The Compass No 8

These stamps were based on the designs of the East Window of St. Micheal's Church, Bray and produced in 1972.

“We, the under-signed female inhabitants of the Parish of Bray in the Co. of Berks, with the most profound respect, approach your Majesty for the purpose of expressing the joy we feel that this county is again favoured with your royal presence, adding, at the same time, the hopes we entertain that you will continue to spend among us the remainder of your days, which, we pray God, may be prosperous and happy. Be pleased, Madam, to rest assured that we have long felt the deepest concern for your manifold sorrows, and now feel the utmost indignation at the horrid accusation brought against you, the falsity of which we are thoroughly convinced of.

Although, most Gracious Queen, it is with compunction that we resuscitate painful emotions in your royal and feeling heart, we cannot forbear availing ourselves of the present opportunity to testify the undiminished grief we lie under, for the loss of your amiable and august daughter, Her late Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte, whose early death must ever be deplored, whose memory must ever be revered. Most sincerely, Madam, do we condole with your Majesty on the afflicting deprivation you have suffered by her demise.

We hope, Madam, you will do us the honour to number us among the most faithful, the most loyal, and the most affectionate of your subjects; and we request you to believe that, notwithstanding the exclusion of,your name from the Liturgy, you continue to have our most hearty prayers, for your welfare and preservation, and also for your gaining a complete victory over all your enemies.”

“I gratefully accept this loyal and affectionate address from the female inhabitants of the Parish of Bray in the county of Berks.

It falls to the lot of few, who are wives or mothers, to experience half the cruelties which I have endured. My sufferings, which have been severe in themselves, have been long in continuance. They have been, indeed, extended over a large portion of the life of man; for, if we extend human life to threescore and ten years, which exceeds the common average, twenty-five years are more than one third of the whole; yet I have been the object of a vindictive persecution for more than five-and twenty years. If this persecution shall ever cease, it will not be owing to the extinguished rancour of my enemies, but to the horror it has awakened and the detestation it has excited in every British breast.

(The above extracts are taken from The History and Antiquities of the Hundred of Bray, by Charles Kerry, 1861.)

In May 1866 our father resigned the office of rural dean. He felt the necessity o diminishing his work, and could not be prevailed on to alter his decision in spite of the remonstrance of the Bishop, who wrote as follows:

I dare not press so kind and true a friend, but you will let me say just this much, that I would rather have less frequent meetings, etc., with you that more frequent with another. Would it make any real difference if the See were divided for you ?

His successor was the Rev. George Hodson (brother of Hodson of Hodson’s Horse, well known during the Indian Mutiny). Mr. Hodson, who had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was Vicar of Cookham Dean, and a difficulty as to his taking the post arose from the smallness of his house and the inaccessibility of his lovely but retired parish, in an out-of-the-way corner of Maidenhead Thicket. Our father, therefore, offered that the service and meeting and dinner should still take place in Bray Church and Vicarage. This arrangement made everything easy for his successor, and was a satisfaction to himself. He loved to give, and was thankful to lay down some duties and responsibilities. After the last meeting, in March 1870, he received from Mr. Elliott, Vicar of Winkfield, a man of great earnestness and learning, for whom our father had much respect and regard, a warm letter of gratitude. He said:

For all your large-hearted and liberal-handed hospitality to us for so many years, for all your kind and prudent words of counsel and encouragement, for your invariable courtesy and consideration for each one of us, for the unrestrained freedom of discussion which you have allowed but never suffered to degenerate into personal recrimination, and above all for that influence which cannot be described, but which none can have failed to feel, to which we owe it that so many friendships have beenm formed under your roof, and as far as I am aware none have been lost, we must ever remain your debtors.

Appreciation from such a quarter was a thing to be valued, nor had testimony been wanting from other quarters, showing the high estimation in which our father was held by his clerical neighbours.

He was now in his sixty-eighth year, and began to feel that the care, even of his own parish, weighed more heavily upon him than used o be the case. One trouble of frequent recurrence was the necessity of finding fresh curates, for he still had two, and changes often occurred. At last he decided that if he were to remain at Bray, it was absolutely necessary for him to have the assistance of one of his clerical sons.

