Aldermaston in 1939
This snapshot of Aldermaston in 1939 is derived for the most part from the particulars of sale
of the Aldermaston Court Estate. A copy of this was donated to Aldermaston Parish Council in
January 2005 by Mr David Watts, a retired surveyor, whose grandfather had been a Director
of AEI, the post-war owners of Aldermaston Court. A number of copies of this document are
known to be in the possession of Aldermaston residents. The particulars of sale give an
incomplete picture and the gaps, together with an account of the transition to the present
day, where it adds to the understanding of events, have been filled in by reference to the
following:
 “A Village Story” (by Ben Arlott and John Trigg)
 “The Manor Reborn” (by John Pugh)
 “The Mounts of Wasing” (by John Trigg)
 “Aldermaston Airfield Postwar” (by G Timmins)
 “Austerity to Affluence” (by John Trigg).
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Charles Keyser was the last resident Lord of the Manor of Aldermaston. He bought the estate
in 1893 and he died in 1929. When Keyser bought the estate in 1893 death duty was levied
at only 1%, and only on realisable assets passing to beneficiaries, not on the total value of
the land and property inherited. The budget of 1914 changed that and by 1929 death duty
was levied at over 20% on the total value of the estate, including the value of the land and
properties. In Keyser’s case this total value was over £770,000, which means that the death
duty would have exceeded £150,000, and this was at a time when both the value and the
income from all forms of property and investment were falling. By all accounts the income
from the estate up to 1929 had seldom covered the cost of its upkeep, and payment of the
death duties in 1929 would have so seriously eroded the capital base that the financial future
of the estate was by then in jeopardy.
Keyser’s son, Charles Norman Keyser (known as Norman) had no interest in the life
of a village squire and retreated to Adderbury, near Banbury. The extravagant lifestyle of his
two sisters, Muriel and Sybil, especially their love of racehorses that never earned their keep,
was to become a burden that the estate’s finances could no longer sustain. Matters came to a
head with the death of Charles Keyser’s widow, Emma Keyser, in 1939. Norman Keyser
decided that the estate simply had to be sold. After the sale his two sisters departed to more
modest accommodation in Suffolk, in company with their racehorses and a staggering
number of geese and ducks.
This breaking-up of estates, mainly as a result of death duties, was a common
feature of the inter-war and post-war years. Crookham estate (2036 acres and owned by the
Tull family) was also sold in 1939, as was what was left over from the partial breaking-up of
the Woolhampton estate in 1909. The sale of Padworth estate followed in 1945 and Midgham
estate was sold in 1946. In the immediate locality only the Wasing and Englefield estates
have survived to the 21st century.
The Aldermaston estate was bought for £100,000 by a syndicate that included the
auctioneers Grimble, Booth and Shepherd (of Basingstoke and Yeovil). It is worth noting in
passing that Charles Keyser had paid £160,000 for the estate in 1893, but this included
£80,000 for the standing timber, part of the value of which had presumably been realised
during his lifetime. Just before the sale Aldermaston Mill had been sold privately to the Arlott
family, and more of this later.
The remainder of the estate was put up for auction by Grimble, Booth and Shepherd
at Reading Town Hall on the 20th and 21st of September 1939, only seventeen days after the
start of World War II. There were several pre-auction sales that caused a bit of controversy
at the time, and an account of this is given in “A Village Story”. They included the sale of the
Manor House to AEI (for £16,000), the sale of Church Farm, Rose Cottage, Barn End,
Roundwood Cottage, Brook House, Yew Tree Cottage, Paice’s Wood and The Falcon Inn. For
the sale the vendors parcelled up the estate into a great many individual lots, but a number
of these were withdrawn from the sale, either because they failed to meet the reserved price
or for other reasons. The lots withdrawn included Forster’s Farm, the Hind’s Head, the Post
Office, Forge House, Red House, Soke Farm, the Vicarage and the School House.
The particulars of sale, amounting to 143 foolscap pages, supplemented by a great
many photographs, provide a wealth of detail that helps build a comprehensive picture of the
topography and rural economy of the Parish and the fabric of the village in 1939, and it also
provides a virtual tour of Aldermaston Court and its gardens. Two things stand out. First, it
affords an enticing glimpse of the third of the estate that has since been transformed into the
AWE site, and more of this presently. Secondly, it enables a picture to emerge of a Parish
that lost half its inhabitants in a short space of time, a degree of change that must have had
enormous social repercussions at the time.
A quarter of the dwellings on the estate (twenty-one in all), including the Manor
House’s staff quarters, were vacant in September 1939, and these would have housed estate
workers who had been dismissed prior to the sale of the estate. Although there had been
redundancies in 1929, when the estate was put on a “care and maintenance” basis”, it is
more than likely that an estate that had difficulty balancing its books would have leased
vacant properties in the interim and that the properties vacant in 1939, in the village at least,
had therefore become vacant in the more immediate past. Those displaced in 1939 would
have moved away either to other estates or, more probably, to towns and cities and to new
jobs in the emerging wartime economy.
Another quarter of the housing stock was likely to be vacated in the near future.
These included nine dwellings occupied by estate workers, or former estate workers, but
without the security of a lease. At the date of sale, for example, the estate foreman, W J
Goddard, occupied number 78 in Spring Lane, the former head keeper, P W Price, occupied
Roundwood Cottage (with 9 acres of land), and the former head woodman, John White,
occupied Upper Church Farm, and they, along with the others in this position, would have
been required to quit in favour of the purchaser of the house they occupied. Seventeen
homes were occupied on short-term leases, granted by word of mouth alone; these leases
would expire at, or not long after, the next quarter day, and those properties were therefore
advertised for sale with impending vacant possession. These, too, would have been occupied
by former estate workers and their families.
Just under half the properties (forty-four in total) had somewhat longer leases, but
the majority of them were by that time de-controlled, which meant that the tenants’ rights
that went with estate or agricultural cottages no longer applied. Eight of them were leased
for 35 years in July 1939 by Norman Keyser and were granted rent-free by him to former
estate employees for the rest of their life, provided they continued to live in the property.
