Croxley Green Memories (2 of 3)
I came to Croxley Green in 1942 at the age of 11 and attended Durrants School until the age of 14. At this time we lived over the parade of shops opposite the Red House on Watford Road. These shops consisted of a chemist, baker, wool shop, cycle shop, newsagent, public library and the electrical shop over which we lived.
These shops gave people more or less everything they needed because spending on other things such as shoes, clothes and furniture was restricted because of a system of coupons that existed. Money was short as well and holidays were non-existent.
To save food coupons my mother, sister and myself would often go to the British Restaurant. This was situated on what was a small green at the bottom of New Road opposite the Met station. The restaurants were set up by the government to ensure that people had nourishing meals as the weekly quota of food coupons was small. The charge for meat and two veg + a sweet was 5d and very excellent it was.
In 1944 a continual formation of tanks and soldiers passed by us in Watford Road. Although we didn’t know it at the time, they were heading for the south coast for the invasion. The noise was unbelievable and the ground shook. This went on all day.
At one stage the formation of tanks stopped for about half an hour. My mother made a huge urn of tea for which the soldiers were grateful. When I was 13 we moved to the Crescent in Watford Road.
One night we heard a doodlebug coming (its noise was quite distinctive), we could see the fire coming from the rear. The noise stopped, it plummeted to earth. We heard a very loud explosion and we believe it fell somewhere in the area of the Green.
In New Road on the corner of Dickinson Square stood the Dickinson Guild house. This was built by Dickinson to provide a place for its workers to take part in many activities of entertaining or being entertained. Towards the end of the War my family became involved with the Labour Party. It was decided that the members would put on a show at the Guildhouse. The show included a short play, somebody sang, there was a comedian and other standup routines.
Most of the local community of men were employed by the print firms, these included Dickinsons, Sun and Rembrant and the women either worked locally or stayed at home. There was a sense of community among the people unlike today where many households seem isolated in their areas although they in the midst of large areas of housing and people. In the Crescent where we lived, out of 10 houses, only 1 man commuted, all the others worked locally.
Land Army girls were used to work on farms and the land doing the mens work while they were at War. Our local milk round was done by a land army girl and some Saturdays I would help her deliver the milk. T.B. was still around. Both Father and daughter next door had it. Both later recovered.
About 1946, friends and I used to vary our walks home from school via the Green. Opposite the new top shops in Baldwins Lane we came across a group of German POW’s who were digging trenches for the sewers of the now Council Estate. We were seen trying to make some form of communication and were reported to the police who in turn came to our houses and severely reprimanded us as the public was not allowed to have any form of communication with any POWs.
I ultimately left Croxley in 1956 following my marriage and lived subsequently in Manchester, Bishops Stortford and Wembley, returning to the borders of Croxley Green in 1966 where I have lived ever since.
These shops gave people more or less everything they needed because spending on other things such as shoes, clothes and furniture was restricted because of a system of coupons that existed. Money was short as well and holidays were non-existent.
To save food coupons my mother, sister and myself would often go to the British Restaurant. This was situated on what was a small green at the bottom of New Road opposite the Met station. The restaurants were set up by the government to ensure that people had nourishing meals as the weekly quota of food coupons was small. The charge for meat and two veg + a sweet was 5d and very excellent it was.
In 1944 a continual formation of tanks and soldiers passed by us in Watford Road. Although we didn’t know it at the time, they were heading for the south coast for the invasion. The noise was unbelievable and the ground shook. This went on all day.
At one stage the formation of tanks stopped for about half an hour. My mother made a huge urn of tea for which the soldiers were grateful. When I was 13 we moved to the Crescent in Watford Road.
One night we heard a doodlebug coming (its noise was quite distinctive), we could see the fire coming from the rear. The noise stopped, it plummeted to earth. We heard a very loud explosion and we believe it fell somewhere in the area of the Green.
In New Road on the corner of Dickinson Square stood the Dickinson Guild house. This was built by Dickinson to provide a place for its workers to take part in many activities of entertaining or being entertained. Towards the end of the War my family became involved with the Labour Party. It was decided that the members would put on a show at the Guildhouse. The show included a short play, somebody sang, there was a comedian and other standup routines.
Most of the local community of men were employed by the print firms, these included Dickinsons, Sun and Rembrant and the women either worked locally or stayed at home. There was a sense of community among the people unlike today where many households seem isolated in their areas although they in the midst of large areas of housing and people. In the Crescent where we lived, out of 10 houses, only 1 man commuted, all the others worked locally.
Land Army girls were used to work on farms and the land doing the mens work while they were at War. Our local milk round was done by a land army girl and some Saturdays I would help her deliver the milk. T.B. was still around. Both Father and daughter next door had it. Both later recovered.
About 1946, friends and I used to vary our walks home from school via the Green. Opposite the new top shops in Baldwins Lane we came across a group of German POW’s who were digging trenches for the sewers of the now Council Estate. We were seen trying to make some form of communication and were reported to the police who in turn came to our houses and severely reprimanded us as the public was not allowed to have any form of communication with any POWs.
I ultimately left Croxley in 1956 following my marriage and lived subsequently in Manchester, Bishops Stortford and Wembley, returning to the borders of Croxley Green in 1966 where I have lived ever since.
Our Dad worked on the old Met & LNE Joint Line as a signalman, and in 1925 when the new line opened to Watford (Met) he was one of the first men to work the new Signal Box at that station. The houses at Gade Bank were being built for the employees of the new line and we moved into No.12 about 1926. We kids (boys) had to attend the Old Boys school in Watford Rd next door to the Duke of York pub, it was a long walk for us from Gade Bank, the route was along the tow path of the canal for almost 250 yds to the main road at Cassio Bridge then about 1 mile from there to school. On the opposite side of the canal (where the Marina is today) there was a large Timber Yard, (Meredith & Wise) where we watched the Thames Lighters being unloaded. The timber had arrived in the big Lighters from the London Docks, the old LMS station of Croxley Green was on our left and then the coal yard which used to be shunted by steam engines, there were a few houses on our right but none on our left, between the coal yard and the canal were fields, one field was used for Motor Cycle dirt track riding at the weekends, etc. The new field was the Mill Field, there was great excitement one morning when a plane had made an emergency landing it had narrowly missed going through the hedge dividing the two fields, I am not sure what type of plane it was, private or military, but the Pilot was still with it, we had hoped to see more of it later in the day, after school, but it had gone then.
There were no school meals in those days so we had to take sandwiches, etc. We had to walk to and from school in all weathers and not accompanied by parents, there were very few cars in those days and we could not afford the bus fares, we did occasionally have a few coppers for the bus and usually rode on the top deck which was open to the elements. During the summer months we had a fine old time but not so good in the dark winter months and one particularly bad day with snow and ice we arrived on time for school and dear old Neggy Wilson ordered that we should be given a standing ovation by the rest of the school. During the bad weather old Neggy invited us to his house on the Green, at midday, where we were given a bowl of hot soup, during the summer we ate our sandwiches in the classroom or in Croxley Woods. The big house on the corner of All Saints Lane and Watford Rd was the Vicarage, at the back of the house was quite a big orchard where we used to supplement our sandwiches with apples, etc, mainly windfalls I hasten to add. I often wondered if anyone saw us from the Vicarage, but we always got away with it. We used to have woodwork classes which we held in the Hall attached to the Dickinson’s Institute (referred to as The Tute) during one particular class I had been planning a piece of wood, the teacher was out at the time so I was conducting the class in a song, when the teacher suddenly appeared took the piece of wood and promptly gave me a whack across the rear end. I wonder what would happen today if the matter had been reported, no doubt my parents could have claimed compensation, but it was no good telling my father, all he would say was: “You must have been doing something wrong so don’t do it again”, and so it was if someone had hit us the answer was “Hit him back, boy.”
If ever we had a copper or two to spend we called in at Tom’s shop in New Rd. we could get something for a penny, halfpenny and even spend a farthing in the shop, not a shop really but a small cottage situated roughly where John’s barbers shop is today. If it was a hair cut we wanted that too was a house, where the Red Cross and Library stands today. Barton Way Estate was being developed then, as were many other estates in Croxley.