Arthur had been ordained by the Bishop of Oxford on December 17 th 1864, and had for two years past been curate to the Rev. J. Llewellyn Davies, in the parish of Christchurch, Marylebone. He returned to live at home, and began his duty as curate at Bray on Christmas Day 1866. This brought his father great relief. To have a son always with him, on whom he could entirely rely, was an inexpressible comfort. Arthur’s presence enabled him still to feel satisfied in keeoing his post at Bray; it was also of much importance as well as a souce of much pleasure to the rest of the family. One cause that often our father feel unfit for hard work was the continuance of his old enemy, sciatica. Duty was constantly attended with suffering, and in August 1868 he went for a month to take the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle, where I was his only companion. At Noellens Hotel we found one friend, the Rev. T.V.Fosbery, Vicar of St. Giles, Reading, and we made some pleasant acquaintances; but the place is not attractive, and we were very glad to go home again at the end of a month. Nor can I remember that the treatment did him very much good.

The autumn absence of the next year, 1869, was spent in much pleasanter places, as we went to Whitby and returned home by Ilkley, visiting Bolton and Rievaulx Abbeys. In the May of this year our father, though no longer rural dean, attended the ruridecanal meeting at Cuddeston in the place of Mr. Hodson, who was ill. It must have been nearly, if not quite, the last of such meetings held there by Bishop Wilberforce, from which he had for more than twenty years hardly ever been absent; but when he had to propose the Bishop’s health after dinner, none could know that it would prove to be something of a farewell speech, as before they could meet again the Bishop had been offered, and had accepted, the Bishopric of Winchester. This severed a connection of twenty-seven years with his Oxford diocese, and was felt as a heavy sorrow by his many warmly attached clergy, and by none probably more strongly than by our father. November 11 must have been a trying day to him. The entry is:

I went with Arthur (and a crowd of other clergymen) to our Bishop’s final visitation in Ch. Ch. Cathedral, Oxford. . . Afterwards to a Meeting in All Souls’ Hall, where Archdeacon Clerk presented an address from the clergy, to which the Bishop read a brief reply, his last public words to his clergy.

I believe it was read because he – the great orator – could not trust himself to speak without breaking down.

In the early summer of 1864 our father accidentally met an old Hampshire friend, Mr. Pole, who asked his to write down some of his recollections of the Vine Hunt and its founder, Mr. Chute. He did so, and in the course of a short time had recalled so much to mind, that the whole formed a small book, which was printed for private circulation under the title of “The Vine Hunt”. As it exists to speak for itself, nothing need be said of it here. The ease and swiftness with which it had been written, showed that no powers of composition were lost, and possibly this may have encouraged him to undertake, a few years later, another work, for which a strong desire had at times been expressed by his family – a memoir of his Aunt Jane. He had been accustomed to answer, when urged on the subject, that, as there was so little to tell, it appeared to him impossible to write anything that could be called “a life”. At length, however -- that is to say, early in 1869 – he agreed to put down what little there was to say. His interest grew as he wrote; he appealed to other members of the family, some of whom had long been unseen by him, and he received assistance from several quarters in the form of letters and manuscripts. In one direction he failed to obtain the information for which he applied, only because the owner was too, old to give it. This was his eldest first cousin, Lady Knatchbull, of Provender, in Kent. She, as Fanny Knight, had been exceedingly intimate with her Aunt Jane, and it was to her that Aunt Cassandra had left many letters from her sister to herself, as well as the MS. Of “Lady Susan”. Her daughter, Miss Knatchbull, who wrote in reply, much regretted that the application had not been made ten years earlier, when she was sure that her mother would gladly have helped with letters and recollections; but her memory was now gone, and she could not remember where the letters had been put away. Miss Knatchbull herself had searched for them more than once, but in vain. After Lady Knatchbull’s death, which did not take place till 1882, the letters were found, and were published in two volumes by her son, Lord Brabourne. Had our father seen them, no doubt they would have been useful, especially if he had been allowed to print the letters addressed to Lady Knatchbull herself when a girl, which conclude the series. The interest of these is great, for they show the writer as she really was; but the value of those to Cassandra is greatly diminished by the fact – well known to our Aunt Caroline – that Cassandra herself carefully destroyed every letter, or passage of a letter, which she considered important or interesting. This was done on principle. She objected to publicity, and for fear of what might possibly be done with these letters in the future, she determined to remove everything that might tempt another generation to publish them, and to preserve only those that dealt with most trivial and ordinary subjects. Having thus, as she considered, destroyed the grain, and left nothing but chaff, she bequeathed the remaining letters to the eldest of her nieces, Lady Knatchbull, knowing her to have been so deeply attached to her Aunt Jane that any of her writings, however worthless to the world, would have a value in her eyes. To those at the very end of the second volume, which were addressed to another niece, our Aunt Anna (Mrs. B. Lefroy), our father was able to have access, fore both she and Aunt Caroline gave him every assistance in their power, and the last pages of the memoir were written by the latter.