Including two houses let on a longer lease to former employees, it suggests a Parish where
about 60% of the working population had been in the employment of the estate until not too
long before September 1939. John Trigg’s history of the village records that “some of the
older established tenants in the village bought their own houses” at the sale in 1939, and
these included the tenant of Yew Tree Cottage.
It is very difficult today to imagine just what this upheaval of families did to the life of
the village. Friends would have been lost, the trade of the shops and inns would have been
halved, and the Church and school would have been rather empty compared to a year
before. The displacement of families would have left as big a hole as the many plagues of the
middle ages did, and in time there would have been a major re-cycling of population as new
families moved in to occupy the vacant houses, a prelude to what happened, thanks to the
motor car, when commuters moved in to Berkshire’s villages in the 1960s and 70s. The recycling of people in Aldermaston over a generation or more would therefore have been
proportionately greater than that in most other villages. A comparison of tenants or occupiers
in 1939 with the Register of Electors of 2005 reveals a mere handful of surnames common to
both; these include Arlott and Tull but no others that can be positively identified.
The intention of the syndicate of vendors would have transformed Aldermaston into a
very different place, with ribbon development alongside almost every road in the estate. As it
was, war intervened and building development went on the back burner until the 1950s
onwards. A large part of the estate was requisitioned for the construction of a wartime
airfield, where Spitfire fighters, fabricated at what is now the Quantel site in Turnpike Lane in
Newbury, were assembled. The airfield, with three runways, one of which was 2000 yards in
length, was also used by the United States Army Air Force for glider operations on D-Day.
After the War the airfield, having remaining disused for about two years, was
acquired by BOAC and became the site of its pilot training subsidiary, Airways Training Ltd.
The reports of frequent ceiling-top flights over Aldermaston village suggest a degree of
annoyance hardly equalled by gravel and other HGV lorry movements in more recent times.
In 1947 the airfield was designated as a civil airport, but a year later BOAC’s losses dictated
the relocation of their training operations, and in 1950 it ceased to be a civil airport. The
remaining users, including Eagle Airways (veterans of the Berlin airlift), relocated to Luton or
Blackbushe, with over 600 job losses as a result. In 1949 the Ministry of Civil Aviation
proposed Aldermaston as the headquarters site of AWRE, and the site was bought for that
purpose by the Ministry of Works in March 1950. Over 4000 workers were employed on the
construction of what was to become AWE, the research and manufacturing facility for the
UK’s nuclear warheads. Had this not happened, Hawker (the aircraft manufacturers) coveted
the airfield for a manufacturing plant, the Ministry of Town and Country Planning had it
earmarked as a potential site for a new town, and the Ministry of Transport had plans for an
embryonic version of an M4 cutting through the site.
For Aldermaston in 1939 the combination of war and sale of the estate was a loselose scenario – continuous ribbon development, or the sterilisation of a major part of the
estate to the end of the century and beyond. Had it not been for war and AWE the majestic
Avenue of Limes, Park Farm, the Decoy Pond, and many more splendid features of the
Aldermaston landscape may well have remained to the present time. But, alas, it was not to
be.
By the date of sale in 1939 the estate amounted to 2510 acres, almost the whole of
Aldermaston Parish. The southern margins of the estate included land in Mortimer Parish and
also across the county boundary in Tadley and Baughurst. The only major land holdings in
the Parish, apart from the Churchyard, that were not included in the sale catalogue were
Aldermaston Mill (just recently acquired by the Arlotts), Froude’s Farm (part of the Wasing
Estate until 1925, but owned by Mr Fred Summers in 1939) and Aldermaston Brewery (owned
by Francis Gerald Strange and his family).
For the sale the rest of the estate was divided into 393 separate lots, of which 156
were clearly earmarked for building development. These building plots amounted to 297
acres, 12% of the entire estate. Goodness knows what present-day planning guidelines would
have made of that, but in 1939 this was subject only to the restrictions imposed by the
Ribbon Development Act of 1935, which one assumes the vendors were very familiar with.
Had all that come to pass most of the roads south of the village - Paice’s Hill, Baughurst
Road, Furze Bush Road (now part of the AWE site), the lane behind Calleva Park, Reading
Road, Silchester Road, Soke Road, Red Lane, the southern end of Rag Hill, and part of
Church Road - would have been lined with ribbon development, admittedly at something like
0.75 acres per plot on average, but very ripe in the 21 st Century for back-lot development. As
it turned out, it was only along Silchester Road and Reading Road and, to a lesser extent
along Soke Road and Church Road, that any ribbon development took place, and then only
from the 1960s onwards.
The pre-war Aldermaston Park comprised those unfamiliar features depicted on the
Ordnance Survey maps prior to 2003 that pretended that AWE did not exist – Park Farm,
Waterman’s Pightle, Almswood Copse, Burnham Copse, the Decoy Pond and Little Heath, for
example. The 1939 particulars of sale bring these alive, and in particular they depict the
majesty of the Avenue of Limes, running east-west, on an axis that was already clearly
defined on the very first Ordnance Survey map of 1817. Crossing this at right angles, and on
an axis with the Manor House at the north, was another avenue of trees, the extreme
northern part of which is still visible from modern aerial photographs. The rest, shown on the
map below, and amounting to just under a third of the whole estate, has mostly been erased
in the 1940s or 1950s.
[Reproduced from OS Explorer Sheet 159 – copyright reference NC-A7-SAP37017]
Park Farm is a good place to begin a tour of what has been lost forever. The
entrance was off the Reading Road, a little bit east of the junction with Winkworth Lane. In
September 1939 the farm was vacant and was advertised as comprising just over 86 acres
but, taking into account adjacent fields with separate tenancies, the working farm probably
extended to over 100 acres. It was a mixed farm, 60% grassland and 40% arable. There was
stabling for eight horses, stalls for 21 cattle plus a calving box, six tiled pigsties, four poultry
houses and a timber-framed barn on brick foundations with a tiled roof. The grounds of Park
Farm also contained the most valuable single lot of commercial timber on the entire estate.