School sports. The school was divided into two sections, we had no school uniform, but wore a cap which was green with a woven badge, there was quite a bit of rivalry between the sections, I was a Saxon and the other side were Celts. The badges were CG for Celts and SG for Saxons. We played football on the Dickinson’s sports ground in the winter and Cricket in the Summer. But before playing cricket the pitch had to be prepared which meant a crowd of us kids had to pull the big roller to and fro over the pitch to level it off after the winter months. We also had to roll the pitch on the Green.
During different times of the year, we played different games, there was spinning tops which you had to hit with a whip this sent the top flying and if you weren’t careful it could be dangerous, then there was marbles we would play them along the gutter after school on our way home, then hoops which were struck by a stick then chased and struck again, conkers was another pastime, the conkers were baked in the oven to make them harder and you ended up with a Sixer or whatever. Happy Days.
There were no school meals in those days so we had to take sandwiches, etc. We had to walk to and from school in all weathers and not accompanied by parents, there were very few cars in those days and we could not afford the bus fares, we did occasionally have a few coppers for the bus and usually rode on the top deck which was open to the elements. During the summer months we had a fine old time but not so good in the dark winter months and one particularly bad day with snow and ice we arrived on time for school and dear old Neggy Wilson ordered that we should be given a standing ovation by the rest of the school. During the bad weather old Neggy invited us to his house on the Green, at midday, where we were given a bowl of hot soup, during the summer we ate our sandwiches in the classroom or in Croxley Woods. The big house on the corner of All Saints Lane and Watford Rd was the Vicarage, at the back of the house was quite a big orchard where we used to supplement our sandwiches with apples, etc, mainly windfalls I hasten to add. I often wondered if anyone saw us from the Vicarage, but we always got away with it. We used to have woodwork classes which we held in the Hall attached to the Dickinson’s Institute (referred to as The Tute) during one particular class I had been planning a piece of wood, the teacher was out at the time so I was conducting the class in a song, when the teacher suddenly appeared took the piece of wood and promptly gave me a whack across the rear end. I wonder what would happen today if the matter had been reported, no doubt my parents could have claimed compensation, but it was no good telling my father, all he would say was: “You must have been doing something wrong so don’t do it again”, and so it was if someone had hit us the answer was “Hit him back, boy.”
If ever we had a copper or two to spend we called in at Tom’s shop in New Rd. we could get something for a penny, halfpenny and even spend a farthing in the shop, not a shop really but a small cottage situated roughly where John’s barbers shop is today. If it was a hair cut we wanted that too was a house, where the Red Cross and Library stands today. Barton Way Estate was being developed then, as were many other estates in Croxley.
School sports. The school was divided into two sections, we had no school uniform, but wore a cap which was green with a woven badge, there was quite a bit of rivalry between the sections, I was a Saxon and the other side were Celts. The badges were CG for Celts and SG for Saxons. We played football on the Dickinson’s sports ground in the winter and Cricket in the Summer. But before playing cricket the pitch had to be prepared which meant a crowd of us kids had to pull the big roller to and fro over the pitch to level it off after the winter months. We also had to roll the pitch on the Green.
During different times of the year, we played different games, there was spinning tops which you had to hit with a whip this sent the top flying and if you weren’t careful it could be dangerous, then there was marbles we would play them along the gutter after school on our way home, then hoops which were struck by a stick then chased and struck again, conkers was another pastime, the conkers were baked in the oven to make them harder and you ended up with a Sixer or whatever. Happy Days.
SHOPS
One big thing during our time was the change over to decimal coinage, it took a while for some customers to come to terms with it.
When we took the shop over it was just groceries etc. We introduced fruit and vegs also small bags of coal, etc.
One thing we were noted for was the cooked ham we did off the bone, my husband spent quite some time each week preparing and cooking the huge joints which we cut on a machine.
We did local deliveries in all weather, we also had some great characters who lived around our area but sadly must have died out, just like corner shops. There were times when my husband could buy goods cheaper at these new super stores, than from the wholesalers.
I am afraid I cannot think of prices, its 14 and over yrs since we left the shop, and sadly I lost my husband 9 years ago, now if he had been alive his memory would have been better than mine, he could have been more helpful then to you.
One big thing during our time was the change over to decimal coinage, it took a while for some customers to come to terms with it.
When we took the shop over it was just groceries etc. We introduced fruit and vegs also small bags of coal, etc.
One thing we were noted for was the cooked ham we did off the bone, my husband spent quite some time each week preparing and cooking the huge joints which we cut on a machine.
We did local deliveries in all weather, we also had some great characters who lived around our area but sadly must have died out, just like corner shops. There were times when my husband could buy goods cheaper at these new super stores, than from the wholesalers.
I am afraid I cannot think of prices, its 14 and over yrs since we left the shop, and sadly I lost my husband 9 years ago, now if he had been alive his memory would have been better than mine, he could have been more helpful then to you.
Highfield, Croxley Green 1918 – 1931
I was a lad of 8 years old in 1918 and we came to Croxley Green and Highfield in the July of that year, which is my birth month. The Great War, the war to end all wars, was still in progress.
My father, who was Head Gardener there, seemed to have been on the move since 1914 – 1915, to better himself as he put it. He had had his fill of the aristocracy and had worked for Lady Oxford–Asquith, of whom he had many a tale to tell.
Dad had a long time friend a Mr. William Brookes, who was Head Gardener to Sir Morland Agnew of Durrants, Croxley Green. It was Mr. Brookes who wrote to my father and told him of the vacancy at Highfield for the position of Head Gardener of three, Highfield’s owner was then William Edward Catesby.
Now W.E. Catesby was the Catesby of Tottenham Court Road, London’s lino firm which was very big business in those days and manufactured the earliest Congaleum Squares, which “would enhance any drawing room” by its copying of carpet squares of all designs.
I can remember my mother, I and my second brother, journeying down by rail to Rickmansworth station. Dad and my elder brother went with the furniture van. We all walked to Highfield through the alley and round by the Catholic Church and so up to Scots Hill. We lived at the lodge there, right next to the very wonderful iron gates that marked the drive entrance. At least they seemed very wonderful then and of course HUGE to my young eyes.
I was hauled off to school to enrol before the term ended, but did not actually start school until the new term. Miss Dobson was my first teacher followed later by Miss Furze (Fuzzy), Mr. Cleary and young Irishman WALLIS whose aim with the chalk, propelled by a ruler, was accurate and unending, and of course H.T. Wilson, the famous “Neggy” was the head and to whom I, in common with so many, are so greatly indebted to the principles he taught us.
My father’s brief as the new Head Gardener after an aged Mr. Webb, was to tidy up the Highfield Estate of some 13 acres later to be increased by the purchase of an orchard on the lower side of Copthorne Road, which added two extra acres. The Highfield of 1918 comprised our lodge, which was bought and erected from a design shown at the Ideal Homes Exhibition, very pretty and olde world from the outside, with its Tudor Beams, but not so convenient inside and certainly no bathroom then. That came after our exit in 1931
Of course, being war time, vegetables were a priority. The Kitchen Garden which was walled and clad, with two peaches and a nectarine tree, was directly outside the new entrance of the Lodge. There were two greenhouses and a Vinery in the Kitchen Garden boundaries. The smaller greenhouse was more correctly called the Stove House. That name was given because Hot House or Stove Plants only were reared there with its greater heat. A principle of the Stove House was that the foundations were at least two feet below ground level and thus a greater warmth was attained with not much greater cost in fuel, coke was 10 pence old money a hundredweight and the Stokehole, also near our backdoor, held a Ton and was a warm, cosy place in winter. That boiler heated both house and the Vinery.
Dad’s new wages was then £3 per week plus vegetables and wood, and of course the Lodge was rent free. It was still lit by gas, though the Catesby’s did install electricity later. My mother had an old fashioned coal stove to cook by and a gas ring in the corner for quicker results such as a cup of tea. Baths were in a Bungalow galvanised bath in front of the fire, the copper in the scullery provided the necessary hot water.
