadcast and lunch in the Village Hall for our senior citizens. 

Note 1

Note 2

Note 3 Ragstone Road secondary school is now called Slough and Eton Church of England Business & Enterprise College.

This article is republished here with the kind permission of the Eton Wick Village Hall Committee. It was published in the April 2023 edition.

The Story of a Village - A Changing Community

In past centuries the village expanded several times, but never quite so overwhelmingly as in the post war period. In 1931 the population was just over a thousand, it had risen to 1,640 by 1951, to 2,505 ten years later and now must be nearly three thousand.

With the influx of so many people into the village its inhabitants could no longer feel that each family was related to most others in the Wick. Probably this had never been strictly true; but by marriage and by recognising second cousins and the like, most families had indeed been related. The character of the village was changing in other ways. No longer was the College the most important source of income and employment for the majority of families, and less and less did College people take an interest and control of village affairs. The old gulf between gentry, epitomised in the Wick by College masters, and villagers gradually disappeared. Today new residents may be unaware of the old ties between Eton and Eton Wick. When Mr Vaughan died in 1940 his place as unofficial squire was taken by Bob Bond. Their backgrounds were very different, but both men were intensely interested in the village. It was Bob Bond who was reappointed bailiff at the 1948 Manor Court; he was instrumental in restarting the Boy Scouts after the war, he helped organise gymkhanas, dances and the annual Scout Fete ( which took the place of the old Horticultural Show). He also became the first president of the PTA.

The horse had virtually disappeared from the agricultural scene; though not entirely for George Pagett set up as a smallholder soon after the war and continued to use horses until the 1970s. The car and the lorry replaced the horse and cart, and garages became a necessity. Mr Sibley opened his filling station in 1958 and Ellis Motors were established in Victoria Road. People travelled more and taking holidays became the normal and not the exceptional way of life. Whereas in pre-war days people walked, cycled or used the bus to go to school, work or shopping, the use of the car became more and more the accepted practice. This transport revolution has brought in its wake other changes, such as the loss of the old road which ran from Haywards Mead to Meadow Lane in Eton and which is now only a bridle path. The Windsor Bridge has been closed to vehicle traffic and bus services have been cut, accentuating the hardship of those without a car. The roads are all macadamized and edged with pavements, and there is a profusion of street furniture road signs, electric streetlamps, bus shelters, pillar boxes, telephone kiosks and seats. Most of these have been provided by the statutory authorities, but the seat by Albert Place was the gift of the Women's Institute and the one in the churchyard in memory of Bob Bond.

Soon after the war, in line with national educational changes, Eton Wick School became a primary school, catering for both boys and girls from the ages of five to eleven; while older children were expected to attend secondary schools outside the village. However, it was still a church school, though the diocese was now responsible only for the fabric of the building and not the salaries of the teaching staff or the education of the children. To cater for the needs of the growing population the school was enlarged in 1953 and again in the sixties, but on that occasion the cost was such that a change of management became inevitable and the school was taken over by the County Council. In 1973 national policy brought about another change and the school became the combined infants and middle school with children being required to stay an extra year. But, though its title, appearance and teaching methods have changed over the years, because now almost all 'the children from Eton Wick are taught there, it has become even more the village school than in the years before the war when the older boys attended Porny School.

In spite of the addition of twelve new shops since the war there are now proportionately fewer shops per head than before the war. Several of the older shops have indeed closed and there is only one, Sibley's, in the area of New Town. The village has lost its priest-in-charge and Rev Christopher Johnson is now the only Church of England clergyman serving the parish of Eton, a sharp contrast to the situation a hundred years ago, when the parish was desperately trying to afford to employ two curates to assist the Vicar. Instead the village now has three churches, the Roman Catholic St Gilbert's having been built at the same time as Haywards Mead. The Village Hall stands close by and is still used for a baby clinic and library, but the role of the Hall has substantially diminished.  No longer is there a Village Hall Club; the Management Committee is concerned only with the maintenance of the building and the hiring of Its rooms. It has been overshadowed by its offshoot, the Football and Social Club, whose club rooms stand just behind the Hall. Some organizations still meet in the Hall, but others now use the rival establishment, and the whole of the ground floor is let to the County Council. Even the Village Fete, first organized by the Management Committee in 1962 and then the Youth Club, has now been taken over by the Football and Social Club, and since the mid-sixties it has been known as the Wicko Carnival.  The loss to the village of Wheatbutts Field when it was sold by the College brought about the end of the Scout Fete.