The memoir was begun on March 30 th 1869, and was finished early in September. Mr. Bentley, the publisher, brought it out on December 16.

It was thought important that a portrait should appear with it. No professional artist had ever painted Jane Austen as a woman. A portrait of a young girl, by Zoffany, said to be hers, appears in Lord Brabourne’s “letters of Jane Austen”, published in 1884. Of this picture our father had never heard, but his cousin, Miss Austen, daughter of Admiral Charles Austen, lent him a small unfinished portrait of Aunt Jane, painted in water-colours by her sister Cassandra. The picture that appears at the beginning of the memoir was painted by Mr. Andrews, an artist then living at Maidenhead, and was based upon this sketch by Cassandra. He carried it out under the superintendence and with the advice of our father and his two sisters, and when completed they considered the likeness sufficiently good to justify him in offering it to the public as a portrait of Jane Austen. The portrait is now at Hartfield.

The book was very well received and reviewed, and many interesting letters arrived both from known and unknown correspondents, expressing the pleasure they had derived from reading it. These letters and reviews, and those relating to the second edition, are all preserved in a large book, which some of his children had especially arranged for the purpose, by Birdsall of Northampton. The book also contains a series of pencil sketches of imaginary portraits of Jane Austen’s heroines, drawn by the artist, Miss Ellen Hill of Hampstead, who afterwards illustrated the volume called “Jane Austen, her Homes and her Friends”, written by her sister, Miss Constance Hill, and published in 1902.

Ardent admirers of the Austen novels and their writer sent entreaties that they might be told more, if possible, and especially that the unfinished works alluded to in the memoir might be given to the world. The consent of the owners of these manuscripts had first to be obtained before the requests could be seriously considered. For “Lady Susan”, that of Lady Knatchbull was necessary; for “Sanditon”, that of Mrs. Lefroy; and for “The Watsons”, that of Aunt Caroline. All gave their permission, and the tales appeared when the second edition was published in the following year, though of “Sanditon” only extracts and a summary of the unfinished story were given. Our father’s own wish was that they should all be printed at the end of the memoir, as an addition to its contents. He did not desire that any writings which the authoress had not chosen to publish herself should be brought into prominence and advertised as a separate book; and he thought that this had been understood and arranged with the publisher. But when the volume appeared, he found to his regret that it bore the title of “Lady Susan”. This edition of the memoir was, like the first, well received, and letters continued to come at intervals, expressing the writers’ pleasure. It was the publication of this book that rendered possible the various other books that have since appeared, dealing with Jane Austen’s life. This memoir and the letters in Lady Knatchbull’s possession which, after her death, were found and published by her son, Lord Brabourne, are the two sources of original information upon which subsequent writers have been able to draw. A little additional matter also can be found in “Jane Austen’s Sailor Brothers”, by J.H. and E.C.Hubback, published in 1906.

The sum which the two editions brought him amounted, I think, to about £80. Some of this he employed in placing a brass tablet to his aunt’s memory in Winchester Cathedral, and the remainder he divided among such of his relations as would agree to accept it. The tablet was designed by Mr. Wyatt, the architect who had restored Bray Church. It is immediately above her grave, and fills up a recess in the stone panel-work in such a manner that the moulding of the latter encloses it like a frame. It was the first instance of this use being made of the panel-work; but now the example has been followed, and many other panels are thus filled. Another memorial is now to be seen in the stained glass of the window immediately over the tablet, which was placed there by many of her admirers both in England and America, one of the chief promoters of this movement being her great-nephew, Montagu Knight, of Chawton House, Hants.

In September 1923 Newcombe Estates held a large sale entitles “Bray Mill Estate”, with illustrated pamphlets of suggested designs of houses and plans of sites along the revierside. “The plots have generous depths, varying from 140 to 200 feet. The Company will be pleased to submit Plans and Estimates for the Erection of Houses and Bungalows to suit the requirements of prospective purchasers.”