The farmhouse had five bedrooms and was “stoutly built of brick” with a tiled roof. Adjacent
to the farm was a pair of semi-detached two-bedroom farm-workers’ cottages with beamed
ceilings, both still occupied in 1939 by redundant estate employees.
To the east of Park Farm was a belt of parkland extending north into the centre of
Aldermaston Park. The southernmost 15 acres of this, bordering Reading Road, was
earmarked in the particulars of sale as a residential site. Further east, just before Decoy
Pond, and vacant, were Pond Cottages, two semi-detached ivy-clad properties with beamed
ceilings and leaded windows, one with two bedrooms and the other with three, “just waiting
to be cared for”.
Beyond that lay Decoy Pond, which survives today behind the AWE fence and is still
visible on the right coming west along the Reading Road from Soke Road towards Tadley.
The lot for sale amounted to 26 acres, of which the pond itself constituted about a quarter.
The rest was natural woodland and heath and, according to the sale catalogue, “It is
unnecessary to unduly extol the merits of this lot. Inspection will prove.”
Moving towards Burghfield from Decoy Pond along Reading Road, then turning left
into the northern part of Soke Road and Red Lane, takes us round the southern and eastern
edges of Little Heath and Birch Copse. Over a third of this area was sub-divided into building
plots. Four plots at the junction of Soke Road and Red Lane contained portions of Grim’s
Bank, which was listed under the Ancient Monuments Act of 1931. Little Heath was described
as a thriving fir plantation and between that and Birch Copse was just under an acre of oak
plantation.
Going back to Park Farm, a track led north through the farm to the cricket field. The
field itself was just over 4 acres but was put on the market with 10 acres of adjacent
parkland. The cricket pavilion was brick-built with a slated roof and had a balcony around it.
The ground floor comprised a changing room and storerooms, and above it was a 40ft by
20ft tearoom. As the agents said, “No imagination is needed to foresee the possibilities
offered”.
Immediately to the west of the cricket field was a 32-acre grass “training field”,
where Muriel and Sybil Keyser had exercised their racehorses. Access to this was via a track
from The Kennels on Paice’s Hill, now the property of AWE. In 1939 The Kennels was vacant
and had an acre of garden plus two-thirds of an acre of Keeper’s Belt. Adjacent to the house
were brick and tiled storerooms and kennels with runs.
To the north of the training field and the cricket field was the famous Avenue of
Limes, which ran on an east-west line across Aldermaston Park. For the sale this had been
sub-divided into five separate plots, but there were to be covenants in perpetuity preventing
felling of trees or erection of buildings anywhere within 50 yards of the avenue itself. Most of
the lots are described as having “exceedingly valuable timber”. There is no specific mention
of the north-south avenue of trees, recorded on the older OS maps and whose northern
remnant is visible from modern aerial photographs. In this part of the park, south of
Aldermaston Court itself, there were four ponds, including Decoy Pond, and in these were
pike, perch and tench. Somewhere in this area, probably by the well between Park Farm and
the cricket field, lay the secluded three-bedroom Farm Wood Cottage “with a southerly
aspect”.
Retracing our steps to The Kennels on Paice’s Hill and, heading uphill, about halfway
between Black’s Lake and the Aldermaston Nursery site the road diverged. The right-hand
fork led along Baughurst road (the present-day A340), but in 1939 the main road to Tadley
and Basingstoke forked left along Furze Bush Road, emerging at an angle immediately northeast of The Falcon Inn. On the way it passed along the side of Waterman’s Pightle, then
between Six Acre Copse and Almswood Copse, before skirting Prior’s Copse, which lay
immediately east of The Falcon and extended as far as what is now the main gate of AWE on
Reading Road. Prior’s Pightle was described as “well-matured oak”, and Prior’s Copse and
Almswood Copse were both “well matured woodland”. Virtually the whole of Waterman’s
Pightle was on offer for building plots.
Along Furze Bush Road was a single-bedroom cottage, number 61, an “old-fashioned
detached country dwelling”, occupied by a previous estate worker. Adjoining it was a “fine
garden with seven cryptomeria trees”. Also on this road were the Furze Bush allotments – a
total of 13 acres, 9 acres of which was let to Mr G Chapman, 2 acres to Mr A Taylor, and an
acre each to Mrs Rampton and Mr J Hicks. The tenants of The Falcon Inn were Messrs
Strange & Sons Ltd and they were also the tenants of 14 acres of grassland behind the inn, in
what is now AWE property. They were also the owners of the Aldermaston Brewery and a
number of inns and in the 1939 sale they purchased The Falcon to add to their portfolio.
To complete the picture, in the triangle formed by Furze Bush Road and the dogleg
that the present-day A340 takes around the Calleva Park roundabout, were located
Burnham’s Copse, Burnham’s Plantation, Smart’s Copse and Dead Boy plantation. Part of
Burnham’s Copse was described as having “exceptionally valuable matured timber”, whilst
Smart’s Copse was “beautifully timbered”. On Baughurst Road there was a pair of semidetached cottages (numbers 56 and 57) on what is now AWE property. Number 56 was let to
Mr H North and it had two bedrooms and a tiled piggery. Number 57 had three bedrooms and
was let to Mr C Hutchings.
That completes the tour of the part of the estate now occupied by AWE. It was worth
looking at it in some detail if only because it no longer exists, although some of the former
locations have had roads named after them in the MOD housing estate south of the A340 –
Burnham Road, Almswood Road, Priors Road, Furze Road, Plantation Road and Birch Road
were all named after nearby parts of the estate that disappeared with the construction of the
wartime airfield or AWE.
If we look at the estate as a whole in 1939, its land use breaks down as follows:
Land use
Park land (including Aldermaston Court)
Agricultural land
Woodland
Heathland
Other
Acres
375
1113
863
72
87
% of total
15%
44%
34%
3%
4%
The 87 acres in the last category includes the village, other buildings and gardens (except for
Aldermaston Court itself), allotments, gravel pits, the sewage works, cricket field, recreation
ground, and the rodbeds. It is worth noting that, although heathland accounted for only 3%
of the estate, this was originally the natural land cover of all the flat land that lay on the
commons above the Kennet valley, and its transformation into a mixture of park, woodland
and farmland was an achievement of the Lords of the Manor over a number of centuries.