The list of changes seems inexhaustible, but it must suffice to mention only a few more and perhaps it is fitting that these should concentrate on the part of the parish first known as 'le Wyk'. The streams are now much shallower, the ponds filled in and the westernmost part of the common has recently been landscaped. Trees have  always been part of the village landscape, but unfortunately several beautiful elms had to be cut down in the 1950s. Hedges and trees have been grubbed up and in the last few years more elms have been lost through disease so that the area around Little Common has a rather open, desolated look.  It has been one more step in the succession of changes that has taken place since the first cluster of buildings established a wick in a clearing in the woods of Eton. Thankfully Eton Wick is still a village which will continue to evolve and, it is hoped, will remain surrounded and protected by commons and lammas lands.

This is an extract from The Story of a Village: Eton Wick 1217 to 1977 by Judith Hunter.

This is the final part of the serialisation of The Story of a Village - Eton Wick - 1217 - 1977. The Eton Wick History Group is most grateful for the kind permission of Judith Hunter's husband to publish her book on its website.

The village and community has continued to change and evolve since Judith completed her history more than 40 years ago and some of this change is reflected in The Eton Wick Newsletter - Our Village and the Photographic History of Eton Wick and Eton.

The Story of a Village - World War Two and After

With the war came other changes and new kinds of hardship - air raids, the blackout, rationing, gas masks and men away fighting. Women were drafted into factory work and homes and family life adjusted as evacuees from London were made welcome. The Village Hall was used as a school room for the evacuated children and equipped for use as a First Aid Post and Rest Centre. The Minute Books of the Institute tell of whist drives and dances organised as part of the war effort, especially during ‘Wings for Victory Week’ in 1942 and 'Salute the Soldier' Week the following year. Occasionally the Hall was used for billeting soldiers and, as in every other town and village, uniforms became part of the pattern of life. A gun site was established on Dorney Common close to Eton Wick and the noise shattered many a night's sleep. Eton Wick was lucky, however; a few bombs did fall on the village, but did very little damage, and the explosion which set a field alight seemed quite spectacular at the time. Men on active service were not so lucky; twelve lost their lives as the War Memorial at the church bears witness.

The story of Eton Wick during the war is not much different from that of any English village, but the 1940s mark a watershed in the history of Eton Wick. Change has always been taking place, albeit at times almost imperceptibly; but at this time the changes were to be great and far-reaching. Within a decade of the end of the war the long straggling rural village with its close-knit community had disappeared; its place taken by a larger dormitory village, top heavy with council houses.

The first new houses built were twelve 'prefabs' on part of Bell's Field. They were meant to be temporary, but instead provided good if not beautiful homes for more than twenty years. They were built towards the end of the war, and the first post war houses completed the development of the Bell's Field Site; the pale pink colour of the bricks is a constant reminder of the shortage of good facing-bricks at this time. A year or so later Tilston Field (north of the Eton Wick Road) was bought from Eton College for the first housing estate in the village itself. Great care was taken over the design of the housing and roads; trees, shrub borders and a small recreation ground were included to improve the amenities of the estate. Five fine police houses were built fronting the main road, and the Council were proud enough of the scheme to enter the completed half of the estate for the Ministry of Health Housing Medal in 1951. In the following year Prince Philip officially opened the estate at a small informal ceremony. Meux's Field was also bought by the Council and here were laid out Princes Close and a shopping parade, making altogether over two hundred houses and seven shops.