The sale was held in Braymead Court Hotel, later to become the Hotel de Paris. The sale had been well publicised both locally and nationally, and large numbers of bidders were present. They were informed that now t only the Mill, but also its immediate locality, which included what we now know as River Gardens, together with all those properties of Thomas Digby hitherto let to occupiers, were to be sold. But what a shock was in store for the auctioneers! Surprise turned first to dismay and ultimately to disbelief as lot after lot was withdrawn or found no bidder, and at the end of the sale not a single building or plot of land had been sold. Clearly the occupiers were happy with their present “lot” and did not wish to expend a major sum to nuy what was already available to them. Other purchasers were discouraged by the fact that the present occupiers were to be given further occupancy at the current rate for two years, if the house was bought. Nobody liked the sound of what was planned for the area, regarding it as over-population. It was perhaps unfortunate that a news item had previously appeared under the heading “Prospects of a Garden City for Bray”.

The Mill was the main item for sale with its extensive grounds. There was surprise when the bidding stopped at £5,500, and the lot was withdrawn.

The list of properties for sale gives an idea of T.J.Digby’s holdings in the village: FERRY END – no bids at all; BETTONEY VERE—one lot withdran at £600; the rest found no bidder. DEGRESLEY (present Cleeve)—withdrawn at £600. DOVERCOURT (now Dove Lodge) –no bid. HILL HOUSE, withdrawn at £1.600. MARYLAND—withdraw at £1,400. THAMES COTTAGE—withdrawn at £1,650. WATERSIDE COTTAGES –no bidding. HILL HOUSE COTTAGES—no bidding.

NORMANTON (now Picket Post) – withdrawn at £1,900. ROSE COTTAGE—withdrawn at £1.150. RIVER NEAR (now Rickhams)—withdrawn at £1,400. THE HOMESTEAD –all four withdrawn at their opening bid of £200 each. BRAYFIELD COTTAGE—withdrawn at £950. CORNER COTTAGE (now Careless Cottage) withdrawn at £1,000

Thus the big auction proved a disastrous flop, and it took a year or so for individual house to e sold by more direct means.

(This article is taken from BRAY TODAY AND YESTERDAY, by Nan Birney, edited by Richard Russell in the 1998 edition of the book.)

From the warrant issued to the churchwardens in 1293, it appears that the living was in the Crown at that period. “The Rectory was appropriated to the Abbey of St. Mary, Cirencester, between 1293 and 1301, and that religious house presented to the vicarage until the Reformation.”

A very interesting account of the value of the Rectory is to be found in the Inquisitiones Nonarum, a curious record of the returns of jurors to determine the ninth part of the corn, wool, lambs in every parish in England, granted to Edward III in 1340 as an aid for the conquest of France.

(Translation) “Deanery of Reading.”—“John de Shobenhangre, John atte More, Robert de Shyplake, Hug. De Normanville, John de Crueghffelde, William de Rokele, John de Mereworth, Roger de Cressewell, Will. Le Palmere, and Thom. Eyst, being sworn at the Court of the Prior of Wallingford and his assistants, the collectors and disposers of the ninths of the corn, fleece, and lambs, held at Reading on Monday next before the Feast of St. Valentine, 15 th Edward III [1341-2], relative to the value of the ninth of corn &c. granted to our Lord the King by his whole council, declare upon their oath, that the ninths, &c., within the parish of Bray might be valued at 35 marks per ann., and that which the Abbat of Cirencester, rector of the church aforesaid, holds, and which was valued at 55 marks – viz, one messuage and four virgates [100 acres] of land within the taxing aforesaid, are now worth 40 shill:per ann: And the same abbat holds four pieces of meadows with pastures, fisheries, rents, and other customs, belonging to the said church, which they value at 4 marks per ann. And the same abbat, and the vicar of the same church have within the taxing of the said church, the tithe of all the meadows, which is worth 40 shill. per ann. They also declare that to the vicarage of the said church, which was included in the said valuation of 55 marks, pertain the mortuaries, the tithes of the young of animals, calves, pigs, flax hemp, milk and other small tithes, which they value at 10 marks per annum. Furthermore, the said ninths, &c., they do not estimate to the value of the taxing of the aforesaid 55 marks. In testimony of which, to the present indenture the jury aforesaid have placed their seals.

“Being lately part of the poss. of the late Bpp. of Oxen taken. . . in the month of May 1650 by virtue of a Commission. . . grounded upon an Ordinance of Parl. for appointing the sale of Bpp’s lands for the use of the Commonwealth, &c.,

“A fair Rectory or Parsonage House, being a new brick house with out-housing, yards, and gardens enclosed with a brick wall, containing about 2 acres of land, which we estimate to be worth £12 per annum. Severall pieces of errable ground lying together in . . . Holyport-field, near the said parsonage house, containing in all, about 50 acres. . . worth £20 per ann.