There were seven farms on the estate – Forster’s Farm, Village Farm, Church Farm,
Upper Church Farm, Raghill Farm, Park Farm (already described above) and Soke Farm, and
these accounted for three-quarters of the total agricultural land. The remainder was farmed
in smallholdings, such as the 14 acres farmed by the tenants of The Falcon. Along Raghill
there is no mention of Springhill Farm, Court Farm or Wray’s Farm, and to the south of the
Reading Road there is no record at that time of Strawberry Farm, Circus Farm, Ravenswing
Farm or Whitehouse Farm. There was, however, a bungalow called “Raven’s Wing”, where
the farm is today. It was of “timber and iron” construction and had a sunbathing tower in the
garden! North of the village Froud’s Farm, as has already been noted, was not part of the
estate.
The largest of the farms was Forster’s Farm. This was described as “one of the finest
farms in Berkshire” and a “particularly valuable dairy farm”. It comprised 210 acres and was
let to Mr Arthur Bucknell. He was also the tenant of additional land to both north and south of
Forster’s Farm. This increased the total land he farmed to 329 acres, and of that 75% was
grassland, 20% arable and 5% woodland. There were cowsheds for 60 cattle, stabling for 8
horses, a “fine” barn, two bull pens, two loose boxes, a cake store, cart sheds, wood shed, an
open shed with a granary above it, a cooling house, three pigsties, a forage store and a
garage. Sir William Mount of Wasing Estate paid one shilling a year for right of way over part
of the farm.
The “substantial and pleasant” farmhouse had seven bedrooms. The Forster’s Farm
lot also included two vacant cottages in Wasing Lane (numbers 7 and 8) and two in
Fisherman’s Lane (number 11, let to Mr W Arlott, and number 12, let to Mrs Winkworth). Mr
Bucknell also rented “the only thatched cottage on the estate” (in Wasing Lane), number 4
(Malthouse Cottages), and number 47, on Paice’s Hill, “an old-fashioned country cottage”
which today is Barn End.
The tenant of Village Farm was Mr G L Standfield. He farmed 111 acres, of which the
farm as advertised comprised only 49 acres, the balance lying in individually tenanted fields
to the north of Fisherman’s Lane. Mr Standfield’s was also a dairy farm, with 80% grassland
or meadow, 16% arable and 4% woodland. One of his holdings, three enclosures of “sound
pasture”, was reputed to contain “the finest gravel deposits in the district”, but not thus far
exploited. This was a much more modest affair than Forster’s Farm; there were stalls for only
14 cattle, stabling for three horses, six pigsties, a barn (now Village Farm Barn), plus an
engine house and a cooling house. The farmhouse was a relatively small three bedroom
semi-detached cottage.
Church Farm had a much grander farmhouse, described by the vendors as “the
gentleman’s farm house”. It had three reception rooms, six bedrooms, a fish pool, orchard
and a tennis lawn. The farm was vacant in 1939 and the plot offered for sale was just over 8
acres, but the extent actually farmed by Church Farm would have been closer to 125 acres,
all of it grassland. It had stalls for 16 cattle, calf pens, several calving boxes and two barns.
On offer with a plot of only an acre and a half was Upper Church Farm, “with the
possibility of the modernisation of this fine old cottage into a charming residence”. The farm
probably originally extended to just over 100 acres, of which 75% would have been grassland
with the rest being the woodland of Aqua Vitae Copse. In September 1939 it was occupied by
Mr John White, formerly Head Woodman of the estate.
Raghill Farm was a “picturesque old farm house, laden with oak” and comprised two
cottages, one vacant and the other occupied by a former estate employee. It came with 19
acres, but the former working farm would have extended to at least 36 acres. There were
extensive outbuildings, including stabling for six horses, a chaff coop, a “remarkably fine brick
and slated barn”, a cattle shed, five pigsties, and many more outbuildings. The farm pond
had been used in the past for watering horses and cattle.
Mr H Helyar was the tenant of Soke Farm. This was described as a smallholding of
over 4.5 acres, but Mr Helyar’s total tenancy amounted to 24 acres, small in comparison to
the farms down in the Kennet valley. Of this three acres was arable and the rest grass. It
comprised a modest three bedroom “homestead”, stabling for two horses, stalls for two
cattle, cattle pens and pigsties.
In terms of land use woodland came a close second to farming. Where there was
commercially exploitable timber this was not included in the sale of the relevant plots of land.
Instead there was a timber valuation, and the purchaser was expected to purchase the
timber separately as per the valuation. If the purchaser chose not to do so then the vendors
reserved the right to fell the timber up to 31st December 1940 with conditions of sale very
much in the vendor’s favour regarding rights of access, damage and inconvenience to the
new owner. It is interesting to look at the distribution of the timber value around the estate,
and also to consider what was not included in it. The table below summarises the timber
valuation by locality:
Locality
Forster’s Farm, Village Farm and Church Farm
The woodlands enclosed by Red Lane, Raghill and
Spring Lane
The south-west corner of plantations - the triangle north
of Calleva Park and The Falcon
The fringes of Aldermaston Park - Park Farm and
Harbourhill
Aldermaston Soke and Tadley Common
% of total
Valuation
25%
25%
25%
17%
8%
The first three of these, equal in valuation, and between them accounting for threequarters of the total valuation, were entirely different in character. The valley farmland has
one or two references in the sale catalogue to “pastures with valuable timber” or “welltimbered farmland” but there are only a handful of lots designated as woodland. Did the real
value lie in centuries-old trees on field boundaries?
In the area enclosed by Red Lane, Raghill and Spring Lane there was approximately a
fifty-fifty split between farmland and woodland. Jacob’s Gully and Ladies Wood was “matured
and valuable”, The Birches had “valuable timber”, and there was a larch plantation on Birch
Copse and Black Pightle.