The main road from Moores Lane to Dorney Common was considerably widened and a shrub border planted in front of the estate and, as if to mark the change in appearance, its name was changed from Tilston Lane to Eton Wick Road. There was a zest for rebuilding and not only in bricks and mortar. Many of the clubs which had sunk into the doldrums during the war were revived and new ones founded. The first of these was probably the Youth Club which was started in 1946, followed by the Over Sixties Club in 1947 and a few years later the Parent Teacher Association, the Unity Players and the Young Wives. The Village Hall was still the centre of much of the social life of the Wick and great efforts were made to put it on a sound footing after the war. In 1950 it was redecorated by voluntary help, electricity was installed and in the following year it was enlarged by the addition of a covered forecourt. Two issues of a magazine called ' Our Village ' were published by the Institute as it was still sometimes called, and for several years from 1950 a Village Hall Week was held in the early part of the year. Village football became so popular that a Minors' Club was formed. When this proved very successful a second team of young men too old to stay in the minors' team had to be started. Eventually the club was renamed the Eton Wick Athletic Club and there was even more cause for 'Up the Wick' to be heard each Saturday.

The village was still growing; in the mid- and late 1950s private housing completed the redevelopment of the Wick west of Bell Lane with the laying out of Cornwall Close, Queens Road, Tilstone Close and the northern extension of Bell Lane. There was very little other building land available; the confirmation of the rules and regulations of the commons and lammas lands at the Manor Court held in College Hall at Eton in 1948 made it impossible to use these lands. Instead a compromise was agreed; lammas rights were not extinguished but transferred from land needed for redevelopment to parts of Bell Farm, which had been freed from rights when it became a sewage farm. In this way part of South Field was used to build Hayward's Mead estate early in the 1960s, and part of Sheepcote Field for the flats next to the school some years later. These were both council schemes, but the latter was part of a redevelopment plan for the village which included the demolition of the 'prefabs' and neighbouring houses in Alma Road and replacing them by Bell's Field Court and a row of shops. Castle View Terrace in Sheepcote Road and some of the Clifton Cottages were also pulled down to make way for the dark bricks of the private 'Georgian' style houses, while Sheepcote Road itself was given a new curving line. A few years earlier the Victorian houses of Albert Place and Victoria Terrace had been demolished and new houses and flats built in their place. A few houses have been built behind Bell Farm and the old people's flats of Clifton Lodge now star on the site of Hardings Cottages. Finally - and surely it must be finally for there is now almost no land left that can be built upon without infringing the common rights - Bunces Close has been built on land freed from lammas rights when South View was planned soon after the First World War. 

This is an extract from The Story of a Village: Eton Wick 1217 to 1977 by Judith Hunter.

The Duke of Edinburgh visit to Eton Wick - 1952

Pathe News film of Prince Philip in Eton Wick

The Duke of Edinburgh opens the Stockdales Road Recreation Ground, October 14th 1952. The Duke, escorted by Jim Ireland, local builder and Chairman of the Eton Urban District Council, unveils the Plaque commemorating the opening. The much older existing recreation ground (by Eton Wick Village Hall) and the Eton Town Recreation Ground were established using money paid by the Great Western Railway in the 1890s as compensation for the railway viaduct constructed on Lammas ground in 1849. 

The newly built Stockdales Road flats overlook the dais as Council Chairman Jim Ireland makes his speech welcoming the Duke of Edinburgh. On the left-hand end of the dais is Councillor Bert Wolfe, Mrs Ireland, Clerk to the Eton Council George Lewis (white shirt and tie) and Mayor Jennings of Slough. Mr McKinnon, Bursar of Eton College stands behind the Duke, and the Deputy Chief Constable is on the Duke's left.

Jim Ireland and Prince Phillip

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

The children's play ground was modernised in 2008 with funds raised by the Eton & Eton Wick Partnership. The first edition of Our Village has an article about this.