There was a gas light in my parents’ room, but we two boys had to make do with a candle. Reading in bed by candlelight was NOT encouraged, but the Norfolk handle latches on the doors gave early warning of parental intrusion.
A quick pinch of the candle wick and feigned sleep got us over many a hurdle, but rustling comics gave the game away many a time.
Dad soon got the vegetable garden into shape and embarked on a programme of cutting out a few of the aged and unproductive apple and pear trees and set about trenching the four plots with its attendant blue stone tile edgings to the four plots that comprised the vegetable area. There was a south and warm border fronting the high brick wall on which the peaches and nectarines were growing. It produced a great many early crops like the first peas and a few rows of early potatoes – usually Sharpes Express.
Three other features figured in the Kitchen Garden and they were a Medlar tree, a Quince and Celtis of Judas Tree. The last named tree was propped up by the other tree trunks to take the heavy branches. A second tree in the pleasure garden was in similar fashion. The story goes that the Judas Tree is so called because the original tree was the one that the Biblical Judas Iscariot hung himself, after he had betrayed Our Lord for thirty piece of silver. The tree was so ashamed that it refused to bear the weight of the branches and so to this day, mature specimens of the Celtis tree always have to have their branches shored up when they break away from the main trunk.
The north side of the Kitchen Garden wall acted as a lean to for (1) the Tool Shed, in which every tool had to be washed, if used, at night time before hanging up and at weekends they were oiled for good measure. Next to this was originally a fruit room, but later made over to house my parent’s carpenters tools. Next to this a brick water tank for tool washing and an earth closet alongside and later used as a lime store. Then an open fronted wood stove, where faggots of wood for kindling and logs were cut and stored, again, further on, another small shed used for pot storage. They were kept on racks according to the size. Not 3”, 4” or 6” as they are today. The smallest was Tom Thumb, the next 60s and then Long Toms. Then came 48s, then 32s, then 16s and 12s, the twelves were for growing Chrysanths in, the indoor variety of course.
The numbers referred to the number of pots to a cast (quantity).
Then with the sheds directly covered from view with shrubs, one came to the pleasure ground. The lawns in the days before the motor mower came along, necessitated 2 men pushing and pulling the 14” and heavy Ransom mowers, thus it was a full days work later reduced to about 10 – 3pm with one man on the 22” Dennis motor mower. Then of course there was the edges to be clipped and the flower beds hoed.
Again from the formal beds which were filled with Geraniums, Lobelia and Allysum in summer and Wallflowers, Forget-me-nots in spring – Polyanthus were not all that plentiful then and war efforts had put paid to any notions of Tulips and other bulbs.
Of course, the Big House commanded the views of the lawns and flowers and was built of yellow stone bricks and had a marvellous Conservatory which one approached via the Hall. From the Front Door (scarlet) was a “through” Hall, with the Dining Room on the left and the Drawing Room on the right. There was a glassed Veranda all the way round with the Conservatory occupying centre with the upper glass having stained glass motifs. From the Drawing Room a locked door gave on to a tiled floor grotto with fish ponds and heavy and exotic ferns in many varieties. It was of course referred to as the Fernery and later, in E.L. Jacobs time, the Fernery and pools were dispensed with in favour of an Orangery and indoor plants. The tiled floor led on to a stone flight of stairs and so to the Billiard Room, where a full size Billiards table was sited.
Underneath was the Coach House, later elevated to Garage and adjoining them was the stables, with stabling for 3 horses and a cart.
Going through a rustic gate and on to the lawns there was an aviary full of finches and canaries, this time it was the stable wall that provided the lee side for the birds.
At the far extent of the terraced lawn was the grass Tennis Court and abutting on to a small paddock was a wooden bungalow with two beds, living room and a very small kitchen. This, for several years, was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Wallace, Scots through and through. In later years, the Wallaces occupied a Council House in the newly built Gonville Avenue (W.E. Catesby was on the Rickmansworth Council) and I think, was Chairman at one stage.
Mr. Wallace’s duties were to escort Mr. Archie Catesby, the second son of W.E. Archie was prone to epileptic fits and was chaperoned by Mr. Wallace daily on the trips to London and Tottenham Court Road and back.
From the stables the long drive continued via a line of horse chestnuts and so on to the cart shed, cow sheds and the piggery. In a direct line from the cart shed and down to the Copthorne Road ran a holly hedge of some 8-9 feet in height. This is still visible from Copthorne Road in 1981. I know because I’ve just returned from a nostalgic trip to see what I could figure out of the one time Estate.
In front of the cow sheds and piggery was the pasture where a max total of 2 cows grazed. The pasture was mainly square but with a narrow leg that ran alongside Copthorne Road near Scots Hill, there was a locked access gate, tall and with a wire screen.
Behind the narrow leg were the Pleasure Lawns, screened by a Shrubbery with 2 flint Grottoes – these gave on to a Nut Walk, by which one could ascend by stone steps to the Kitchen Garden and continue to the end of the Nut Walk, to a solid wooden door, green painted – locked, also a short cut to Scots Hill or House, whichever way you were bound. There was a 3 – 4 acre field in front of the house looking towards All Saints Church. This was bounded by the Holloway property which of course was the famous Croxley Windmill.
In Catesby time one of their boundaries gave on to the Warwicks Villas and then gardens, a part of the garden was bought by W.E. Catesby and became a small additional garden, complete with another greenhouse and known as the Chalet Garden.
The main and most visible feature of Highfield was the drive, gravelled and which was contained by a four foot flint wall with red brick buttresses.
The flower border on top was maintained as a floral showpiece by my father and most certainly attracted considerable attention from the passengers of the 1920 buses, as they inched and were sometimes scotched on their slow progress up Scots Hill, sometimes the poor devils had to alight and push the bus up the steep hill. You had to help on risk not completing ones journey.
The trouble was in hidden gradient and failing to change gear early enough, despite warning notices in the pit on the lower and opposite side of the hill. In big red lettering on a white enamelled plate, don’t forget your SKID PANS, maybe it didn’t apply to the buses, but it was warning enough to the new fangled motors to take care. Many a car and lorry came to grief on Scots Hill and tried conclusions with Highfields sloping flint retaining wall (to the Kitchen garden). Several times my father had the job of making good that wall.
The Catesbys had, I think, three sons, young Willie, who for a time lived at Moor Park, Archie who married and lived at The Nook, now Outspan of Watford Road, and Cyril the youngest who eventually went to South Africa.
I well remember being agape with curiosity when Cyril bought a red monoplane about 1920 and housed it in the cart shed at the field end of the drive. His big buddy was a young Tussaud of Madam Tussaud fame and who lived at the Hawthorne in New Road. I only remember seeing Cyril but a few times and with a toothbrush moustache but the monoplane was certainly a sensation and fine material for a schoolboy to brag about. W.E. was a portly man with a moustache and was a descendant of Robert Catesby of Guy Fawkes fame. He was said to have the original Lanthorn used at the gunpowder plot.
Of course, in those days one had to mind your P’s and Q’s and always raise one’s cap when the V.I.P,’s drove into view. Looking back, one remembers the V.I.P.’s of Croxley and their gardeners. There was another Brookes, father of Alice and May, who took care of Elmcote and Little Gillians. Trenches at the top of the Green, Stedalls and no nonsense at Croxley House. The lesser Miss Dugdale (of Dugdales) County of course but not quite quite! The Agnew’s of Durrants earlier mentioned and the Woolrych of Parrots, Sir Guy Calthrop who died with many others of influenza in 1920. The Ingleby Oddies of Copthorne Road – Ingleby for many years the Westminster Coroner. Then there were the Greaves where Scots Hill House is, and the Kennedy’s House and of course the Forbes of Waterdell House. At Scots Hill Court. Mr. Kennedy was a big man but walked always with a heavy stick. Lilah his wife usually supported him.