The southwest corner, by contrast, was predominantly woodland, but in varying
states of maturity. Burnham’s Copse had “exceptionally valuable matured timber”, Almswood
Copse had “matured woodland”, and Smart’s Copse was “beautifully timbered”. Less valuable
were Furze Piece (oak and firs), Prior’s Copse (oak), Baughurst Plantation (some firs and
young growing woodland), Bishop’s Enclosure (young firs and oak), Three Corner Plantation,
the triangle across the road from today’s Falcon Garage and the land to the south-west of
that (oak and fir poles), and Budd’s Plantation (north-west of Calleva Park) which had
growing oak and firs and also excellent ballast gravel.
Harbourhill (known as Arbourhill in the more distant past) was the smallest of these
areas, but had “magnificently timbered matured woodlands”, and Park Farm had the single
most valuable lot of timber on the estate. South of the Reading Road, in the area of the Soke
and Tadley Common, Roundwood Gully had “very valuable matured timber”, there were
“matured woodlands” in Roundwood Copse and Brick Kiln Gully, and Tullsfield Copse had
“thriving coppice”.
Just as interesting is the timber not included in the valuation, in which case it passed
to the purchaser without any extra charge. The most important of these is the core area of
Aldermaston Park. The catalogue abounds with descriptions like “extremely valuable timber”
or “well-timbered parkland”. Perhaps the vendors expected preservation rather than
exploitation? If so, then the only section with effective preservation would have been the
Avenue of Limes and the land on 50 yards either side of it, where covenants in perpetuity
would have prevented felling of timber.
The other major omission is Paice’s Wood. Comprising 107 acres this was the second
largest lot in the sale catalogue, second only to Forster’s farm, but presumably too recently
planted to have commercial value, but nevertheless purchased in the pre-auction sale of
1939. Adjoining it was Six Acre Copse and Broom Copse, said to have “well-matured valuable
woodland”, but also omitted from the timber valuation.
The fishing rights featured in the particulars of sale. These included the southern
bank of the Kennet from the east of Aldermaston Mill all the way to Padworth Mill, and a
shorter stretch on the northern bank. Also included were the fishing rights on the stream that
crosses the meadow from opposite Malthouse Cottages, crosses under Fisherman’s Lane at
Fisherman’s Cottage, and then flows eastwards south of Fisherman’s Lane to the boundary
with Padworth parish.
Along the banks of this stream were over 12 acres of rodbeds, which were let to Mr J
Hawkins, who lived in Baughurst. The “rodbeds” in Aldermaston were a great deal smaller in
extent than those in neighbouring Woolhampton, where the reed (or osier) beds had supplied
Hobbs’ rope-making business. There, the main player was a George Brown, described as a
rod-grower and rod-merchant with a sizeable rod store, and in past times the rods from the
neighbouring estates, including Aldermaston, had been auctioned at The Falmouth Arms. By
the end of the war rope making had ceased, the reed beds were “wild and uncultivated”, and
the remaining use for the product lay in basket making and thatching. In 1939 Mr Hawkins
and other rod growers in the vicinity sold most of their produce to George Brown in
Woolhampton, although some shipments left Aldermaston station for Holland where they
were used for basket making.
Most of the village of 1939 remains immediately recognisable today. The few losses
include Village Farm. In 1939 the farm, and the adjacent sawmill, was bought by the family
firm of Stuart Surridge, the Surrey and England cricketer, and was used for the making of
cricket bats from the local willow. Prior to that the willow had been cut and sent to London
and Essex, where there were other makers of cricket bats. The former Surridge business is
now owned by Slazenger and willow from the Old Mill is still cut and then stored at the
former farmyard prior to being sent to their factory at Barnsley.
Residents of The Street will recognise it as being visually very much the same in 1939
as it is today, and in part this is due to stipulation 19 of the conditions of sale, which, in the
interests of conservation, prevented conversion to business use, erection of hoardings and
signs, and the prohibition of petrol pumps and garages. The particulars of sale abound with
descriptions such as “charming”, “interesting”, “commodious”, “first class order”, and contain
a wealth of detail regarding construction, beamed ceilings and leaded windows. Two
properties receive special mention – Dr Holmwood’s wisteria-clad residence (now Brook
House) was “one of the nicest houses in the county” and The Red House was “a village
residence of especial note”.
“Commanding a charming prospect of the village” at the top of The Street was the
Vicarage (nowadays Well House). The Incumbent was Rev Frederic Newham and he lived in a
property that had “six bed and dressing rooms”, not to mention stables, harness room and an
acre and a half of garden, complete with tennis lawn. He also rented over two acres of
adjacent pasture. He retired in 1951 after 21 years in office in Aldermaston and a total of 60
years in the Ministry. This Vicarage, now replaced by the modern one in Wasing Lane, had
sometime in the past replaced the Old Vicarage on the opposite side of The Street, which by
1939 had been converted into three cottages but about which the vendors said, “The quest of
those seeking a lot to convert into one perfect house is fulfilled”.
Apart from internal modifications and extensions over the years, within the bounds of
listed buildings planning consent, the major differences today almost certainly lie in the
domestic arrangements. Sculleries with fireplaces, brick and slated ranges, wash-houses with
coppers, wood sheds and coal stores, and Ideal domestic boilers sum up much that was
different in daily life in 1939. Not only that, about a third of the houses in the village still had
outside earth closets, as opposed to internal WCs (and outside the village, it was only the
farmhouses that had WCs; all the cottages still had earth closets). It was a more trusting
society in those days. For all the vacant properties the sale catalogue tells potential viewers
where to find the keys, for example, “The key of the back door is hanging on the right-hand
side of the wood shed door. Please leave it there”. Today’s residents may like to mull over
the fact that a property worth half a million today would have rented for about £40 a year in
1939, but if it is any comfort the vendors were of the opinion that rentals were extremely low
and that “much higher rentals could easily be obtained”.
The economic life of the village in 1939 was substantially less than it once had been,
and not much more than it is today. It would have been very seriously impaired by the loss of
population that accompanied the break-up of the estate. There was a Post Office (exactly
where it was until the beginning of 2005) and a shop (where Blades’ hairdressers is today).