The Eton Wick Newsletter - April 2014 - `Our Village' Magazine

`Newtown' and beyond Bell Lane In previous newsletters we have seen the development of Eton Wick (in the Parish of Eton) having many building restrictions, imposed by Commons, Lammas, Farms etc., and of course the boundary West of the Parish being Bell Lane and beyond into the Parish of Burnham. This may seem inconvenient, but surely it is the attraction of our village; being surrounded by the countryside. Other local villages such as Upton, Chalvey and Cippenham have been 'swallowed up' by an ever expanding Slough. We are able to walk North, South, East or West through open country or along the river bank and usually return by a different route without fear of trespass. 

To the East is Eton Town and College and growth of the village in that direction was not possible. The town was ever short of building sites to meet its own needs. In fact in the early post Great War years (early 1920s) Eton wanted to build homes to re-accommodate its own families. They were obliged to negotiate with the Eton Wick Council (independent 1894 — 1934) to change the boundary of Town to Village from the 'Sleds' to Broken Furlong, thereby enabling Eton to develop part of their new holding; and Somerville Road with housing, was created. Apart from the boundary change, it became necessary to switch the Lammas grazing rights of Broken Furlong to a like acreage across the main road. 

Without this 'switch' it would not have been permissible to build on Lammas designated land, as a certain Mr Thomas Hughes could have testified over seventy years earlier. In 1846 he had built two houses on land he owned in the village. The land however, known as Tilstone Shot, was subject to Lammas, which prompted a sharp reaction from villagers, and a subsequent court case, held in Aylesbury, ordered the houses to be taken down. 

This exchanged Lammas area opposite Broken Furlong is of course the area that was in dispute in 2007 for the proposed can park, and possible rail halt. The houses and new road were built in early to mid-1920s and named 'Somerville' in, presumably, recognition of the Town Council Chairman, Mr Somerville, whose negotiations with the village had been so successful. It is easily seen then that Eton Wick could not readily expand to the East, and before Boveney Newtown (c. 1880s) came about any thoughts of building west of the Bell Lane boundary was restricted by the land between the lane and Dorney Common being farm land or privately owned; much of it by the Palmer family of Dorney Court. 

Apart from the main through road there were no other roads in this Burnham Parish area, except perhaps Moores Lane, a rough earth track leading to Cippenham and Slough. It could not have been Moores Lane in those early days because Mr Moore had not yet arrived from Rotherhithe. It was perhaps an unusual situation where Bell Farm was situated just inside of the Eton/Burnham boundary, enjoyed the Lammas grazing of Eton and yet had much of its farm lands over the stream and in Burnham. 

Some limited building had taken place across the border by the late 19th Century. The Shepherd's Hut public house had its first beer license in 1833 — this was probably the only dwelling along Tilstone Lane (main road). Bell Farm had built a few farm labourer cottages — some in the lane and eight more built at right angles in what later became Alma Road. They were demolished around 1970 to make way for the flats of todays' Bellsfield Court — again appropriately named. 

Not until 1870 when, following a deteriorating situation with regard to the Eton Town and College sewage that Eton Council purchased Bell Farm, planning to pump their waste the mile and half to the village farm, where in accordance with common practice at that time it would be spread over furrowed land and reputedly was very good for root and other crops. The Council were not farmers, and needed to engage a manager, and to 'shed' some of its acreage. In 1875 they sold seven acres of farm land, just across the stream and border, to Mr Bott of Common Road, Eton Wick. Unfortunately Bott had now stretched his finances to the point of having overreached himself, and within five years had sold his seven acre site to Mr James Ayres, who had an eye for business. Ayres sold off the recently acquired farm land, plot by plot. A single house here, a block or terraced now there; eventually, and within a few brief years new roads and their dwellings were covering the seven acres. Here was Alma Road, Inkerman and later Northfield Roads — not yet Eton Wick, this new development in the Burnham ward was called Boveney Newtown. Its population was a little larger than neighbouring Eton Wick, and being new was perhaps even more vibrant, but in some ways dependent. It had no school for its children, and they were meant to go to Dorney, but of course with no bus service the bleak track across Dorney Common in winters and on wet summer days made this beyond expectations. Eton Wick's small school at the top of The Walk was inadequate, so in 1886 the Crown provided land in Sheepcote for a larger school which served both communities for the next sixty or so years when post war extensions were carried out. 

