Weekends At Chapel Row

A Memory of Bucklebury.

I didn't live in Bucklebury but was born in Cold Ash where I lived prior to moving to Thatcham. Unfortunately my father died as the result of a motor cycle accident when I was eight years old, and social care being what it was in the nineteen fifties, it was necessary for my mother to undertake full time employment to support us.. Consequently I spent many after school hours and weekends in the care of the broader family and friends.
This is how I came to spend most of my Saturdays and school holidays in Chapel Row. My father was from Bucklebury and I became part of his sister's extended family at this time. She was Peggy Snell, nee Smith, and they lived at Pightle Cottage on Bucklebury Common. At that time a small semi detached cottage with a large garden. She and her husband Alfred had three children, Barry, Margaret and Wendy. Barry has lived his whole life at Pightle Cottage where he still is today.
Barry and I were similar ages with the same interests. In those days every boy wanted to be grown up and do adult work. How things have changed! We spent our time at Chapel Row Dairy., a small holding opposite the bottom of Scotland Lane and on the road which went up through the common. The dairy was really a dairy in name only. It was run by my great uncle, George Wells, who was my maternal grand mother's brother. He was getting on in years as were his brothers who worked there with him, Billy, Charlie and latterly Bob.
A slight diversion here, to say that my grand mother's family had also lived at Pightle Cottage in their early years. it never ceases to amaze me that the Wells' family of parents and eight children could exist in such a tiny place with sitting room and small kitchen down stairs, one bedroom and a box room plus a loft above.
George kept pigs and reared beef cattle at Chapel Row and kept a few chicken and two house cows. He was a pied piper figure and at weekends and holidays the farm would always be swarming with the local children. He got on so well with the younger generation mainly, I think, because he treated them as adults and they responded accordingly.
George wouldn't have a tractor on his farm so all of the work was done by two horses. In my day they were a Percheron type named Bluebell and a smaller, probably Suffolk Punch breed, named Darkie. At the end of the day it was our treat to bridle the horses and sit astride on hessian sacks, often two or even three up, as we rode them across the common to their pasture.
George grew Marrow Stem Kale for his stock in winter. This grew much taller than modern types, or it seemed to then! Our Saturday morning job was to take the horse and cart to the kale field and cut enough kale for the following week. On winter mornings the kale was heavy with dew and each slash of the bill hook would soak the cutter with water and we all got drenched every time. It didn't seem to matter though, clothes dry.
Another Saturday job in winter was to collect mangels from the clamp and slice up tin baths full using the old root cutter.
Other jobs included filling the horse drawn water bowser and taking water to any outside stock.
In summer we helped with haymaking. This could be driving the horse drawn mower or turner and then loading the loose hay onto the hay wagon which carted it to a rick in the farm yard.
It was hard work but we loved it| My cousin, Barry, was not keen on school and would often bunk off to go to the farm. On one occasion the School Attendance Officer called at Chapel Row where any knowledge of the whereabouts of Barry Snell was denied. Perhaps he should have looked under the hat of the person levelling the hay on the rick!!
George Wells had commoners' rights which included collecting fallen timber, shooting game on Boxing day only, and harvesting bracken. The latter took up many weeks of autumn. Machines were not permitted so all the fern was cut by hand and left to dry on the ground before being carted and put into a rick. Fern cutting had the advantage of controlling scrub growth on the common and consequently the common was much more open and accessible as a result. George sometimes grazed his stock there, another of his rights.
I caught the 111 bus at 7.30 am each Saturday from Thatcham to Bucklebury. On one occasion I missed it being too engrossed in conversation with "Cockney" Hall the owner of the tobacconists shop. in the High Street. Thinking no more of it I set off to walk to Chapel Row, arriving very weary .at the same time as the 10.00 am bus!
More memories to follow but I will pause here for today.

---

---