Mr Clark ran the post office. It also comprised a shop and it housed the local boot and
shoemaker. The village shop, the Co-operative Stores, run by Mr Pottinger, had a bakehouse
with ovens and sink, but by 1939 the bakehouse was being used as a storeroom. The shop’s
paraffin store, very commendably, was located outside.
The malthouse had long since been converted to cottages, and the old brewery of
The Hind’s Head, once supplied by the malthouse, had been closed a number of years
previously following the death of John Knight, who had been brewer there for over 40 years.
Aldermaston Mill had not produced flour since the 1920’s but it has an interesting
history, documented in some detail in “A Village Story”. Until the 1850’s, when it was bought
by the miller, the mill had belonged to Wasing Estate, which had once been part of the
Aldermaston estate, but was sold by former Lord of the Manor, Sir Humphrey Forster, in 1620
to raise the money for building a new Manor House (the one that burned down in 1843).
After a succession of owners or tenants the business had become fairly run-down and was
unoccupied by the time of Charles Keyser’s arrival at Aldermaston. Not long after he bought
Aldermaston estate he also acquired the mill and began the process of restoring and reequipping it, but the business continued to go downhill in the face of competition from
imported flour, and by some time in the 1920’s it had ceased production and was empty.
Before her death, Charles Keyser’s widow had persuaded Tony and Evelyn Arlott to
open a tearoom in the mill, and by 1939 this had expanded to become The Old Mill Guest
House. The mill had been sold privately to the Arlotts, with the somewhat reluctant
agreement of the Misses Keyser, before the rest of the estate was put up for sale in 1939.
The Arlotts subsequently purchased the two mill cottages in Froud’s Lane, and went on to
develop the Old Mill into the business it is today, in the process removing the upper storeys
of the main mill building in 1957.
The Aldermaston Brewery, down by the Wharf, and established as far back as 1770,
was still in business in 1939. Some accounts record this as having been owned by the
Strange family since the 1850’s while others tell us that it was only sold to Gerald Strange in
the 1939 sale. Strange and his family lived in the nearby Brewery House. They were also
tenants of The Falcon, which they bought in the sale of 1939, and they also owned or
tenanted other public houses, including the Angel, the Coach and Horses and the Rising Sun.
The brewery survived until 1949, when it closed and the pubs were taken over by Wethereds.
The brick and tiled forge, adjoining Forge House, was no longer forging, and was
recommended for adaptation to an “exceptionally fine billiards or play room”. In the fairly
recent past the tenant had, most probably illegally, sold petrol from a pump in the yard.
The sawmill, adjacent to Village Farm, was vacant, although it, and the adjoining
carpenter’s shop, had been in use until not too long before. This property included a paint
shop and a pickling shed, and the sawmill was equipped with an 8 horsepower “John Bull”
steam engine. In 1939 it was bought by Surridge’s for making cricket bats.
In 1939 The Hind’s Head, “the great ivied inn”, and once known as “The Congreve
Arms”, had stabling for 12 horses, seven bedrooms, a dining room, smoke room, public bar
and a taproom, and was let to The People’s Refreshment Association Ltd.
The village still had a doctor in 1939, Dr Lionel Snowdon Holmwood (known as
“Bobby”). He occupied the “wistaria-clad” house in The Street, still wisteria-clad today. Dr
Holmwood was lame as a result of polio and wore a calliper. His practice covered
Aldermaston, Bucklebury, Woolhampton and Tadley, and his name lives on in the present-day
Holmwood health practice in Tadley. In 1939 the practice had a surgery and two consulting
rooms. The four-bedroom house also had both a day nursery and a night nursery, not to
mention a butler’s pantry and a maid’s sitting room, and he upstaged the Vicar by having two
tennis lawns within his two acres of grounds. Dr Holmwood also had the lease of number 22
on The Street, where he had lived before buying the practice from his then senior partner in
1933, and in 1939 number 22 was occupied by his junior partner, Dr Wynne-Thomas.
The Vicarage, village school, schoolhouse and Parish Hall, incredible as it may seem,
were all for sale in 1939, although it was pointed out that the school had not been charged
rent since 1910. As it turned out all of these, except the Parish Hall, were subsequently
withdrawn from sale. The only gesture of philanthropy at the outset was the donation of the
Recreation Ground to the Parish Council. This had previously been held on 99-year lease,
granted in 1927 at a rent of one shilling a year. The present-day allotments off Station Road
also featured in the sale, and were bought by Mr Fred Summers of Froude’s Farm, who
continued to rent them out to parishioners.
Aldermaston School was the building in Church Road now occupied by The Cedars
School. It was built in 1836 and had accommodation for “about 140 scholars”, comprising a
spacious general classroom with a stove, and junior and infant classrooms, both with
fireplaces, plus cloakrooms, washing rooms and lavatories. The schoolmaster was Mr L A
Nutley, who had taken up the post in 1936, and his schoolhouse was adjacent to the school.
The “very fine” Parish Hall, built of flint and brick in 1897, had a main hall with stage
and balcony, spacious billiards room, service room and scullery, just as it is today, although
the scullery has been modernised. At the sale in 1939 the hall had been bought by a Mr Pope
for £2800 and it was subsequently acquired from him for the same price by the village in
1948 with financial help from the Carnegie Trust.
Electricity had not reached the village or most of the estate by 1939. Although the
Wessex Electricity Company was in the process of installing mains supply, it was only the
area around Tadley Common and Silchester Road that was already supplied by 1939.
Aldermaston Court had its own 100-volt DC generating plant, but for the rest of the
inhabitants the village shop, The Falcon Inn or a mobile service from Jewell’s of Mortimer
supplied the paraffin for their lamps.
