Fawler

The Marlborough

View From Grammar School Hill c1950
Enlarge photo |  More about this photo

The white building in the picture below the church tower was the Marlborough pub. During the war through till the early 1950s my grandmother and grandfather were licencees and my father was brought up there. I have a picture of my grandfather and myself as a small child in the back yard of the pub. I'm not sure when it stopped being a pub - my grandmother left after my grandfather died in 1953, but the last time I went to Charlbury it was a private house.

Charlbury Railway Station

View From Grammar School Hill c1950
Enlarge photo |  More about this photo

I well remember been driven to the station to meet a train that was carrying at least two hundred head of cattle destined for Ditchley Mansion. As a young man in those days, with five other men we drove the animals to the park, it took most off the day I remember. It was for Sir D Wills a short while after he took control of the park, we also spent a few days there doing the fencing. I started my working days for Mr D Wills at Litchfield Manor Estate in Hampshire under the estate manager Mr G Gale, the estate was then run by The Hon Patrick Wills and I left in 1956 to join the RAF.

The Bell Inn, Long Hanborough

I have a long line of ancestors from the Jarrett and Maisey families who were born in Long Hanborough.

James Maisey, born in 1852, was originally a game keeper who became landlord of the Bell Inn in the late 1880s. He and his wife Mary Ann (my great-great aunt) had at least ten children. Among them was Frederick Thomas Maisey, who joined the Police Force and worked in Romford, where he met his wife.

After he retired, Frederick took over as landlord at the Bell Inn, which I believe they ran for several years, into the 1940s. They used to keep pigs in the back yard.

In reply to comments on Maisey and Jarrett families in Handborough. My husband is a Maisey descendant from Warwickshire and Handborough. James at the 'Bell' was his great-grandfather's brother, having worked on the Blenheim estate as gamekeepers for many years, his great-grandfather living at the Head Keepers Lodge and Fishery Cottage on the estate. We have a 'tree' back to James and Jane Maisey 1737. Please get in touch. June.

Maisey Family - June, Please Contact me

June, you left a very interesting memory about the Bell at Long Handborough, but it doesn't seem to have a link to contact you.

I would like to compare family trees with you.

Liz

Beckley Family, Long Hanborough

My family can be traced to the 1700s and back to Robert Beckley. I hope to visit the area later this year to see where they lived. If anyone is related to Robert Beckley or any of his descendants I would love to hear from you. My grandfather moved north with his parents but my sister has moved to oxfordshire so "back to her roots" They were a large family so there must be lots of relatives to meet!!!

Evacuee

My memories of Kiddington are happy memories. I was evacuated there from 1940 until 1942 during the Second World War. I was billeted with Mr & Mrs Reynolds at upper Kiddington They were very kind and looked after me well. I was eight years old when I first went there and attended the village school, during the holidays we had a great time in the fields rabbiting and doing the thing kids do. On one of these occasions I put my foot in one of the machines and finished up in Radcliffe Hospital for a week or so and was on crutches for a few weeks. Over the years I have visited the village a few times but had no contact with anyone there. I am now 80 years old and it has always been a lasting regret that I never visited or contacted the Reynolds after I returned home, and it was another 4 years until the war was over, by which time I was working and a thoughtless... Read more