Ye Swan Inn c1955, Newtown
Ye Swan Inn c1955, Newtown Ref: N197006
Memories of Ye Swan Inn c1955, Newtown
Newtown School
I remember I hadn't had my 5th birthday, and my mum said that tomorrow I was going to start school. School, I thought, whats that!.
The next day I was dressed up and at about 8.30 a small van with seats arrived outside my house, mum took me outside and kissed me and said I was to behave myself and to enjoy the day. "Ok mum, bye."
The van stopped outside a house, or that's what it looked like to me, and a lady came to the van and opened the door. "Come on children let's be having you out." she said. Ok I thought, I will see where we are going.
We were taken into a big room and were given some paper and some pencils and asked to do some drawings of our family... and so the day went on. We were shown where the toilets were, and given tiny bottles of milk to drink at what we were told was a break time.
Looking back on all... Read more
Newtown & local memories
Read and share memories of Newtown and Hampshire inspired by Frith photos.
Living in The Swan Inn - Newtown - 1936-1943
I lived at the Swan from 1936 to about 1943 - below are some extracts from my memoirs. I hope you find them of interest.
In about 1936 my father resigned, or to be more accurate was forced out of his company, a story in itself. My mother was getting concerned about the rise of the Nazis in Germany and the very real possibility of a war starting and wanted to leave the London area. The result was that my parents became the proprietors of Ye Olde Swan Inn in the village of Newtown just outside the old market town of Newbury in the County of Berkshire. A river ran through Newtown and the bridge crossing the river was the County demarcation line between Berkshire and Hampshire. So Newtown was in Hampshire, Newbury in Berkshire. The inn dated back to the 12th century when it was a bake house to nearby Sandleford Priory a large estate nearby. A newspaper article on the Swan some years later stated that there... Read more