An amusing (or was it) story of the interim period was related by a Mr Talbot. The influx of Newtown children into the original single room school necessitated a platform upper room for infants. Temporary and crude the floor was a plank affair and it was not uncommon for an infant needing the toilet, perhaps left it too late, and the lower, older class got a 'dripping' from above. Needing to spend a penny, or 'pennies from heaven'? Where was health and safety in the 1880s?

'Newtown' was all that was built each side of Alma Road and the development of Inkerman, Northfield Road and Bell Lane. One field opposite the Shepherd's Hut and South from Alma Road, between Bell Lane and Moores Lane was retained for grazing for about fifty years, until Vaughan Gardens were built in the late 1930s by the Council, and at the end of WW2 twelve prefabricated homes were built immediately East of Vaughan Gardens. West of Moores Lane to Dorney Common (North of Tilstone Lane) [main road] there were no houses until after WW2 when the Eton Council developed the entire area, including the roads of Colenorton Crescent, Boveney New Road and Stockdales. This area was largely covered with allotments until after WW2. Across the main road (South) much of the land was owned by Mr Palmer of Dorney and had not been built on.

Probably the development of farm land for 'Newtown' prompted the Dorney owner to similarly use his land. In 1896 he had a long terraced row of sixteen houses built in what we now know as Victoria Road. Again very appropriately named because 1898 was the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The houses not so appropriately named, being 'Castle View Terrace' and facing due South one would be hardly likely to see the castle in the East. Further development at this time came along the main road and at the end of 'Castle View' gardens. These, and the houses built past the entrance road to Victoria Road (now named 'Victoria' also, but originally known as Hogarth Road in acknowledgement of Mr Hogarth — area administrator to Mr Palmer) attracted business men and others from Windsor and Eton following the 1894 flooding. Victoria Road was a cul de sac for nearly sixty years when the Meux (Shepherds' Hut) field was developed for Princes Close estate in the 1950s. 

Other post WW2 developments included Queens Road and Cornwall Close (private), the East side of Tilstone Avenue and Tilstone Close (also private) and of course much in the old Eton Wick village. It takes more than housing to give a place character and perhaps in a future magazine I can speak of the people who changed the village and gradually brought the two communities together. There were farmers, and of course people like Mr Moore who had followed his newly wed daughter to Newtown; and the strength of both in imposing themselves in such a constructive way. In conclusion now though I will come back to names of roads. Alma and Inkerman are scenes of hard fighting between Britain and France against Russia in the mid-1850s; in the Crimean War, and some twenty five to thirty years before Newtown's main roads were built and presumably named. Why? It was so long after the conflict. Who chose the names? Was it James Ayres? He is listed as a local Market Gardener. Coincidence I doubt. In Alma Road is a house named Galata Cottage. 'Galata' was the height overlooking the river Alma. If you have the answer, please do join in and share it. 

Not content with sending their sewage to Eton Wick, thirteen years later and following infectious diseases in Eton, including Small Pox, they built a Cottage Isolation Hospital between Bell Farm and Saddocks Farm of Eton Wick. This went out of use in c.1930. This small hospital would never be used by residents of Eton Wick, who were obliged to go to Cippenham on account of not being within the relevant Sanitary District. 

Submitted by Frank Bond 

Click here to read Our Village April 2014.

This article was originally published in the Eton Wick Newsletter - Our Village as is republished with the kind permission of the Eton Wick Village Hall Committee. Click here to go to the Collection page.