Sunday morning service at Church was the place for the V.I.P.s to be seen on parade. If it was known that the Stedalls were desirous of attending Divine Service, then it was more than the Vicar’s life was worth to commence the service without welcoming them to the church. Up would drive the Stedalls in their broughham, complete with coachman and cockaded hat. Sometimes before, sometimes after, Miss Dugdale in pony and trap.
The ‘real’ gentry disdained the lower or new part of the church and besported themselves in the following order. The Kennedys always sat near the front, about the 3rd pew, later a brass tablet was to mark their pew. Miss Dugdale in solitary state, on opposite side with a watchful eye for any of her staff that were supposed to be present.
Then the Ingleby Oddies, Mrs. O always very regal looking with a Gainsborough type hat and towards the rear – the last of the Woolrych’s – genteel – he – rather Colonel Poonerish. The Trenches sat in the lower or new half of the church – again their seat was marked with a marble tablet to their airforce son, killed in the 1918 war.
Behind them was the Barton Smiths, manager of Croxley Mills and report has it that many a mill worker was called to account on Monday morning, if absent from Sunday church. The record would not be complete without mention of the Misses Barker of Briary Close, now Rickmansworth Comprehensive School. Fanny, tall – then, always in black and Emma, short and stout, twins, but in no way alike. Fanny, to my certain knowledge, wore the same black hat year in and year out but trimmed according to the season. A little bit of holly berries here and there around the band for Christmas – Alexander Roses for Alexandra Day, Poppies for Armistice Day and for summer wear Cornflowers, Daisies and corn ears bedecked the brim. But they were very devout daughters of the Rev. Alleyene Barker, sometime vicar of Rickmansworth.
They gave me my bible in 1924 when I left Sunday School and I still have it inscribed in a spidery hand.
It was in May 1923 May 1st to be exact, when Mr. Catesby died. I remember Mrs. Elizabeth Catesby rushing down to our lodge for my mother to come up quickly, although my mother was never in any way part of the household.
I should think that the subsequent funeral was one of the last occasions when I saw old Peddles glass sided hearse with its ornate black iron trim along the roof and four black horses with black plumes on their heads to haul the coach. The coffin was carried from the Big House, down the drive to where the hearse and equipage waited. I was taking it all in, behind the drawn curtains at the vantage point of my parents’ bedroom.
The wreaths were numerous and pride of place was the widow’s, a ship in sail, sent down from London – I had occasion to help my father “make up” the same frame a year later in Daffodils, Hyacinth Bells, Forget-me-nots and White Arabis to mark the anniversary. Both the Catesby’s are buried in Rickmansworth churchyard with a large granite block inscribed with their names.
Thereafter, Mrs Catesby carried on the estate as in her husband’s time, but one supposes the burden became a little too much. Eventually in 1926 she bought “The Mount” in Copthorne Road and was in fact the first owner. In between bringing the Highfield Estate up to top peak and ready for any potential buyers’ inspection, my father laid out and put the turf down at The Mount. In my souvenirs I have a photograph of myself at The Mount complete with “Tommy”, a retired bakers horse, who used to draw the small cart used for Leaf mould carting and manure collecting and in the haymaking time, haymaking was done with the scythe in those days by a Mr. Litchfield from Elmcote on the Green. “Tommy”, a pure white horse, retired from a bakery in London, had the engaging habit of always pulling in to the lodge Veranda en route on some errand or other. There he would paw the Tiled surface until my mother came out to give him the requested crust of bread. This was a regular trick of his. The other and not so engaging habit of his was that if either my brother or self made to ride him bare backed, he’d let you mount and then he’d get up speed, making for the elm tree in the field and gallop at speed beneath its branches. One had to be flat on his back, and the worst we ever suffered was to have ones cap knocked off.
There were two dogs in the Catesby’s time, one was a fierce Airedale name of “Mick”, he was kept chained and beneath the Veranda, close by the front door was Mick’s kennel. I treated him very respectfully and gave him no chance to sample my trouser leg, which was what he seemed to be intent on doing. To that end I dodged through the shrubbery at the rear of Mick’s kennel and safe from his attentions.
The other dog was a little black Pomeranian, also in an outdoor kennel, which was replaced eventually by a brick one by dad. The Pom rejoiced in the name of “Pongo” and was quite docile, at any rate he didn’t leap out and try to break his chain in an effort to get at you.
Eventually the place was sold to Ernest Lionel Jacobs. He and his wife, her sister Miss Mary Congdon who was on the stage at one time, took up residence at Highfield, and Mrs. Catesby retired to “The Mount”.
Soon came the first of many changes. The garden staff remained as it was, but Jacobs bought with him his chauffeur, Frank Parker and a parlour maid Freda Prior. The Parker’s had to make shift with the Wallaces’ bungalow for a time, while the building of another and more modern version of Highfield Lodge was built in the Orchard and butting onto the cottages and The Plough.
Outwardly, it was the same as ours but electricity was piped in. We too, had electricity put in at the same time as the Big House was fitted up.
Jacobs caused a new front entrance to be built with a decent hall or vestibule as it was called. There was a bathroom above and apart from redecoration etc., it remained much the same. The Watford firm that carried out the building of the new entrance and the chauffer’s cottage was T.H. King and sons of Watford.
Then the garden and more particularly, the drive just past the two copper beeches half way up the drive. The taller of the two was reputed to be the finest in Hertfordshire.
From the copper beeches which gave entry to the sheds and Kitchen Gardens was an island of trees, mostly Scotch Firs and another whose variety now eludes me, but which gave the most trouble when it came to be excavated (Accacia). Somewhere about this period of time Ted Wallngton of Sarratt left us, following an appendix operation and a north country family joined us. Both Chater and his wife came from Morpeth, Northumberland, and to house them Jacobs bought No. 11, The Fortune, Rickmansworth.
So Bob, my father and self wrestled with and successfully felled, cut the trees up with some cut saws (no chain saws then) and then dug up the stumps. The timber made a magnificent pile by the woodshed, which over the year were converted into logs by means of a small saw bench, operated by electricity.
After the island site had been cleared of the trees, Mrs. Jacobs desired it should be planted with Rhododendrons. The soil was gravel, and peat then was not easily obtained, so the ground was deeply trenched and loads of Salters spent hops were worked into the soil, bulky stuff and leady too. Then came the Rhododendrons, an eye-opener this. They came from the Lionel De Rothchild’s estate at Exbury, Southampton and in two massive lorries. They were truly specimen trees with root some five feet or more across, very solidly encased in their native peaty soil. I think there were about nine or ten and had to be slid down planks from the lorry, to the excavated holes, all ready to receive them. The three largest specimens went to the middle and the smaller ones (though still very large) planted around the border. When consolidated into the ground, they were given a further and generous mulch of more hops. They seemed to do alright for four or five years, then gradually they gave up the struggle and looked very miserable indeed.
When the Rhodo’s were in position then came the ob of re-surfacing the drive, to repair the ravages of builders lorries, electricity and other heavy traffic over the previous months.
Loads of best red Hogan was brought up from the Ricky gravel pits and it was spread, raked and rolled, and re-rolled.
Jacobs and the chauffeur were served notice that the car was not to be used for two or three days, while the drive was given its final treatment. This consisted of the two underlings hauling the roller up and down, whilst the Head played water over the roller ad-lib.
No hosepipe, or rather, no convenient water pipe stand, so the water cart, a forty gallon tank on iron wheels was filled and brought up to action stations. The roller had to be kept moving, lest it left a dip on the now very soft gravel but it all had the effect of a red slurry on the surface, the gates were chained and the whole left to set for two or three days. The finish achieved was first class, the camber was gentle and absolutely no stones worked through to the surface, so that it was a joy to sweep clean (daily) of leaves and litter, certainly no weeds appeared for a long, long time. Such was the craftsmanship of a man’s know how.
The uniform then, was a blue, beize apron, later to become blue serge with pockets. This was supplied by the employer in much the same way as a mistress would dress her maids in morning (working dress) and afternoon grey alpaca, white aprons and caps.
