The Dining Hall, Bisham Abbey, National Recreational Centre c1955, Bisham

The Green (Wayside Cottages)

My paternal grandmother, Kate Paine Whitbourn, was born in these cottages in 1896.  Her father was the head carpenter at Bisham Abbey. The Paine family had lived in Bisham for several generations. When I was little, Gran and I would visit the kirk and 'water' her grandad.  He was a great cricketer. We would stop at the monument, the war memorial, to read the names of Charles Paine and Guy and Berkeley Paget (Vansittart Neale). When Kate married after the Great War, she went to live in Eastbourne, Sussex, but returned to' The Green' with her children in W.W.II in search of safety.  She never left again. Uncle Harry, Kate's older brother, lived at the other end of the row and he was a beekeeper.  Uncle Curly, Aunty Nan, and Aunty May lived in the village, and so did Kate's second son, David, his wife Frances and my cousins Fred, Bernie, and Wendy.  The Paines have disappeared from Bisham now, as have the Vansittart Neales whom they served.  You will... Read more