Bagshot, Surrey

Clipping the hedge at St Annes

My dad, Eric Berry, used to clip this hedge - BY HAND!
When we're little, things always seem bigger than they really are, but my recollections of watching my Dad clip this hedge on the days he did the gardening at St Anne's church, were pretty accurate. It really is as big as I remember!
I also recall going to St Anne's Hall ( a bit further back down the hill?) with my Mum, to collect our ration books. At the bottom of the hill was Fortuna's Ice Cream Parlour - I can still remember the lucious creamy taste! Yum!

1955 & prior - the Cricketers etc

I was born in 1947 (a home birth) in Grove End cottage which was, and still is, located pretty much across the London Road and railway line from the Cricketers pub. Although I've never been inside the pub, I have on occasion as a child, watched cricket with my Dad at the weekends. I notice on the satellite map that the cricket pitches are still there - the photo must have been taken on a day of play as ant-like figures are clearly visible, dotted all around the grounds.
Many things have changed over the years - Grove End was once surrounded by dairy farms run by Arthur Knight and Jack Wooldrige. These farms are now gone - one a golf course, the other an industrial estate. The woods near the railway station which in spring were strewn with blue bells, today play host to a housing development and major roads now criss-cross the old farm landscape.
The Pantiles Tea Rooms which once existed further along the London Road from the Cricketers have long gone together with the attached swimming pool my Mum used to take me to. They were turned into a night club where, in my twenties, I returned with old work colleagues to celebrate a friends wedding.
Next door to the Cricketers is Bagshot Park which of course still remains together with its royal residents. I recall going to a fete either there or Penny Hill Park and winning first prize in the fancy dress - I used the prize money to buy my Mum a set of 3 of those awful flying ducks which she dutifully hung on the wall!
At the age of 8 I moved to Camberley and I've posted childhood and teen memories of my haunts along the London Road between the Blue Pool and Duke of York Hotel. I now live in Australia on North Stradbroke Island off the Queensland coast near Brisbane - we all change and move on! Some things however never change, such as great memories....

Camberley Pocket Album

The Fighting Cocks Inn can be seen on our left, but the Hero of Inkerman was demolished to make way for the new by-pass, and was re- built further to the left. After a fire new premises were built on the site, called The Windle Brook.

Surrey Photographic Memories

Children idly watch the photographer - and each other - from either side of the road, and wagons stand under one of the arches in Kemp and Sons’ yard. On the extreme left is Peel House, built in 1851 and once the police station.

Camberley Pocket Album

The railway came through Bagshot in 1878, which necessitated this viaduct being constructed. The first house on the left is Peel House, which was built in 1851 as Bagshot Police Station, one of only four in the whole of Surrey at that time.