After the drive episode, came the pulling down of the aviary and a rose bed made, then the wooden bungalow was made redundant, though still perfectly sound. In its place was erected a double pergola of 6’’ square oak posts with cross members in the Italian style.
Again my parent supervised it and I was given the job of laying rectangular paving through the middle, culminating in a square area at the end, whereon a seat and table were placed. The timbers were clad with roses and the borders planted with things in due season.
The aviary wall had been white washed and so the Russian Vine or Polygonia was planted to clothe it. Thus it did very effectively in one year, so rapid was its growth. During all this time Highfield and its gardens were maintained in the usual high standards. But the vegetable standards began to change.
Here let me say something of my routine as Garden Boy. I had to be up and outside by 7 o’clock. First I had to nip up to the house and descend to the boiler room, there rake and clean the fire, clearing any coke clinker and leaving the fire to roar, to make sure the master had his hot water for the bath. This done, I beat a hasty retreat from the coke fumes and went to the Conservatory. Here I had to water all plants as needed. Then set to and scrub the blue and red tiled floor with broom, most days 2 or 3 can fulls of water would suffice to clean the floor, but Saturday morns were spit and polish days. Then about 7.40 back to the boiler and put 2 or 3 shovel fulls on and make sure all was well, take up the ash, sweep the floor, fill coal buckets and ensure chopped wood bin was full. By that time I could reckon on going indoors (the lodge) when mother had breakfast ready. Half-hour. While all this was going on, Bob would have “leafed” at least half the drive, or possibly more, dad would have done overseeing the greenhouse watering.
Bob would have seen to the Greenhouse boiler. Probably by 9 o’clock, the general gardening tasks would be settled upon. Dad would impart whatever the days tasks were to be. Tools taken from their racks and counted out, so that you knew you had to provide 5 or 7 or just 2 tools back again, thus were the smaller tools more easily kept track of. At 10 am and because I was garden boy, I had to present myself to the cook, there to get my vegetable orders. This I had to relay to Dad and he would select pick or dig the needs and I would then go round to the earlier mentioned brick tanks and scrub all root veg clean and present them in pleasing eye fashion and take them to the kitchen. Dad followed the old fashioned method i.e. vegetables were considered wasteful if gathered too small and so biggest was best. It was considerably against his grain to grow petite pois or mange tout (the Jacobs had travelled abroad). Marrows had to be very young and so on. Seakale was grown and forced, chicory ditto. Chrysanths were cut by the armful and my father’s working day often did not finish till seven or eight in the evening during summer. Our hours were 7 to 5 and 1 o’clock Saturdays. My wage till I was 21 was £1-1-0 per week and Bobs £2-10 or £2-50 in new money plus cottage.
Somehow and somewhere a disagreement set in as to the production of vegetables. The new order was that they had to be culled young and plentiful which in essence meant more work and more seed. One spring, Mrs. Jacobs decided that the Sweet Pea hedge, though plentiful always in flower, did not produce the dazzling splendour of long stems and fours and fives so temptingly displayed in the specialists catalogues. So the word went forth that holes were to be dug in the Chalet garden, 2 foot across and 2 foot deep and refilled with a mix of the soil manure and leafmould and bonemeal. These were supervised by Mrs. J. Seven foot bamboo canes were to be used and each plant tied up and side shoots taken out
The named varieties of seed were purchased from Boltons of Essex and handed to my father to rear. Here, mysteriously, something went wrong. The seeds germinated and in fullness of time were daily planted out and staked by Mrs. J. with splendid seven foot canes, but the expected splendid growth never materialised. They remained dwarf to the end of their days. The hedge of Sweet Peas at the bottom of the Kitchen Garden flourished as well as ever. There might have been a lot of suspicion and letters of complaint to Bolton but it was never satisfactorily explained.
For some reason that I never learned Dad declined to enter the Croxley Green Horticultural Society shows in September. Probably because as a professional gardener the classes were limited. Certainly Brookes at Durrant never entered either. So competition would have been limited to Adams of Elmcote, Miss Dugdale and one or two of the gentry that only had one gardener or groom gardener, in which case the regulations did not apply.
This did not mean that Brookes, dad and the Mr Brookes did not visit one another’s gardens and if one suffered misfortune one way or other, then it was in order to try and make good the loss. New plant or varieties of plant warranted close inspection and the cudgelling of a cutting, especially with Chrysanths and more particularly the Jap Mop Heads varieties – rulers were produced and heads measured 12” across and three blooms to a pot was reckoned good going – though loathed at the Big House for vase work.
One of my father’s specialities was Violas. In the Kitchen Gardens and in front of the Espalier pear and apple trees there were 6 foot wide boarders and approx. 100 foot long and edged with the inevitable crenellated blue tiles. Here dad had his display of vioas in block colours. I can recollect seven different varieties and colours and the end result was quite a sight and perfume on a warm day tremendous.
Every early August, they were cut back to the bone and tops burnt to discourage Thrup and Red Spider, by mid September they were bushy young growth again. Next the sections were dug out, split up and replanted in the replenished earth to bloom again in the following spring. Winter days were none the less slack because of bad weather. Pot washing and scrubbing would occupy 2 men two days, woodsheds tidied up, tool sheds lime-washed out, a greenhouse would be emptied and, by crowding out another and the whole house given a thorough cleaning down followed by repainting and lead paint was lead paint and not that easy to apply. The gloss was just as stiff as the undercoat, but always very durable.
One could keep very warm too, by carting out loads of leaf mould to the Kitchen Garden, squaring up the autumn collection of leaves and rubbish to sizeable heap and then left to decay until the following autumn. Logs to be cut. Seed boxes to be made, plenty to occupy ones time and hands and with a fire going in the Victorian grate in the potting shed, one could be as snug as a bug in a rug. Besoms were in constant use and dad used to order 12 at a time, from Woodmans of Pinner. They cost all of 10d each old money, so that the dozen were £1 bundle by taking the 12.
Many the time I was I trouble for ot using my back more in handling the besom, use the flat of the broom more, don’t wear the tip out. New brooms were always for feathering the leaves into lanes and the second best for sweeping the litter into heaps. The third best, or scrubbers, were meant for the really rough work, like the stable yard, keen too, the inspection of an old broom, before a new one handed out.
Harking back to the display of Violas in the Kitchen Garden, recently, in the Daily Telegraph, there was an article by a specialist in Kent on Violas and inviting readers to send for his brochures and prices. I was staggered to find that the price of the same varieties grown in the late 20’s were now no less than £1 each per rooted cutting, truly a sign of the time.
I have been asked if my parent was a handyman with tools. The answer is a decided yes. I well recollect the making of a wheelbarrow out of Highfield Elm and some Ash timbers from Walkers timber yard. Templates were cut for the shaped body-work, and which carried the indispensable “Top”, and for bulky loads. Even the wheel and spokes were fashioned by him, but the iron rim was forged at Gibb’s smithy in New Road now Mead Autos. Also made was a plant carrier, simply a sort of bin with deep sides to convey a load of newly potted plants to their new home. There were no wheels for this so it was rather a weightly affair to carry. He was also instrumental in excavating the soil to make a convenient drive out from the Coach House (Garage) so that the Rolls could be conveniently turned and brought out in the house front in safety.
The containing walls of the recess were matched to the rest of the flint walling with the piers of red brick. He also did another and very effective piece of work to the large greenhouse and so far in all my years, despite great advances in the science of air flows, I’ve never seen since.
It was quite simple in its application. Imagine a 30 foot long brick based greenhouse, replete with side and top ventilation which was the usual thing (and still is) for greenhouse. My father worked out that oftimes the side ventilators were actually detrimental to the well being of the plants within the draft from open vents. So he closed the side vents more or less permanently, but took out sufficient bricks below the staging level and inserted a simple vent(s) of sliding doors some 2’ x 15” perhaps.
