You are here:
Hurley
Hurley maps
Historic maps of Hurley and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Hurley maps
Hurley area books
Displaying 1 of 12 books about Hurley and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Hurley
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Hurley.
Add your memory of Hurley
or of a photo of Hurley.
Hurley
My parents met in Hurley at the church; my father lived at Rosehill which was a large estate nearby where his father was Head Gardener. My mother was nanny to the children of the Rector of Hurley, and had travelled to various places around the country looking after their children. She was very fond of the Rector and his wife, and I took my parents to visit them in the West Country after his retirement in the 1960s.
We took my parents to Hurley for a nostalgic visit in about 1980 which we all enjoyed. It's a lovely part of the country, and having delved into family history I'm pleased to discover more about my Oxfordshire roots.
Berkshire memories
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
Cricket on The Village Green
When I worked for Samuel Jones the boys in our office played cricket against a team in Cookham Dean and we girls went along as support. What a great place this is! I remember a lovely village in lovely countryside - must be a nice place to live. I didn't realise at that time the connection with Wind in the Willows but that just about sums it up. I hope its stayed much the same.
A Happy Time
I was born in 1965 at Cliveden and lived in Grubwood Lane near the entrance to Quarry Woods with my parents for 16 years. I remember walking to Cookham Dean Primary School where the headmaster Mr Turner made my life a misery! I remember scrumping apples in the orchards opposite my house but had to watch out for the 'bangers' - the farmer hung small explosives off ropes in the trees to scare off the birds and they really did go bang! Quarry Woods was a fantastic place in which to play - I found hundreds of old medicine glass bottles buried in there once - all marked 'poison' and dated from about 1900 onwards. It was a beautiful place to be brought up - I've been back since and a lot of the small cottages have either been knocked down and replaced with large 'flash' houses; or the remaining old houses have had huge extentions on them, changing them forever. Winter Hill was a great place to go... Read more
Wargrave. My Adventure Playground.
Born in 1950, our first home was the old Nissan huts at Hare Hatch. We moved down to Hamilton Rd in 1953 and I lived there until January 20th 1964. Yes, a date engraved in my memory as it was the end of my great Wargrave adventure playground.
I've started a blog recording my life and times as I remember them at;
http://platignumpete.blogspot.com/
I hope to see you there.
Pete.
An Idyllic Childhood
I grew up in Wargrave and my memories of the village and the surrounding areas will always be etched in my heart. I lived with my parents in "Ivyhurst", Victoria Road which at that time had a small orchard to the side of the house. The warm, lush summers meant that there was always an abundance of fruit, so much so that my mother used to hang bags of apples and pears on the gate posts for passers-by to take. We lived there during the 1950s and early 1960s and at the beginning I can still remember the Muffin Man who used to walk up Victoria Road ringing a hand bell and calling "Hot Muffins, come and get your Hot Muffins". It really was another way of life then, when as a child the most important thing was to enjoy each endless day.
Wargrave in 1955
We visited Wargrave in the summer of 1955 while my father was on sabbatical. We lived in Kellet Lodge for several weeks. The houses had names then. We did not have a refrigerator, just a pantry. We had fireplaces in every room. A family had a large house on the Thames, where we went to Sunday mass. I played with the children on my street and learned to ride a bike. We watched Sooty the bear on TV and read Rupert stories. It was a great experience. My brother and sister have been back to visit the area. I have not.
