Wargrave Local History Society

WARGRAVE Local History Society’s December meeting was the Christmas party, when members enjoyed delicious festive fare prepared by Wendy Smith.

During the evening, the society’s secretary showed some items “From the Archives”, with photographs recently added to the collection.

On this occasion, they covered a slightly wider area than the village itself, with images from over the last century or so.

The earliest was from 1915, when Empire Day was celebrated in Crazies Hill on May 25 and young people received a certificate for “helping to send some comfort and happiness to the brave sailors and soldiers of the British Empire, fighting to uphold liberty, justice, honour and freedom in the Great War”.

The original postcard had been printed back to front and was able to be turned round the right way to be shown.

Similar celebrations took place at Robert Piggott Junior School on June 14, 1983 when it marked midsummer with the crowning of a May Queen and her attendants, country dancing and dancing around a Maypole. The pupils taking part will now be approaching 50 years old.

The following year, the school’s “middle team” made an educational visit to Henley on June 21.

This included a climb to the top of the St Mary’s Church tower, where a view looking along Hart Street towards the town hall was captured.

At that time, the traffic was allowed to flow in both directions in Market Place, although the central area that had been used for parking had been paved over and lined with trees on both sides.

The rivers have had an impact on village life for centuries and from the early 20th century houseboats were moored along the banks of the Loddon to be followed by development on the adjacent plots.

At the time few mains services were available there, so these homes were really only suitable to be used as summer houses — a charming thatched cottage built up on piers to be clear of the floodwaters that can affect the area, as could be seen in a 1990 picture where the land on both sides of the river was under water from the St George and Dragon to Henley Sailing Club.

Changes in the wider area included views in Reading, which had several department stores in times past, and where trolleybuses existed until 1968 and tram tracks were still in place over 30 years after they last ran.

The building of the local motorways featured in Seventies images and other views showed how parts of the town centre have changed over the last 50 years.

From the pre-motorway era, vehicles within the village included W H Oliver’s bakery delivery van and the local fire engine, with its crew, both pictures dating from the early Thirties.

Although the provision of a military hospital in Wargrave to treat wounded soldiers during the First World War is well documented, less well known is a similar provision during the Second World War when the large house, then known as Parkwood, at Crazies Hill was taken over for convalescent patients.

It was run by the Red Cross, as shown by the emblem on the bibs of the nurses’ uniforms in a picture taken in 1945.

Examples of aerial photographs from the Sixties and Seventies revealed changes in the landscape and village development.

Down at ground level, the most recent picture shown was one taken at the bottom of Victoria Road in 2021 but even that is now a historic image after a large Edwardian house called Fairfield was demolished.

Fortunately, society members were able to photograph it before that happened, recording the present for the benefit of future historians.

For more information about the society, visit www.wargravehistory.org.uk or email info@wargrave
history.org.uk

Peter Delaney