Thus the flow of air beneath the solid staging was nicely warmed up by the hot pipes, before entering the greenhouse and exiting the top vents. It is a “pretty” fad of todays greenhouses that the potted plants sit on slated staging. Whereas if the owners of such staging would put either corrugated iron sheets, or preferably flat sheets and then cover the metal sheets with an inch deep level of shingle, so that surplus water can drain down into the shingle/ashes and give off a humidity such as greenhouse plants revel in. This, combined with below staging ventilation would bring great benefit in healthier plants. Possibly, with today’s “know-how” and Automatic Vent openers, the automatic part could be extended to and adapted to ventilators below the staging level as well as the ones in the greenhouse rooves.
It was in 1931, the year that I became 21, that an event took place that was to alter my life and eventually my parents also. It was Whit-Saturday in May of that year and I was busy in the woodshed, getting the weeks supply of kindling ready for the Big House. Chopping away merrily at the cordage (old bean sticks), I unluckily put the bill hook across the wood at right angles instead of obliquely. The wood flew up and caught my eye and I was immediately blind in both eyes, one through shock and one through damage. I reeled up to the potting sheds, trying to get my vision back in the interior gloom.
Then help came and it was not long before I was driven off to Watford Peace Memorial and the eyes dressed and sent home again. It was three days before the sight came back in the good eye but the sight of the left eye had virtually gone. I was sent up to Moorfield Eye Hospital in the case of Duke Elder very eminent specialist.
Eventually, after three months visiting I was told that some sight would come back but in later years I would develop Glaucoma and then cataracts – all came true when I was 64 years old and I was operated on and some sight restored.
However, back to those first few days, about 14 in all.
After about a week, Mrs. Jacobs began to pester my father for me to go back to work despite shades on my eyes and my inability to face bright sunlight. Eventually and because my father was in almost the busiest period of the gardening year – I was asked if I could try and do some pricking out of the seedlings in the shade of the potting shed this I did.
In early August, we moved to Northwood to a villa type house and remained there until their deaths in 1933 and 1937 respectively.So thirteen years of life at Highfields came to an end and an age of great change was entered into.
Highfield sank into a decline from then on. Bob Chater left to work at the Royal Masonic Schools at Rickmansworth not very long after the coming of Mr. Derrick, the new Head Gardener. Thereafter Derrick was on his own. The chauffeur had to do the mowing and so the once tidy estate fell back bit by bit, until the day that Mr. Derrick died at Highfield Lodge. He was never replaced and the once immaculate drive became weedy, greenhouse neglected and Nature claimed sovereignty once more.
One tale I remember Dad telling of his Highfield days involved a car using the entrance to Highfield to turn around. Dad’s Mother rushed out to admonish the driver, only to find a chauffeur-driven limousine taking Queen Mary to Windsor.
The admonition quickly changed to humble obeisance. Apparently a tree had fallen and was blocking Scots Hill.
I was a lad of 8 years old in 1918 and we came to Croxley Green and Highfield in the July of that year, which is my birth month. The Great War, the war to end all wars, was still in progress.
My father, who was Head Gardener there, seemed to have been on the move since 1914 – 1915, to better himself as he put it. He had had his fill of the aristocracy and had worked for Lady Oxford–Asquith, of whom he had many a tale to tell.
Dad had a long time friend a Mr. William Brookes, who was Head Gardener to Sir Morland Agnew of Durrants, Croxley Green. It was Mr. Brookes who wrote to my father and told him of the vacancy at Highfield for the position of Head Gardener of three, Highfield’s owner was then William Edward Catesby.
Now W.E. Catesby was the Catesby of Tottenham Court Road, London’s lino firm which was very big business in those days and manufactured the earliest Congaleum Squares, which “would enhance any drawing room” by its copying of carpet squares of all designs.
I can remember my mother, I and my second brother, journeying down by rail to Rickmansworth station. Dad and my elder brother went with the furniture van. We all walked to Highfield through the alley and round by the Catholic Church and so up to Scots Hill. We lived at the lodge there, right next to the very wonderful iron gates that marked the drive entrance. At least they seemed very wonderful then and of course HUGE to my young eyes.
I was hauled off to school to enrol before the term ended, but did not actually start school until the new term. Miss Dobson was my first teacher followed later by Miss Furze (Fuzzy), Mr. Cleary and young Irishman WALLIS whose aim with the chalk, propelled by a ruler, was accurate and unending, and of course H.T. Wilson, the famous “Neggy” was the head and to whom I, in common with so many, are so greatly indebted to the principles he taught us.
My father’s brief as the new Head Gardener after an aged Mr. Webb, was to tidy up the Highfield Estate of some 13 acres later to be increased by the purchase of an orchard on the lower side of Copthorne Road, which added two extra acres. The Highfield of 1918 comprised our lodge, which was bought and erected from a design shown at the Ideal Homes Exhibition, very pretty and olde world from the outside, with its Tudor Beams, but not so convenient inside and certainly no bathroom then. That came after our exit in 1931
Of course, being war time, vegetables were a priority. The Kitchen Garden which was walled and clad, with two peaches and a nectarine tree, was directly outside the new entrance of the Lodge. There were two greenhouses and a Vinery in the Kitchen Garden boundaries. The smaller greenhouse was more correctly called the Stove House. That name was given because Hot House or Stove Plants only were reared there with its greater heat. A principle of the Stove House was that the foundations were at least two feet below ground level and thus a greater warmth was attained with not much greater cost in fuel, coke was 10 pence old money a hundredweight and the Stokehole, also near our backdoor, held a Ton and was a warm, cosy place in winter. That boiler heated both house and the Vinery.
Dad’s new wages was then £3 per week plus vegetables and wood, and of course the Lodge was rent free. It was still lit by gas, though the Catesby’s did install electricity later. My mother had an old fashioned coal stove to cook by and a gas ring in the corner for quicker results such as a cup of tea. Baths were in a Bungalow galvanised bath in front of the fire, the copper in the scullery provided the necessary hot water.
There was a gas light in my parents’ room, but we two boys had to make do with a candle. Reading in bed by candlelight was NOT encouraged, but the Norfolk handle latches on the doors gave early warning of parental intrusion.
A quick pinch of the candle wick and feigned sleep got us over many a hurdle, but rustling comics gave the game away many a time.
Dad soon got the vegetable garden into shape and embarked on a programme of cutting out a few of the aged and unproductive apple and pear trees and set about trenching the four plots with its attendant blue stone tile edgings to the four plots that comprised the vegetable area. There was a south and warm border fronting the high brick wall on which the peaches and nectarines were growing. It produced a great many early crops like the first peas and a few rows of early potatoes – usually Sharpes Express.
Three other features figured in the Kitchen Garden and they were a Medlar tree, a Quince and Celtis of Judas Tree. The last named tree was propped up by the other tree trunks to take the heavy branches. A second tree in the pleasure garden was in similar fashion. The story goes that the Judas Tree is so called because the original tree was the one that the Biblical Judas Iscariot hung himself, after he had betrayed Our Lord for thirty piece of silver. The tree was so ashamed that it refused to bear the weight of the branches and so to this day, mature specimens of the Celtis tree always have to have their branches shored up when they break away from the main trunk.
The north side of the Kitchen Garden wall acted as a lean to for (1) the Tool Shed, in which every tool had to be washed, if used, at night time before hanging up and at weekends they were oiled for good measure. Next to this was originally a fruit room, but later made over to house my parent’s carpenters tools. Next to this a brick water tank for tool washing and an earth closet alongside and later used as a lime store. Then an open fronted wood stove, where faggots of wood for kindling and logs were cut and stored, again, further on, another small shed used for pot storage. They were kept on racks according to the size. Not 3”, 4” or 6” as they are today. The smallest was Tom Thumb, the next 60s and then Long Toms. Then came 48s, then 32s, then 16s and 12s, the twelves were for growing Chrysanths in, the indoor variety of course.
The numbers referred to the number of pots to a cast (quantity).
Then with the sheds directly covered from view with shrubs, one came to the pleasure ground. The lawns in the days before the motor mower came along, necessitated 2 men pushing and pulling the 14” and heavy Ransom mowers, thus it was a full days work later reduced to about 10 – 3pm with one man on the 22” Dennis motor mower. Then of course there was the edges to be clipped and the flower beds hoed.