“Another parcel of errable lande lying in the ‘Nestie’, containing. . . 4 acres . . . worth 32 shill. per annum. The first crop of 10 acres of meadow, lying neare the the said parsonage house, in a meadow called Wickmead, which said first crop being to be taken between Our Lady Day and the 1 st of August. . . worth £10 per ann.

“There are four small copyholds belonging to the said Rectory, demiseable for three lives. . . but we find not the same called by the name of a manor, viz: one in the possession of Roger Noke, being a house and three acres or errable in the field, valued per ann: 50 shill. Another house, and three acres of errable thereto belonging, in the possession of Mr. Huckle; values at 50 shill. per ann. A little house, &c., in the possession of Richd Kendall, value per ann: 20 shill., and another house, &c., in the possession of Thomas Liany, value 20 shill. In the whole £7 per ann.

“The tithes of corn and hay. . . arising and growing in several townships . . .we estimate to be worth £300 per ann.

“All which premises are, as we are informed, for we could not see the original lease, demised by the late Bpp. of Oxford to Sir Henry Marten, Knt., and by meane assignement came to the sayd Lady Rogers to hold for the lives of George Marten, Henry Marten, and Margaret Marten, and the longest liver of them, paying yearly to the said Bpp. the same £43 per ann; but the same is worth. . . over and besides the said rent, £307 12s 0d per ann. Margaret Marten is dead; the rest of the lives are in being. .

“Mr. Hezekiah Woodward is the vicar and present incumbent of the sayd church, and hath a vicarage house and the small tythes, which, as we are informed by creditable persons of the parish, are worth about three score pounds per ann.

The Rectorial Manor, formerly belonging to the Monastery of Cirencester, was granted in 1547 by Edward VI, to John King, Bishop of Oxford, and his successors in that see. In 1608, Sir John Norris was reported to hold “as tenant to the Bishop of Oxford, the parsonage of the parish of Bray, paying yearly to the King’s majesty 5s, which is the allowance of ye Reeve.”

This estate having been enfranchised by the representatives of the late Mrs. Law, was purchased in 1857 by J.H.Palmer, Esq., of Fulham. It is now [1861] the property and residence of his son, Edward Howley Palmer, Esq.

The house, which is most pleasantly situated on a gently rising eminence, is large and spacious, and contains a small but handsome chapel lighted by five windows of stained glass. The two side lights are by Lavers and Barraud, and contain scenes from the Gospel history. Among the rest are “Mary at the feet of Jesus”, The Burial of our Lord”, and “The visit of the Holy Woman to the Sepulchre”. The three single lights contain quaint medallions representing the “passion of Christ”. Beneath the central window is a brass plate bearing the following inscription:- “This Chapel is dedicated to the Glory of God in memory of John Howley Palmer. He died at Fulham, in the County of Middlesex, on the 7 th of February, 1858, aged 78 years.”

The story of the Woodhouse family may serve as a tribute to all the unsung people of the village. The first two, of whom we have any record, were probably born in the middle of the eighteenth century: K. Woodhouse and Basil Woodhouse. The latter, born in 1752, married Susan, and we know that they ran the Hind’s Head in 1807. The 1817-19 Inclosure Award describes K. Woodhouse as owner of the wharf area, and Basil owned a field which abutted part of the Fishmongers’ land that housed the Jesus Hospital. Basil’s wife died in 1815, and he himself died in 1817.

By this time Basil’s son William Edward Woodhouse had entered the property stakes, owning the land adjoining the area of the wharf owned by K. Woodhouse (roughly where Braybank is situated now). William Edward married and had a son, but his wife Suffina pre-deceased her parents-in-law in 1813 at the tender age of twenty-six.

Their son William, born in 1810, followed in his father’s trade of coal merchant. Their merchandise no doubt arrived at the wharf on the river-bank, from which point they delivered this means of warmth to their clientele. We know from an indenture certificate that in 1834 William Edward decided to provide his son with a comfortable lodging , compared with the small cottages that formed most of the High Street. In 1846 he was recorded as being a victualler and fisherman, living at the George Inn.

William lived longer than most of his predecessors, and is described in the 1881 census as a registration official. He married Sarah, and together they had children whose births spanned seventeen years. Their eldest son was yet another William, who was referred to in later years, and on his gravestone, as William Jnr. He became a farmer, and married Eliza, a bustling companion. William’s next brother was Edward, born in 1840, who became a carpenter and builder, and married Susan. The thirf brother was Henry, born in 1846, who became a noat-builder. At least two further children –Emily (b. 1850) and Alfred (b. 1852) – survived their youth, although Alfred barely so, dying at the age of nineteen.

