---- News, Views & Information
|
Amersham
---- News, Views & Information |
I am very grateful to visitors to this site who have
provided the following pictures for display.
If anyone has any pictures I can display, please email
the web master
Although there is still much farm land around Amersham, in the past the agricultural activities were much closer to the centre of the Old Town. Tony Crisp and David Woodridge have sent me the following interesting old pictures from their collections and provided the background to muh of the text.
 Picture Courtesy of David Woodridge |
| David Woodridge of Perth, Australia writes "a view of Wilson Farm showing the old cow sheds and the rick yard and just out of view to the left was Old Bob Grace's cooking area (see below)" |
 Picture Courtesy of Tony Crisp |
| The cow shed on Wilson's farm as it
was in the thirties. For some it might be hard to imagine today such
an activity taking place in almost the middle of the town. Tony told
me "Wilson had two areas to his farm. If you are facing down
Whielden Street from the end at High Street, about a hundred yards
down on the left there used to be a lane with a high wall on the
right of it , and the wall of a house on the left, followed by a
garden wall. At the end of this lane there was an area where the
Wilson family had several large barns and a very large open area for
the farm yard. This is where they milked the cows and a great deal
of hay was stored in a rick yard." I believe this area to now be where Whielden Green is located. Tony added "the second area of their farm was further down Whielden Street, also on the left. I imagine the house is still there. It is set back from the road with a reasonably large front garden and on the right of the house is, or was, a wide track for carts and tractors to go down. This was the house the family lived in. In one of the front windows on the first floor were iron bars." "Because the farm was so central it was a meeting point for many of the townspeople during harvesting -- a real party atmosphere as they were threshing the wheat." |
 Picture Courtesy of Tony Crisp |
| The above photo was taken by Tony
Crisp many years ago. It shows Bob Grace who worked on Wilson's Farm
that used to be in Whielden Street. He slept in the barn at one
time, but the photo shows him in a little lean to he made just
outside the farm gate in the field near where there used to be two
magnificent elm trees, just down the hill from Piggotts Orchard. Bob
was a great character in the Old Town. In the 1970s he lived in
another makeshift hut in the graveyard at the top of The Platt. He
was always black from the smoke of his fire in the hut and
surrounded by flea-ridden cats and a dog called Curly. He used to be
able to get around the town by pushing a pram, but eventually was
permanently in his hut and determined never to go into hospital! David Woodridge adds "Bob Grace used to live on the farm in the barns etc. and when he got drunk on a Saturday night he would stand on the corner of the High Street and Whielden Street and cuckoo so loud that it reverberated all over the Amersham. I'll tell you another little story about old Bob Grace, I don't know whether I should but I will what the heck - Old Bob Grace, we always called him Old Bob Grace used to cook hedgehog stew in a large pot on an open fire just in the field where the hay ricks used to be, next to an electricity transformer, anyway about 4 of us kids decided to pee into his hedgehog and waited, with much glee, to see if he would still eat it. Sure enough next day when we crept down to see, most of it was gone. God rest his soul, he was harmless enough" |
 Picture Courtesy of Tony Crisp |
| 'Birdie' leading one of Joe Wilson's cart horses out of a field after working it. David Woodridge remebers "Birdie, or "Dicky Bird, he" as we called him, wasn't a very tall man but he handled those huge horses as if they were little friendly dogs. I remember him giving us rides on them and we could not get our legs across the backs of them. Dickie Bird would have his lunch sitting in the stalls with them, he would have his ploughmans lunch, a big slab of cheese and a loaf of bread which he carved pieces off with his knife, and those horses never ever trod on him. Dickie Bird would have been the last of the true ploughmen because tractors and combined harvesters and the such were moving in. He was truly the end of an era, a lovely man. " |
 Picture Courtesy of Tony Crisp |
| Cows in the farmyard in Whielden
Street. If you are facing down Whielden Street from the end at High
Street, about a hundred yards down on the left there used to be a
lane with a high wall on the right of it. The wall of a house on the
left, followed by a garden wall. At the end of this lane there was
an area where the Wilson family had several large barns and a very
large open area for the farm yard. This is where they milked the
cows and a great deal of hay was stored in a rick yard. I believe
this area to now be where Whielden Green is located. Adrian Partington, now from Portsmouth remembers "as a child in the 70s I used to live just off Piggots End and there used to be a shortcut path which ran from the estate through the field to the Old Town. I don't think there were any barns left there then, but I clearly remember a rather rutted concrete area in the field which I'm pretty certain is shown in one of the photos. I also remember a majestic, very large tree (Oak, possibly, but not certain) which stood in the middle of the field and which us kids used to climb up. One hazard of doing this was being caught up there 'when the cows came home' and being marooned on top of the tree whilst several dozen cows milled around its base! Eventually the tree died but its dead trunk stood for many years in the field, the last time I visited Amersham it had gone, and all that remained was a patch of nettles in the field where it had once stood.." |
 Picture Courtesy of Tony Crisp |
| The bull that was kept chained in the farmyard, seen in the background. |
 Picture Courtesy of Tony Crisp |
| Joe Wilson and Brian Appleton making a hayrick along the Wycombe Road. |
click here for the old picture index
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