The sale catalogue stated that “practically every” house and cottage had mains
drainage to Aldermaston sewage works, itself included in the sale catalogue of 1939. This
was in Fisherman’s lane, where the Thames Water plant now is. In 1939 it was expected that
Bradfield Rural District Council (the predecessor of the former Newbury District Council)
would be taking over these sewage works. There was an engine house with two oil-burning
engines, compressors, air containers, sewage ejectors, two water tanks and a filter bed, from
which the sewage water ran along a brick trough before being dispersed over the land.
The ownership of Fisherman’s Lane is a bit of an enigma. All of the lane east of the
sewage works was specifically included in field lots in the sale catalogue, but the stretch from
the A340 to the sewage works was not. The fact that all of the properties in Fisherman’s
Lane, from the Post Office eastwards, were granted right-of-way along Fisherman’s Lane
would infer that the western stretch of the lane had also been the property of the estate
(why else would these properties have been granted right-of-way?) but that part was not
included in any of the lots for sale. Was this a deliberate or accidental error? Whichever, it
remains unresolved to the present day.
The estate also owned Aldermaston’s water supply, which had been established as
far back as 1903. This was able to serve the village properties that lay downhill from
Harbourhill where the pumping station was. Water was pumped from a deep artesian well by
“three-throw plunger pumps”, driven by a 12-horsepower gas engine, into a 30,000-gallon
reservoir on Harbourhill. When the reservoir was full the flow shut off automatically, and then
by a complicated series of adjustments to the valves, the supply, at a lower rate of flow, was
diverted to the cisterns of Aldermaston Court. The water rate payable was equivalent to
about eight to ten percent of the rent of the property. The properties lying above the level of
Harbourhill were still dependent on wells in 1939, but the Mid-Wessex Water Company’s
mains had already reached Brimpton Common and Silchester Common and a scheme for
supplying the southern margins of the estate was under discussion.
In terms of public transport the local bus company, Venture Ltd, ran two-hourly
services to Basingstoke and also a service to Aldermaston station, and there was a half-hourly
service to Reading and Newbury along the Bath Road.
Finally we take the virtual tour of Aldermaston Court itself. In 1939 the main
entrance was still via the Eagle Gates at the top of The Street, but there have been a number
of changes since those days. Portland House has emerged alongside the lake in the Park,
along with a sizeable car park below the Church, and the main entrance has been moved
uphill between Church Lodge and the Church.
The Manor House, purchased by AEI in 1939, was requisitioned for use by the Land
Army during the war and was not returned to AEI until 1947, when it became one of the
company’s research centres. The research included work on an electron microscope, for
which it seems the Manor House’s DC electricity supply was ideally suited. AEI vacated the
Manor House in 1963, and there is a fairly shabby group of buildings south of the Manor
House leftover from their days. After that it was owned by Cleaver-Hume (who ran
correspondence courses) and Macmillan Schools (who also ran correspondence course)
before it was acquired by Blue Circle in 1981, and after they built Portland House as their
prestigious new head offices, but vacated only a few years later. The Manor House then
became a hotel and conference centre.
Despite these changes, it is simply remarkable how little seems to have altered over
65 years! The external appearance of the Manor House remains as it was in the 1939
photographs, and so does most of its interior. This, however, would not have been so during
the forty years between its sale in 1939 and its acquisition by Blue Circle. It needed a fairly
massive programme of restoration in the mid-1980s to return the Manor House and its
parkland to their former glory.
The particulars of sale give a most evocative description of the building and its
gardens in 1939: “The magnificently-situated and renowned property, erected in 1851, is
approached by three avenue drives bordered by ancient trees of every kind, renowned for
their outstanding grace and beauty, the principal drive being at the head of the picturesque
village street, whence it passes between two 17 th century lodges, aptly described as “perfect
architectural gems”, guarded by a very fine pair of William III wrought iron gates.
Surrounded by sweeping timber-studded lawns, which constant loving care and attention
through three centuries have brought to their present pitch of perfection.
“The Mansion, although spacious, and containing adequate accommodation, does not
contain one cheerless room or dark corridor; it is not rambling but is easily run, the principal
accommodation and the domestic quarters being arranged on two floors only. All the principal
rooms command vistas of indescribable charm and beauty over the lake and parkland.”
A description of the accommodation comes next: a portico entrance with vaulted roof
and inlaid mosaic floor, vestibule with oak floor, cloakroom with oak panelled walls and oak
parquet floor, then the “lofty galleried main hall, oak-panelled to a height of 7 feet, with oak
floor, and with a fireplace with a finely carved stone surround, surmounted by two
magnificently carved oak figures, originally decorating the 17th century staircase. Eight of
these very lovely figures also stand around the Gallery.”
From the hall, an inner staircase hall led to the “grand historical staircase, a triumph
of the ancient craftsman’s art, wrought on the spot from Aldermaston oak and beech, and
described and illustrated in Nash’s “Mansions of England in The Olden Times”. A volume could
be written in an attempt to describe this staircase and its decorative figure, but one must be
content with the statements that “the Aldermaston stair is rather the work of a man of
instinctive taste and vigorous mind than of a cultured and sensitive master”. Nowhere so well
as at Aldermaston do they show knowledge of anatomy, mastery of attitude and expression
and perfection in the treatment of drapery, combined with that unerring and audacious
craftsmanship which triumphantly leaves its toolmarks as a desirable and sufficing finish”.
From the hall a corridor, with oak parquet flooring and fine stained glass windows
depicting the Saints, led to the billiards room (or large drawing room), which had doors to the
garden, a raised dais with fireplace, wrought iron grate and an “interesting old fireback”. This
room had a second fireplace, oak floor, and was oak-panelled to a height of 5 feet.
The library was “chiefly remarkable for the very fine stained glass windows, dating
from the 17th century, and depicting the armorial bearings of the Achards, de la Mares and
Forsters, the owners of the estate from Norman times. This charming room has an oak floor,
oak linenfold panelling, carved oak bookcases, fireplace with carved stone surround, moulded
and gilded ceiling and a recess with door to the garden.” The ground floor also had a
morning room, a small drawing room, a dining room and a business room. There were
seventeen bedrooms on the first floor and a further ten on the second floor.