Again from the formal beds which were filled with Geraniums, Lobelia and Allysum in summer and Wallflowers, Forget-me-nots in spring – Polyanthus were not all that plentiful then and war efforts had put paid to any notions of Tulips and other bulbs.
Of course, the Big House commanded the views of the lawns and flowers and was built of yellow stone bricks and had a marvellous Conservatory which one approached via the Hall. From the Front Door (scarlet) was a “through” Hall, with the Dining Room on the left and the Drawing Room on the right. There was a glassed Veranda all the way round with the Conservatory occupying centre with the upper glass having stained glass motifs. From the Drawing Room a locked door gave on to a tiled floor grotto with fish ponds and heavy and exotic ferns in many varieties. It was of course referred to as the Fernery and later, in E.L. Jacobs time, the Fernery and pools were dispensed with in favour of an Orangery and indoor plants. The tiled floor led on to a stone flight of stairs and so to the Billiard Room, where a full size Billiards table was sited.
Underneath was the Coach House, later elevated to Garage and adjoining them was the stables, with stabling for 3 horses and a cart.
Going through a rustic gate and on to the lawns there was an aviary full of finches and canaries, this time it was the stable wall that provided the lee side for the birds.
At the far extent of the terraced lawn was the grass Tennis Court and abutting on to a small paddock was a wooden bungalow with two beds, living room and a very small kitchen. This, for several years, was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Wallace, Scots through and through. In later years, the Wallaces occupied a Council House in the newly built Gonville Avenue (W.E. Catesby was on the Rickmansworth Council) and I think, was Chairman at one stage.
Mr. Wallace’s duties were to escort Mr. Archie Catesby, the second son of W.E. Archie was prone to epileptic fits and was chaperoned by Mr. Wallace daily on the trips to London and Tottenham Court Road and back.
From the stables the long drive continued via a line of horse chestnuts and so on to the cart shed, cow sheds and the piggery. In a direct line from the cart shed and down to the Copthorne Road ran a holly hedge of some 8-9 feet in height. This is still visible from Copthorne Road in 1981. I know because I’ve just returned from a nostalgic trip to see what I could figure out of the one time Estate.
In front of the cow sheds and piggery was the pasture where a max total of 2 cows grazed. The pasture was mainly square but with a narrow leg that ran alongside Copthorne Road near Scots Hill, there was a locked access gate, tall and with a wire screen.
Behind the narrow leg were the Pleasure Lawns, screened by a Shrubbery with 2 flint Grottoes – these gave on to a Nut Walk, by which one could ascend by stone steps to the Kitchen Garden and continue to the end of the Nut Walk, to a solid wooden door, green painted – locked, also a short cut to Scots Hill or House, whichever way you were bound. There was a 3 – 4 acre field in front of the house looking towards All Saints Church. This was bounded by the Holloway property which of course was the famous Croxley Windmill.
In Catesby time one of their boundaries gave on to the Warwicks Villas and then gardens, a part of the garden was bought by W.E. Catesby and became a small additional garden, complete with another greenhouse and known as the Chalet Garden.
The main and most visible feature of Highfield was the drive, gravelled and which was contained by a four foot flint wall with red brick buttresses.
The flower border on top was maintained as a floral showpiece by my father and most certainly attracted considerable attention from the passengers of the 1920 buses, as they inched and were sometimes scotched on their slow progress up Scots Hill, sometimes the poor devils had to alight and push the bus up the steep hill. You had to help on risk not completing ones journey.
The trouble was in hidden gradient and failing to change gear early enough, despite warning notices in the pit on the lower and opposite side of the hill. In big red lettering on a white enamelled plate, don’t forget your SKID PANS, maybe it didn’t apply to the buses, but it was warning enough to the new fangled motors to take care. Many a car and lorry came to grief on Scots Hill and tried conclusions with Highfields sloping flint retaining wall (to the Kitchen garden). Several times my father had the job of making good that wall.
The Catesbys had, I think, three sons, young Willie, who for a time lived at Moor Park, Archie who married and lived at The Nook, now Outspan of Watford Road, and Cyril the youngest who eventually went to South Africa.
I well remember being agape with curiosity when Cyril bought a red monoplane about 1920 and housed it in the cart shed at the field end of the drive. His big buddy was a young Tussaud of Madam Tussaud fame and who lived at the Hawthorne in New Road. I only remember seeing Cyril but a few times and with a toothbrush moustache but the monoplane was certainly a sensation and fine material for a schoolboy to brag about. W.E. was a portly man with a moustache and was a descendant of Robert Catesby of Guy Fawkes fame. He was said to have the original Lanthorn used at the gunpowder plot.
Of course, in those days one had to mind your P’s and Q’s and always raise one’s cap when the V.I.P,’s drove into view. Looking back, one remembers the V.I.P.’s of Croxley and their gardeners. There was another Brookes, father of Alice and May, who took care of Elmcote and Little Gillians. Trenches at the top of the Green, Stedalls and no nonsense at Croxley House. The lesser Miss Dugdale (of Dugdales) County of course but not quite quite! The Agnew’s of Durrants earlier mentioned and the Woolrych of Parrots, Sir Guy Calthrop who died with many others of influenza in 1920. The Ingleby Oddies of Copthorne Road – Ingleby for many years the Westminster Coroner. Then there were the Greaves where Scots Hill House is, and the Kennedy’s House and of course the Forbes of Waterdell House. At Scots Hill Court. Mr. Kennedy was a big man but walked always with a heavy stick. Lilah his wife usually supported him.
Sunday morning service at Church was the place for the V.I.P.s to be seen on parade. If it was known that the Stedalls were desirous of attending Divine Service, then it was more than the Vicar’s life was worth to commence the service without welcoming them to the church. Up would drive the Stedalls in their broughham, complete with coachman and cockaded hat. Sometimes before, sometimes after, Miss Dugdale in pony and trap.
The ‘real’ gentry disdained the lower or new part of the church and besported themselves in the following order. The Kennedys always sat near the front, about the 3rd pew, later a brass tablet was to mark their pew. Miss Dugdale in solitary state, on opposite side with a watchful eye for any of her staff that were supposed to be present.
Then the Ingleby Oddies, Mrs. O always very regal looking with a Gainsborough type hat and towards the rear – the last of the Woolrych’s – genteel – he – rather Colonel Poonerish. The Trenches sat in the lower or new half of the church – again their seat was marked with a marble tablet to their airforce son, killed in the 1918 war.
Behind them was the Barton Smiths, manager of Croxley Mills and report has it that many a mill worker was called to account on Monday morning, if absent from Sunday church. The record would not be complete without mention of the Misses Barker of Briary Close, now Rickmansworth Comprehensive School. Fanny, tall – then, always in black and Emma, short and stout, twins, but in no way alike. Fanny, to my certain knowledge, wore the same black hat year in and year out but trimmed according to the season. A little bit of holly berries here and there around the band for Christmas – Alexander Roses for Alexandra Day, Poppies for Armistice Day and for summer wear Cornflowers, Daisies and corn ears bedecked the brim. But they were very devout daughters of the Rev. Alleyene Barker, sometime vicar of Rickmansworth.
They gave me my bible in 1924 when I left Sunday School and I still have it inscribed in a spidery hand.
It was in May 1923 May 1st to be exact, when Mr. Catesby died. I remember Mrs. Elizabeth Catesby rushing down to our lodge for my mother to come up quickly, although my mother was never in any way part of the household.
I should think that the subsequent funeral was one of the last occasions when I saw old Peddles glass sided hearse with its ornate black iron trim along the roof and four black horses with black plumes on their heads to haul the coach. The coffin was carried from the Big House, down the drive to where the hearse and equipage waited. I was taking it all in, behind the drawn curtains at the vantage point of my parents’ bedroom.