By now the generations were almost on the point of fusing, as the oldest children of one generation married, while at the same time their parents continued ot give birth. Thus in 1854 the oldest of the next generation, James, was born to William and Eliza, whose family was subsequently augmented by three daughters: Elizabeth, Sarah and Clare. It was most unfortunate that their father, a very popular man, died when only forty-five, and this obliged Eliza to set to work to keep the family going. She became an inn-keeper, and used her daughters to good effect: in the 1881 census the girls are described as “hotel servant”, and we know that Eliza, with one of her daughters, took on the running of the Hind’s Head once more. Thus, at the beginning and the end of the nineteenth century that establishment was in Woodhouse hands. James became a farmer, as did his son Harry and two further generations (Harry and Tony).

Henry (the third child of William and Sarah and brother-in-law of Eliza), the boat-builder, lived at the Ferry in 1897, married and had a daughter, Millie. Both father and daughter were to gain fame; he as a maker of fine punts, and she as a national lady champion at punting. He owned the land on which the houses of The Terrace were subsequently built.

James ran a livery stable which was approached down a lane from the main road, opposite the Hind’s Head (beside the present Junipers). He married, and his first two children were Ethel Mary and William B.Edward who, as Company Sergeant-Major Woodhouse, lost his life in 1917 during the First World War. There were six further children of this union.

Emily Woodhouse, James’s widow, and grand-daughter of a gentleman farmer in Fifield, was responsible for the building of three houses in High Street: Aleyn (No.1 High Street), Junipers, and Delapole. Today there is but one member of the family still living in the village, who farms within sight of the three houses owne by members of the Woodhouse family.

Without the Woodhouses, and others like them, remembered or forgotten, the village life would have been less colourful.

(For more details of those mentioned, see Bray Today and Yesterday, pages 170-1.)

A house called Braymead was built in 1901 alongside the river. It was to be the home of of F.I.Pitman, a stock-broker, and the official starter of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. He lived there in the grand manner, with carriages, footmen and all the rest of the staff necessary for such a domain.

After he left in about 1922, several local people formed a syndicate to run the house as Braymead Hotel, and it was here in 1923 that the great sale of properties took place.

The hotel venture never really prospered under the syndicate, and in 1928 the building started a new career as the Hotel de Paris, deriving its name from its new owners, Mr. Poulson and Mr. Stocco, who were running the Café de Paris in London at the same time. On the riverside there was a large glass terrace restaurant holding fourteen tables. It was used most often in the summer, when the temperature could become almost unbearably hot, and so a constant cascade of water was poured over the glass roof to keep it cool. There was dancing there, either in an indoor ballroom which accommodated 150 people, or on an open-air dance floor on the lawn, which could take 100. An American bar was created from Mr. Pitman’s gunroom, and ten garages beside the Albion at Bray (the local public house) were made out of the stables. Each week-end top-ranking bands and cabaret stars from the Café de Paris, including many famous names, both British and foreign, entertained two to three hundred visitors, who were often equally cosmopolitan. It was famous in its day and provided “jest and youthful jollity” to wealthy visitors, and employment to some of the villagers. It also engaged the services of Mr. Woodhouse to give instruction to its guests on how to manage and steer punts.

During the 1930’s Messrs. Poulson and Stocco sold the hotel to Mr. Charles, and he and his wife carried on the successful business until the second world war.

These were the years of the Bright Young Things, who lived it up as their elders had done in the Naughty Nineties. On one of the rowdiest occasions glass, china, and flowerpots were hurled about, and the manager became very anxious about a large glass showcase containing antique silver and jewellery. All the porters were summoned to form a protective ring around it, but this was too much for the head waiter, who had a heart attack and had to be removed to an office, poor man!

A regular booking was the Guards’ passing-out parade party from Camberley, when there would be up to five hundred guests. At midnight there was always a lemming-like leap into the river by males, clothed or unclothed, but very discreetly from behind the shrubbery.

Neither here nor at the Hind’s Head were coach parties welcomed, but an exception was made once for a golden-wedding party. The host explained that he wanted his guests to be able to drink as much as they liked, and to be transported home, each to his own house. His considerate gesture appealed to the hotel manager, and so the party went ahead.

Other tales of that period are best left untold, but there was at least one permanent effect in the village: the changing of the name Corner Cottage to Careless Corner, because so many departing guests took a wrong turning at this point in Brayfield Road, and, believing they were taking the road to London at that point, they found themselves in a field.