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Thorpe
Thorpe maps
Historic maps of Thorpe and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Thorpe maps
Thorpe area books
Displaying 1 of 16 books about Thorpe and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Thorpe
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Surrey memories
The Old Cinema
We moved to Egham in about 1955. My father had been born in Medlake Road in 1920. We lived in Oak Avenue, Egham Hythe in a house built in the 1930s. I attended Egham Hythe Infants and Primary and later Magna Carta (on both its sites - Egham Hythe and Manorcrofts - it is now just in the Hythe). In those pre-M25 and M3 days Egham was a much quieter place. The High Street was much as it had been in the early 1900s. There were still some gas lamps which were lit by hand. Green double decker buses ran through Egham linking Staines to High Wycombe (route 441). One red bus service (117) terminated at Egham Station. One major change was that we used to walk to school or sometimes use our bicycles. Very rare now in these car dominated times.
I recall the old cinema in the High Street. It was on the south side. My neighbour had once been a projectionist there. It had... Read more
Magna Carta
The text to the Egham photographs calls Egham uninspiring. What it may lack in architectural merit (although there are gems if you look closely, perhaps an architect would care to enlighten the readers) is more than made up for by its place in history as the location for the signing of the Magna Carta by King John in 1215. This took place at Runnymede. There was a major celebration in 1965. This took place on the field just below the American Bar Association Memorial, one of three to be found in Runnymede, the others being the RAF Memorial and the John F Kennedy Memorial. The JFK Memorial was once damaged by the IRA who tried to blow it up. Appropriately the Magna Carta celebrations largely took place on Runnymede itself. There were jousting displays and various activities. I still have my replica Magna Carta written on fake parchment. Freddie Mills the boxer was supposed to attend. However, he died in mysterious circumstances which made headlines for days.
Egham
I can remember Mullen's the Chemist, sawdust on the floor in the butchers which I would scoop up in a pile with my feet, the map where you could press a button and it would light up, the steam trains passing as I swung on the swings, Auntie Winnie at the sweet shop, buying second-hand scooters and peddling them home into The Crescent, going to the phone boxes outside the post office, Dr Sam Taylor and his Ford Zephyr - with the blue painted waiting room with just a bench I think (my memory may be playing tricks on me), being lifted to post mail in the letterbox down Grange Road, a plane on fire as I walked home from St Cuthbert's at Englefield Green . . .
First Day of School
First Day of School
Arriving at Egham Hythe Infants School, aged 5, and being placed in the care of Mrs. Spenser. There I remained for one entire term. Most of the faces in the classroom were new. Some of the names heard for the first time. Rex Aldwinkle, Richard Howard, Christine Addison, Jennifer Shore, Christine Vass. I am amazed that I remember these names as we were only in the same class one term. Mrs. Britton was the Headmistress. Wherever I went she seemed to be there. Was the school really that small? At break I learned about cigarette cards. I am now in my fifty third year of collecting them. I own over one million of them. Brooke Bond had just started issuing cards in tea packets - Frances Pitt's British Birds. And then it was Wild Flowers, Out into Space, Bird Portraits, British Wild Life and so on. Well I have them all, every variation ever issued, different papers, different backs, error cards. And I have all the... Read more
Egham Reminisces 1945-2011
I was born at home, like most babies those days, in Sept 1945 at 8 Hummer Road next door to Mr Heather's wood sawing yard with all the rats that it contained in the stored wood. My grandfather/mother lived in Park Road and he was a blacksmith who was supposed to have made the main gates at Royal Holloway University in the 1890s. My aunt was the till lady at the Savoy Cinema in High Street where used to go to Saturday morning cinema club with Roy Roger's films and fake cowboys there. My other grandmother who lived in Egham Hythe was piano player for silent movies at Majestic cinema in Staines. Remember Drake and Mounts stock yard where we used to play in the hay and got told off for doing so! Remember tuck shop opposite St. John's church open 7-10 every day. I went to Egham Primary Junior School at 4-5 years old and at 7 going to Junior School next door where I was taught by Mrs... Read more
Growing up in Englefield Green
I moved to Alexandra Road with my family when I was about 2 years old and then went on to attend St Jude's infants school, actually in my road when I was 5. Friends at the time were Sarah Miller and Yoland Cawley. I loved school and would get 3d from my nan to go to Jarmans the sweet shop on St Jude's Road. The butchers was on the corner of Alexandra Road and St Jude's Road, gone now I think. At the top of my road adjoining Harvest Road was a big horse kept in a small field which has since been built on and I used to visit the horse daily to stroke it. Halfway down my road was a little lane leading to the blacksmith's and sometimes me and my brother would go and watch him work. The rag and bone man used to come up our road regularly as did the coalman. My brother helped the milkman on his float, and I got bottles of orange... Read more
Penton Camp Club
The Penton Camp Club started in about 1903. Its members included the Manager of Martin's Bank, London, the manager of the Drury Lane Theatre and many other rich men. They would come by train to Staines, the old station at the entrance to Two Rivers Shopping Centre, walk to the bridge and be taken from there by the owner of the large hotel that stood on the left bank opposite the Swan to the weir - the right bank opposite Penton Hook Lock Island.
One weekend there was a disaster, the camp was flooded and the local residents came to the aid of the stranded campers. In July 1903 it was suggested by the campers that a local association was formed, which stretched from the Fishing Temple to the camp. This club lasted for many years. Each year there would be a magnificent ball in London and in the summer a regatta at Silver Sands including punting and diving. The last regatta was advertised for 1914 but had to... Read more
