Abridge, the Village c1960

River Roding

The bottom of Silver Street on the other side of the bridge ended at the river with some railings over a drainage outlet. This was a good place for children to get into the river from the middle of the village and paddle upstream under the bridge. It was quite shallow in the middle of summer and small fish about three inches long with red tips to their fins could be seen at this point swimming in the vicinity of the reedbeds. I think these were baby Perch. Perch grow into quite big fish as I later found out when one was pointed out to me in the Cripsey Brook up at High Ongar. I loved paddling in the river as a child even if I cut my feet on bits of glass. I found the underwater life very interesting and would spend whole days down by the river. Once a man walking on the other side of the river with a Jack Russell stopped to talk to me. He looked like an actor I had seen on the television, but when he got down the bank I ran off home as my mother had told me not to talk to strangers. I was glad I had made a run for it when he called after me "Don't run off you silly little b...h".

At the time this photo was taken the bridge had not been widened to accommodate two lanes of traffic, so traffic had to take turns from either direction to get over the bridge. Also there was no footpath. There were large granite bollards set against the walls of the bridge to stop vehicles' wheels damaging the parapet. It was extremely difficult for large lorries to turn from the village side of the bridge to cross the river. The widening must have taken place in the early 70s.

The building on the left is the back of the White Hart public house which has now been turned into flats. Of the three pubs in the village, the White Hart was the least interesting. It did not have the cosey character of the Maltsters, or the billiard table, dartboard and stuffed boar's head with red light bulbs for eyes which flashed on and off that the Blue Boar possessed.

The Haunted House

This is the view looking down to the end of London Road where it meets the village. The road does a sharp turn to the left into the Market Place and behind the large tree is 'Top Bayles' grocers shop. Mr Bayles had served in 'Top Bayles' since he was a boy. He was a lovely old gentleman and very kind to the children. Tins of biscuits fronted the counter and there was a bacon slicer at the back. I would pop in to buy a Jamboree Bag on the way home from school, having saved my thrupenny bit for this special treat.

'Bottom Bayles' was another shop in the heart of the Market Place at the top end of Silver Street which was run by Mr Bayles's two sisters and was mainly a hardware store with a small toy section at the back, and a haberdashers off to the side. The taller sister had nearly drowned in the river when she was a girl.  They lived in a bungalow a short way up the London Road.  

On the left of the picture is the Maltsters Arms which at the time was landlorded by Dick Stretton who was a friend of my grandfather. Dick and Mrs Stretton were a dour couple who did not say a lot. They lived in the weatherboard cottage right next to the pub and Mrs Stretton had a pet Cairn Terrier. There are two weatherboard cottages and you can see they have a little wooden fence running along their front to separate them from the pavement. The Saloon Bar or 'snug' of the Maltsters was a very small room with two or three small tables. Mr Stretton would light a fire in there in the winter and it was very cosy. The Public Bar had a piano at one end. A long rough wooden table extended the length of the room with benches on either side. The regular customers enjoyed a sing-along to Mrs Stretton at the piano.  The atmosphere was very cordial. After the Strettons retired, in the early 1980s, the cottages became part of the pub and attracted a much wider clientelle from outside the village.  

On the right of the photo are the privet hedges of some semi-detached council houses. The hedges used to come down closer to the road until the council decided to chop off the bottoms of the front gardens to widen the footpath. My friend Angela lived in one of these houses. Her father grew fantastic Dahlias in his front garden with great big blooms in all kinds of marvellous showy colours. The 'haunted' house on the right was at the bottom of Hoe Lane, a narrow lane which went all the way up to Lambourne End. The village school is located several hundred yards up Hoe Lane on the right and I walked every day to school down London Road, past the 'haunted' house, and up Hoe Lane. The house was empty and a bit derelict inside and had a large overgrown garden at the back. It was an intriguing building in style - the walls had different coloured bricks arranged in patterns and had double bay windows extending up to the roof. I've never seen another building like it and have no idea how old it was - but alas it was demolished to make way for a whole cul-de-sac of houses around the mid 1960s. If anyone knows any more about this house please could they leave a comment.

