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The sweeping changes which the 20th Century brought to Greenham and Crookham Commons ended a long period of stability, during which the old social order where the lord of the manor presided over cottagers and commoners might have seemed destined to last for ever.
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The coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837 ushered in a unique period of industrial growth in Britain; soon it was businessmen not aristocrats who were the wealthiest people and often they used their wealth to buy into the world of the land-owning gentry. One such man was Lloyd Baxendale, who purchased the Greenham Lodge estate in 1873 for £63,000.
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Lloyd Baxendale |
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His family made their fortune from the Pickfords removals firm and within a few years, Baxendale had commissioned one of the prominent architects of the day, Richard Norman Shaw, to design a new house for him. Completed in 1881, the building survives today. Lloyd died in 1882, when his son, Lloyd Henry (Harry) Baxendale succeeded him as lord of the manor of Greenham.
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The Baxendale family threw themselves wholeheartedly into the business of being "gentry". By 1875 they had largely funded the construction of a new church as well as cottages for the estate staff. Amongst these were Norman Cottages, built for estate workers and possibly named in honour of the Baxendale's architect.
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Mrs. Baxendale built a rest home for sick employees of Pickfords on the southern slopes of the Common; originally called St. Andrew's Home, it was subsequently sold and is now a private house called Brackenhurst.
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Norman Cottages |
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Newbury Racecourse and St. Andrews |
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With the sale of part of the estate in 1904, Baxendale cleared the way for the development of one of Newbury's best-known landmarks - the Racecourse - which lies north of the Common, at the extreme limit of Greenham parish. Baxendale was Chairman of the Newbury Racecourse Company and played an active part in developing the course until his death in 1937.
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The sale of the Greenham Lodge Estate which followed his death allowed the Racecourse Company to purchase further land around the edges of the course. Today, Newbury is one of the finest courses in the country.
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Developing his sporting interests, Lloyd Baxendale leased a further part of his estate to form the Newbury Golf Club in 1923. He was one of the founding syndicate of the Club, which was established on 120 acres of parkland to the east of Greenham Lodge. The Lodge's stables and laundry were converted for use as the Clubhouse.
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This was not the first golf course on the Commons. At the eastern end, Albert Richard Tull, lord of the manor of Crookham, had been a founder of the Crookham Golf Club in 1873, one of the first inland courses in England. The Tull family are recorded as owning land in the area since the fourteenth century and were more typical of the traditional country 'squirearchy' than their neighbours at Greenham Lodge. Richard's son, Albert S.B. Tull was High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1927; after his death in 1954, his ceremonial banner was displayed in Thatcham church, where it may still be seen.
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Tull was the Club's first president. Originally, the Club had met in a room at theTravellers' Friend, a mile or so to the west of Tull's home, Crookham House.
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Albert R. Tull |
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As the club prospered, a separate club house was built next to the Volunteer Inn, which was situated on Greenham Common itself. The future seemed secure, but radical changes were in the air: the Crookham House Estate was sold in 1939 and in the following year, as war clouds gathered, Greenham and Crookham Commons were requisitioned; soon the greens and fairways, the clubhouse and the Volunteer Inn had disappeared beneath the runways of RAF Greenham Common.
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With the war over, the committees of both clubs met under the chairmanship of Albert Tull. It was decided that they should amalgamate and that, if possible, the course should be purchased from the landowner, Captain Guy Baxendale (son of the former lord of the manor of Greenham) from whom it was being rented. Negotiations were not complete until 1952, when Newbury and Crookham Golf Club Ltd. was officially formed, owning its course and premises. The amalgamated Club flourished and is now one of the best known features of the northern slopes of the Common.
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The Volunteer Inn |
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The parkland of Greenham Lodge made good hunting country and the Craven Hunt met there once a year.
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It is not easy today to appreciate how self-sufficient most people had to be and that a visit to Newbury, only a few miles distant was a major and unusual event. Equally, a visit to the common was a favourite day out; in the West Berkshire Museum's collection is this carefully posed picture of a picnic on the common in 1910. Even as late as 1950, the Mayor of Newbury, J.H.Hole, took a group of elderly folk on an outing to Greenham Common.
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Even the larger houses were lit by oil or by gas generated from a domestic plant and cooking might be on a coal range or paraffin stove. Water would be pumped to a roof tank from a nearby spring or well. This was not always ideal: a report of 1874 records that a twenty-foot deep well at Greenham Vicarage produced water with a 'disagreeable odour'.
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Greenham's first vicarage |
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Holly Tree Cottage |
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Some fortunate homes may have had an oil engine to generate enough electricity to power a few lights.
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Very few ordinary homes had cars and it was accepted that children would walk to school at Greenham or Crookham across the open spaces of the commons, or to collect bread, which was baked in a wood-fired oven at a bakery in Crookham, whilst a trip to Newbury on the carrier's cart was great event.
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Baker's cart, Greenham |
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There were still flourishing rural industries, such as the turnery works on Crookham Common, which used coppiced hazel wood to make broom and mop handles. In addition the Volunteer Inn held an annual sale of brushwood, doing a roaring trade in pea sticks, beanpoles and the like for the many cottage gardens. Not everyone waited for the sale – a newspaper report of 1896 tells how a number of men were charged with stealing fir trees from the common, in the mistaken belief that they had a right to them as they were on common land.
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As a matter of course most people attended church or chapel; this Sunday duty was part of the seemingly changeless routine of country life. Just as the lords of the manors at Greenham Lodge and Crookham House inspired respect – even fear – so the vicar of Greenham was an important local figure, visiting the many poor and sick in the parish and sometimes helping them financially from his own pocket.
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Greenham vicarage was typical of many Victorian parsonages; by the beginning of the 20th century it had become too big for modern needs. Cold and damp and with an air of fading gentility, it was a symbol of an age that was itself fading. The building was sold and Chapel Farm, closer to the church, was purchased as the new vicarage in 1939, a role it fulfilled until the 1970s, when the present modern house was built.
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Chapel Farm, Greenham |
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Perhaps the most evocative picture of late Victorian and Edwardian life on the Commons may be found in the childhood memories of local people - their reminiscences help us to imagine a way of life which has almost totally disappeared. Read some of them in the "What They Said" section.
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Catherine Coventry, writing of her childhood at Foxhold in about 1920:
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"Beyond Brushwood lay a wild gully...had to wear socks and shoes"
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(From Bonham-Carter, p.16)
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Mary Blagden, daughter of the vicar of Greenham, writing of her childhood at Greenham in about 1920.:
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"Greenham for me...set foot in one"
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(From Bonham –Carter, p.18)
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For the history of the racecourse, see:
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Osgood, F. "The Story of Newbury Racecourse" , 1993 ISBN 0 86204 1384
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For the story of golf on the commons, see:
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Bowness, B. "The Golf Courses of Newbury and Crookham", 1996 ISBN 0 907186 70 X
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Evocative images of life on the Commons at the beginning of the 20th century may be found in:
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Bonham-Carter, V. "What Countryman, Sir?" Privately printed, B-C Press, 1997
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Foster, Norman: "Here Was My Heart – A History of Greenham Common 1920 –1940" Braunton, Devon, 1988 ISBN 0 86303 393-8
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Stone Age to the Romans
Victorian Pleasures and County Life
