The Green Room

I dont remember the tea shop in West Byfleet. However I remember the one in Weybrige next to the bank by the church. It was still there in the early eighties. I remember the sugar tongs as they fascinted my daughter.

I remember the Green Room very well; my mum didn't like cooking much, so she often used to take us there for lunch during the school holidays, they did very good traditional meals like roasts, cottage pie etc.
I think it was certainly run by two sisters. They also sold the most delicious cakes, I especially remember something called a "Jumble Cake" which, as its name implies, had a bit of everything in it, including, mysteriously, solid pieces of chocolate - I never could work out why they hadn't melted when the cake was being baked!

I was married to Doris Holder's nephew and have lovely memories of family days by the sea when she would bring wonderful (quite sickly) cakes to the picnic. I only went to the Green Room once, probably sixty years ago and remember the cats.

Miss Doris Annie Holder (died 2003 aged 99) was my great aunt and opened The Green Room with her close friend Miss Pielsticker. They were not sisters. My late grandmother (Teresa Holder) shared the jumble cake recipe with me and, yes, it is the best cake. I would love to find out more about The Green Room and also more about Doris and Miss Pielsticker. They both originally worked for the Wimpris family (nanny and lady cook respectively). They ran the Green Room together for nearly sixty years.

My mum worked there doing a bit of cleaning.
There were 2 or 3 rooms that were rented upstairs,for guests.( hotel like)
My mum said that if she cleaned upstairs, then came down, she was always to come down with something in her hands😊
My mums favorite were the ladies rock cakes.

Both my Grandfather & father worked for Miss? Holder working to decorate & maintain the Green Rooms and the lovely villa in Madria Rd. As a kid we used to play in the garden, help pick the crops and fuss all the cakes. Its a shame it went.
My grandfather used to say when soldiers got off the train they got a free tea & cake plus a penny from the Green Rooms.

My Mum and Dad used to take my sister and I to ‘The Green Room’ tea shop too, usually on a Saturday morning. We used to enjoy a large homemade shortbread biscuit! I remember the animal charity box at the door too, it was of 3 kittens!! Also the sisters who ran the shop. There were always postcards in the window for kittens for sale, and being a lover of cats I eventually persuaded my mum and dad to let us have one, when we lost our hamster! We went through the back and upstairs to where the kittens were one day, and i had the choice of a white and black kitten or grey and white! We chose the grey and white and called him Smokey! We went to visit him often and brought him home when he was 8 weeks old. Adored him for years until he died. Another memory I have is going on the bus along the Old Woking Road with my mum to shop in West Byfleet. I used to look out for the black silhouette house sign hanging on a tall pine tree called “Milestones’, and it had also had the silhouette of Dick Whittington and his cat on it!! I think the large house is still there, called something else so the sign long gone. Strange the smallest things you remember as a small child. We lived in Pyrford and I used to go to Pyrford Primary and then West Byfleet Secondary School, so lots of memories of the area.