The tower contained the 2000-gallon domestic water tank and a 5000-gallon fire
storage tank. The domestic offices were “compactly arranged on the ground floor, and
include butler’s pantry (with plate safe), butler’s bedroom, large kitchen, servants’ hall,
housekeeper’s room, bakehouse, etc, etc”. The cellarage contained wine and beer cellars,
game larders and separate boilers for central heating and domestic hot water. Water was
supplied by the Aldermaston Water Works and the property was connected to the
Aldermaston sewerage system. Electric lighting came from a 100-volt generator plant with a
“Tangye” 21 horsepower heavy oil engine. And there was a telephone, the exception rather
than the rule in 1939, and its number was Woolhampton 4. Near the domestic offices, in a
walled yard, were the laundry and drying room (with a two-bedroom apartment above it),
coal and wood stores, storeroom and the gardener’s urinal.
The garage and stabling block was “substantially built in keeping with the mansion”
and it was provided with electric light. It included the estate office, garaging for four cars,
four loose boxes, five stalls, a harness room and two kennels. There were two chauffeur’s
flats, both with four rooms and WC.
A short distance away were Sir Humphrey Forster’s Stables, “which were certainly in
existence in 1636, and in which much of the fine original timbering can be seen, while the
doorway is a beautiful relic of the original style of architecture. These buildings now comprise
six loose boxes, with six rooms over, and, in two wings, ten loose boxes with lofts over.
Nearby is a small oak-beamed and tiled barn. A brick and tiled garage for three cars nearby is
of modern construction and has a glass-covered washdown”.
The three lodges, including the pair at the main entrance by the Eagle Gates,
provided “excellent staff accommodation”. There was also a bothy with five rooms and, in a
corner of the kitchen garden, the head gardener’s cottage with two sitting rooms and three
bedrooms.
The particulars of sale have a wonderful description of the surroundings that is worth
quoting in full: “The grounds are famous for the beauty of the ancient trees which abound
everywhere. Stately conifers and magnificent specimens of chestnut, beech, lime and oak
combine with sweeping lawns to form a setting of unrivalled beauty, while woodland walks
through stately avenues or by thickets of yew and holly, interspersed with bold masses of
rhododendrons, are everywhere to be found. The timber is exceedingly valuable.
“The pleasure gardens have been so skilfully planned that they blend with, and do
not detract the eye from, their beautiful natural surroundings. There is a boldness in their
arrangement suitable to their setting, no finnicking [sic] flower beds or dotting of shrubs.
They include spreading lawns, a rose garden bordered by ancient clipped yews, a very lovely
rock garden, wherein a tiny stream cascades over masses of natural stone to a lily pool, over
which leans an old wisteria tree. Beds of azaleas give a wealth of colour to the front of the
mansion and, near the kitchen garden, are the fine herbaceous borders. There are tennis
lawns, a croquet lawn and a bowling green. A studio nestles near the rose garden.
“To the west the lawns merge into parkland, which dips steeply to the picturesque
lake of twelve acres, forming a perfect picture of tranquillity, bounded by timber-clad hills and
bordered by irises, water lilies and bold-leaved waterside plants. Along the banks of the lake
runs a wide walk, bordered by an ancient yew hedge, and at the south end is a beautiful
tree-clad island. Abounding in the lake are pike, carp, perch, roach and golden tench”.
The walled kitchen garden had “an ample water supply from a chain of pretty pools
filled by the overflow from the lake”, but we are not told how the water was conveyed uphill
from the pools to the garden! The garden had trained fruit trees, heated glasshouses with
peaches, nectarines and figs, tomato and cucumber houses, and a boiler house.
To conclude, in the words of the particulars of sale, “There seems to be included in
the Aldermaston Court Estate everything that a man’s heart could desire”. But, as a postscript
to this euphoric statement, there remain a number of major issues to be taken into the
reckoning:
 Half of the population of Aldermaston departed, involuntarily, in 1939 or shortly
before or afterwards, and that must have led to a major social upheaval on a scale
experienced by very few villages at that time;

Due both directly and indirectly to the intervention of war a third of the Parish was
eventually obliterated and became lost behind the wire fence of what was to become
AWE;
 And, lastly, had war not intervened Aldermaston would have been surrounded by the
sort of ribbon development that would have turned most of the Parish into what
places like Camberley look like today.
At the end of the day you do have to accept the facts of life, and what is remarkable is simply
how much of the Parish as it was in 1939, including Aldermaston Court and the conservation
area of Aldermaston village, has been preserved, almost intact, until the beginning of the 21st
century. That is no mean achievement, and something to be cherished by future generations,
even if they themselves have no tangible connection with Aldermaston as it was in 1939.
___________
Footnotes:
1. At the start of 1938 Aldermaston Parish Council had seven councillors, the same as today,
and they were:
 Muriel Agnes Keyser, Chairman (Aldermaston Manor)
 Sybil Violet Keyser (Aldermaston Manor)
 Arthur William Bucknell (Forster’s Farm)
 Charles George Ford
 Frederic Newham (Vicar)
 Hubert Lyell Parry
 Alfred Randall
It demonstrates how much the Aldermaston Estate dominated the life of the parish. The
Misses Keyser were replaced by:
 Francis Gerald Strange (Aldermaston Brewery) – co-opted 24 October 1938
 Lionel Snowdon Holmwood (Doctor) – elected 3 May 1939
but there is no record of who succeeded Muriel Keyser as Chairman. The next appointments
were co-options to replace two of the other five who were councillors in 1938 (but not Rev
Newham and not Mr Bucknell, who both witnessed one of the co-options). They were:
 Henry Walter Barrett (Colonel, C.B.) – co-opted 19 April 1941
 Albert Summers (Froude’s Farm) – co-opted 18 April 1942
And then the records in the possession of Aldermaston Parish Council dry up until 1968, but
the minutes of the Parish Council of this period are preserved in the Berkshire Records Office.
2. Anyone who finds errors and is able to correct them, or to add to the information given
here, is most welcome to do so.
Please contact Parish Clerk, Bill Scott – tel: 0118 981 3441;
or email aldermaston@btopenworld.com