Keepers Cottage 1909, Ranmore Common
Keepers Cottage 1909, Ranmore Common Ref: 61899
Memories of Keepers Cottage 1909, Ranmore Common
Rose Cottage, Ranmore Common
We have an heirloom picture of relatives, one was said to be the Gamekeeper at Ranmore. It is of four people, one of them an infant, perhaps aged six in a smock, and the elder, whose name eludes me as I write, has been mutilated and lost his hand and has a hook on his left arm. One of the men, "Uncle" , had a shop selling shoes to the north of Chessington, my mother, nee' "Kit" White, told me. NAMES T.F. JLT
Ranmore Common & local memories
Read and share memories of Ranmore Common and Surrey inspired by Frith photos.
Boys' Camp
By kind permission of the Lord Ashcombe, the Holy Trinity Junior Boys Club, Wimbledon, camped for four weeks every year on Ranmore Common. Most of us were choirboys, so we augmented St Barnabas's choir for their services twice each Sunday. Lord Ashcombe read the lessons. At that time there was a dairy next to his house, Denbies, and he gave us our milk. (The estate has since been turned over to a vineyard.) The two orderlies for each day would take a gallon can to be filled; it was heavy, so it was carried on a stout stick between them. His other kindnesses included providing straw from a farm for our palliasses, preparing the campsite, adding wood for our campfire, and inviting us to Denbies for tea with him and Lady Ashcombe. His vacationing grandsons and the local boys made up a cricket team to play against us, and we gave them a return invitation. The Ranmore people used to look forward to our annual visits just as much as... Read more
Take A Horse to Water
When I was about 11 or 12 in the 50's I used to ride from Bookham over to Ranmore quite often. I would take a packed lunch in a rucksack and off I would go for the day all on my own. When I got to Ranmore, I used to tie my pony to a tree and go in the post office and ask the man for a bucket of water for my pony. Then we would stop on the edge of the woods somewhere, I'd sit on a log or on my jumper or coat on the ground and let my pony graze whilst I ate my lunch and read a book.
Scout Jamboree
The simple pleasure of camping with my Scout group from Ockham, has been a lasting and warm memory over the years. Our Scout room was over the stables in Lady Lovelace's Ockham Park estate. Opposite our camp on Ranmore was a group from Canada, they had made an entrance gateway with a thatched roof with a single vertical pole crossed at waist hieght with pole lashed tightly, the whole revolving on a greased stump of wood. We thought it was very grand. The weather was very hot and our uniforms were dark blue, so I fainted what with cutting my knee on barbed wire, I suffered in a good cause. When was this jamboree? I think it was about 1938, can anyone help? It was a large camp and must have taken some organising, how many of those young men survived the then coming war? One in particular did not come home, he was a Rover Scout, his name was Jack Tarling. If I may, I dedicate the above to... Read more
