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Ash Vale
Ash Vale maps
Historic maps of Ash Vale and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Ash Vale maps
Ash Vale area books
Displaying 1 of 16 books about Ash Vale and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Ash Vale
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Hampshire memories
Apsley Cottage.
My father's family lived in the cottage with the arched windows next door to the post office. The house was named Apsley Cottage. My grandfather Henry Briggs was a career soldier in the Royal West Surrey Regiment. He served in the regiment from 1896 until 1919. He was also a range warden of the Ash ranges. I spent many happy days in the cottage during my school summer holidays.
The Greyhound
This used to be our local pub. Many a night spent throwing money at the jukebox and into the pool table. I was sprung for being 16 but still allowed to buy lager (cheers!!) LOL!!
It's a chain pub now and has some kind of Big Steak restaurant attached. Such a shame.
I Lived in The House Next to The Church
I lived in the house in the foreground of this picture, known as Hartshorn, from 1960 to 1964. The barn just visible on the left was our garage. The house itself was alleged to be an Elizabethan hall house and every room upstairs had a floor at a different angle to the others as each was put in separately. There was a bread oven in one room and a huge open fireplace in the other with a tiny (glazed in our time) window through which the ash was pushed. The ash heap could be seen outside.There was a well in the garden operated by a footpump as I recall just by the brick summerhouse. By the time we moved in, the front of the house was enhanced by a mature Wiisteria.
Fond Memories
At the age of nine, I had to come and live with my mother's parents, Albert and Emily Warner, at 3 Church Path (pair of cottages now pulled down, but their well - (what wonderfully tasting water, drawn up with a bucket) still remains now in the front garden of the house occupying part of the site. The reason for my evacuation from Colgate, near Horsham, was that the flat we all lived in caught fire very early one morning and all we escaped with was one horseshoe shape door stop and our lives! The Warner's were a very green fingered family. I recall big purple plums the size of a light bulb, raspberries, yellowberries, strawberries, very sweet apples, blackcurrants and gooseberries by the bucket load. Uncle Sid was a wizard with his crysanthemums and other flowers, and their two big greenhouses (I can still picture their special aroma) were full of tomatoes and lots of bedding plants. The Cannon pub (now converted to cottages) was the favourite Warner... Read more
Early Days
I was born at home in Coleford Bridge Road in 1935 and grew up there, went to school in Frimley and lived in Mytchett until emigrating to Australia in 1964. In those early days life seemed very simple, only a handful of cars, making street cricket safe. Every body walked, our nearest shops were through the bridle path to the main Mytchett road, there we found Days Store, Dawes the butcher and on the other side of the road was Eades the shoemender and the Post Office, where I had a post office savings account as I grew up. Outside the shops was the bus stop for the Aldershot & District Traction Co (green) bus service between Aldershot & Woking and the yellow bus service between Guildford (I think) & Camberley. The nearest train station was Ash Vale, Southern Rail to London (Waterloo). I remember that the train arrival times coming back never tied up with the bus, so most times we had to walk home. There were two farms... Read more
Mytchett Post Office
My family moved to the post office in Mytchett Road in 1956 when I was six. I used to catch the bus at the bus stop opposite to go to Ash Vale Primary School. Yes, on my own, clutching my penny ha'penny bus fare and reciting in my head 'half to Ash Vale please'. I came home for lunch on the bus too. As I got older my friend and I would save the fare by walking home and spend the money in Mr Hudson's fish and chip shop - he also sold cheap sweets. Next door was a hardware shop (Eades) and a bit further towards the Miners Arms and Frimley Green there was a big white building that was a cafe. We used to run along there to get ice cream sometimes. Opposite was Rorkes Drift, a gravel road where I learned to ride my first bike. A large overspill council estate for bombed out Londoners was built up here but I remember a large disused garden,... Read more
Mytchett Road.
My aunt and uncle used to own a large old house in Mytchett Rd. It had a long driveway leading down to an orchard and fields, where my cousins and I would spend many happy hours. In one field was a large pond with a willow tree on the bank.The geese, led by the gander, would often walk down the drive and round to the pond. Occasionally they would take a short-cut through the bushes which led to the pond, the one time we were sitting in there! The gander wasn't exactly 'friendly', so there was only one way out for us, straight into the pond! The pond and the fields have long gone, but the willow tree still stands in what is now the playground of the local primary school.