Abridge in the 1950's

I moved to Abridge in 1950 when I was ten years old. My parents bought the white cottage on the London Road, which had a wooden building next to it. This very soon became The Poplar Cafe, my mother’s dream of riches!
I attended the little village school for a year until I passed the 'Scholarship' and went on to Loughton County High School for Girls in 1951. The head teacher, Mr Garner, took the top class (the oldest children) and I remember him quite well. He seemed a very kind man but very old to me. I imagine he must have been close to retirement age because a new head was appointed a few years later, who had several huge, Airdale dogs. Mrs (Daisy) Barr, who taught the youngest children was related to my aunt and uncle, Kath and Vic Barr, who lived next door to us at no. 1 Bayles’ Cottages. At no. 2 Bayles’ Cottages was my uncle Vic’s mother and younger brother, Jim.
When my mother opened the cafe, she was in competition with another cafe almost opposite, which (we always believed, although we never went into it, of course) had a ‘genteel’ clientele requiring cream teas, fairy cakes and suchlike. My mother aimed to corner the market and serve a ‘better class of person’, but she never achieved her aim because she more often served large numbers of cyclists on day trips from the towns. They would stop off at 5.30am for cooked breakfasts and return at about 6.pm for egg and chips!  At weekends particularly, our two up, two down cottage became an extension of the cafe and my small brother (8 years younger than me) and I were exiled either to the one free downstairs room (which housed my piano with no room for much else) or our bedroom (my brother and I shared a room until I was 19 and went to teacher training college) or else my brother roamed the village with his mates, or I went off on the no. 10 bus to Leytonstone to spend the day with my ‘aunt’and ‘uncle.’  We would rather be anywhere than amongst the hoards at the café!
Later, in 1957/8, my boyfriend and I convinced my mother that she should re-invent the café as a Coffee Bar, a trend that was sweeping the country at the time, and so the Poplar Café became the haunt of bikers and ‘Teddy Boys’ who loved the juke box and the pin table.  My mother never forgave me for bringing down the tone of her beautiful tea-room! However, she did have to admit that it was more profitable this way, because the juke box alone (of which she shared the takings 50-50 with the juke box supplier) matched the entire week's takings that she used to get with the old-style café!  It enabled her to sell up in 1961 (for £4000) and retire to Poole, Dorset.

Abridge picture A106012

This photo appears at the back of Essex Living Memories. The two ladies in the foreground with the prams appear familiar - The lady on the left may be Mrs Peagram with her son Colin in the pram. The couple with the child in the pushchair outside the butchers looks like and could actually be my parents and me. They might have just stepped off the No.10 bus the back of which you can see parked by the Blue Boar Pub on the left. At the time this photo would have been taken we weren't yet living in the village, but my parents formed the Leyton Self-Build Group which started with 100 members but was left with six committed members who built houses in the semi-detached style opposite Raven's Garage in London Road. My father at this time would have been spending all his spare time in the village building the houses, with the five other men and my grandfather who was a bricklayer by trade. They also had help from Frank Reeves who was a local drainage expert.

To the right of the picture behind the women with prams is Brighty's Electrical, beyond that the weatherboard Post Office, the butcher's shop and a big chestnut tree which was one of several trees in the grounds of Dr Ellis's house, built in the Georgian era, but later demolished to make was for a cul-de-sac. The old van parked in the Market Place possibly belonged to Trixxie who raised poultry up at Lambourne. He was brother to Six Foot, a very small man who lived half way up Hoe Lane. Six Foot kept a very narrow shop (located behind the van) where large quantities of fresh eggs were sold, hen and duck, and fresh tea was served from an urn. There was just about enough room for the counter on the left, a small alleyway for the customers and on the right a stool or two and a ledge to put a plate and cup on. I think you could buy a sandwich or a biscuit. Next to Six Foot's tiny shop was Bertie Brighty's shop which also had a cafe at the back. You would go down steps to get into these old buildings.

You can also see the greengrocer's shop with the Hovis sign on the wall. Fresh bread would be delivered there daily from the bakery at Theydon Bois.