The wreaths were numerous and pride of place was the widow’s, a ship in sail, sent down from London – I had occasion to help my father “make up” the same frame a year later in Daffodils, Hyacinth Bells, Forget-me-nots and White Arabis to mark the anniversary. Both the Catesby’s are buried in Rickmansworth churchyard with a large granite block inscribed with their names.
Thereafter, Mrs Catesby carried on the estate as in her husband’s time, but one supposes the burden became a little too much. Eventually in 1926 she bought “The Mount” in Copthorne Road and was in fact the first owner. In between bringing the Highfield Estate up to top peak and ready for any potential buyers’ inspection, my father laid out and put the turf down at The Mount. In my souvenirs I have a photograph of myself at The Mount complete with “Tommy”, a retired bakers horse, who used to draw the small cart used for Leaf mould carting and manure collecting and in the haymaking time, haymaking was done with the scythe in those days by a Mr. Litchfield from Elmcote on the Green. “Tommy”, a pure white horse, retired from a bakery in London, had the engaging habit of always pulling in to the lodge Veranda en route on some errand or other. There he would paw the Tiled surface until my mother came out to give him the requested crust of bread. This was a regular trick of his. The other and not so engaging habit of his was that if either my brother or self made to ride him bare backed, he’d let you mount and then he’d get up speed, making for the elm tree in the field and gallop at speed beneath its branches. One had to be flat on his back, and the worst we ever suffered was to have ones cap knocked off.
There were two dogs in the Catesby’s time, one was a fierce Airedale name of “Mick”, he was kept chained and beneath the Veranda, close by the front door was Mick’s kennel. I treated him very respectfully and gave him no chance to sample my trouser leg, which was what he seemed to be intent on doing. To that end I dodged through the shrubbery at the rear of Mick’s kennel and safe from his attentions.
The other dog was a little black Pomeranian, also in an outdoor kennel, which was replaced eventually by a brick one by dad. The Pom rejoiced in the name of “Pongo” and was quite docile, at any rate he didn’t leap out and try to break his chain in an effort to get at you.
Eventually the place was sold to Ernest Lionel Jacobs. He and his wife, her sister Miss Mary Congdon who was on the stage at one time, took up residence at Highfield, and Mrs. Catesby retired to “The Mount”.
Soon came the first of many changes. The garden staff remained as it was, but Jacobs bought with him his chauffeur, Frank Parker and a parlour maid Freda Prior. The Parker’s had to make shift with the Wallaces’ bungalow for a time, while the building of another and more modern version of Highfield Lodge was built in the Orchard and butting onto the cottages and The Plough.
Outwardly, it was the same as ours but electricity was piped in. We too, had electricity put in at the same time as the Big House was fitted up.
Jacobs caused a new front entrance to be built with a decent hall or vestibule as it was called. There was a bathroom above and apart from redecoration etc., it remained much the same. The Watford firm that carried out the building of the new entrance and the chauffer’s cottage was T.H. King and sons of Watford.
Then the garden and more particularly, the drive just past the two copper beeches half way up the drive. The taller of the two was reputed to be the finest in Hertfordshire.
From the copper beeches which gave entry to the sheds and Kitchen Gardens was an island of trees, mostly Scotch Firs and another whose variety now eludes me, but which gave the most trouble when it came to be excavated (Accacia). Somewhere about this period of time Ted Wallngton of Sarratt left us, following an appendix operation and a north country family joined us. Both Chater and his wife came from Morpeth, Northumberland, and to house them Jacobs bought No. 11, The Fortune, Rickmansworth.
So Bob, my father and self wrestled with and successfully felled, cut the trees up with some cut saws (no chain saws then) and then dug up the stumps. The timber made a magnificent pile by the woodshed, which over the year were converted into logs by means of a small saw bench, operated by electricity.
After the island site had been cleared of the trees, Mrs. Jacobs desired it should be planted with Rhododendrons. The soil was gravel, and peat then was not easily obtained, so the ground was deeply trenched and loads of Salters spent hops were worked into the soil, bulky stuff and leady too. Then came the Rhododendrons, an eye-opener this. They came from the Lionel De Rothchild’s estate at Exbury, Southampton and in two massive lorries. They were truly specimen trees with root some five feet or more across, very solidly encased in their native peaty soil. I think there were about nine or ten and had to be slid down planks from the lorry, to the excavated holes, all ready to receive them. The three largest specimens went to the middle and the smaller ones (though still very large) planted around the border. When consolidated into the ground, they were given a further and generous mulch of more hops. They seemed to do alright for four or five years, then gradually they gave up the struggle and looked very miserable indeed.
When the Rhodo’s were in position then came the ob of re-surfacing the drive, to repair the ravages of builders lorries, electricity and other heavy traffic over the previous months.
Loads of best red Hogan was brought up from the Ricky gravel pits and it was spread, raked and rolled, and re-rolled.
Jacobs and the chauffeur were served notice that the car was not to be used for two or three days, while the drive was given its final treatment. This consisted of the two underlings hauling the roller up and down, whilst the Head played water over the roller ad-lib.
No hosepipe, or rather, no convenient water pipe stand, so the water cart, a forty gallon tank on iron wheels was filled and brought up to action stations. The roller had to be kept moving, lest it left a dip on the now very soft gravel but it all had the effect of a red slurry on the surface, the gates were chained and the whole left to set for two or three days. The finish achieved was first class, the camber was gentle and absolutely no stones worked through to the surface, so that it was a joy to sweep clean (daily) of leaves and litter, certainly no weeds appeared for a long, long time. Such was the craftsmanship of a man’s know how.
The uniform then, was a blue, beize apron, later to become blue serge with pockets. This was supplied by the employer in much the same way as a mistress would dress her maids in morning (working dress) and afternoon grey alpaca, white aprons and caps.
After the drive episode, came the pulling down of the aviary and a rose bed made, then the wooden bungalow was made redundant, though still perfectly sound. In its place was erected a double pergola of 6’’ square oak posts with cross members in the Italian style.
Again my parent supervised it and I was given the job of laying rectangular paving through the middle, culminating in a square area at the end, whereon a seat and table were placed. The timbers were clad with roses and the borders planted with things in due season.
The aviary wall had been white washed and so the Russian Vine or Polygonia was planted to clothe it. Thus it did very effectively in one year, so rapid was its growth. During all this time Highfield and its gardens were maintained in the usual high standards. But the vegetable standards began to change.
Here let me say something of my routine as Garden Boy. I had to be up and outside by 7 o’clock. First I had to nip up to the house and descend to the boiler room, there rake and clean the fire, clearing any coke clinker and leaving the fire to roar, to make sure the master had his hot water for the bath. This done, I beat a hasty retreat from the coke fumes and went to the Conservatory. Here I had to water all plants as needed. Then set to and scrub the blue and red tiled floor with broom, most days 2 or 3 can fulls of water would suffice to clean the floor, but Saturday morns were spit and polish days. Then about 7.40 back to the boiler and put 2 or 3 shovel fulls on and make sure all was well, take up the ash, sweep the floor, fill coal buckets and ensure chopped wood bin was full. By that time I could reckon on going indoors (the lodge) when mother had breakfast ready. Half-hour. While all this was going on, Bob would have “leafed” at least half the drive, or possibly more, dad would have done overseeing the greenhouse watering.
Bob would have seen to the Greenhouse boiler. Probably by 9 o’clock, the general gardening tasks would be settled upon. Dad would impart whatever the days tasks were to be. Tools taken from their racks and counted out, so that you knew you had to provide 5 or 7 or just 2 tools back again, thus were the smaller tools more easily kept track of. At 10 am and because I was garden boy, I had to present myself to the cook, there to get my vegetable orders. This I had to relay to Dad and he would select pick or dig the needs and I would then go round to the earlier mentioned brick tanks and scrub all root veg clean and present them in pleasing eye fashion and take them to the kitchen. Dad followed the old fashioned method i.e. vegetables were considered wasteful if gathered too small and so biggest was best. It was considerably against his grain to grow petite pois or mange tout (the Jacobs had travelled abroad). Marrows had to be very young and so on. Seakale was grown and forced, chicory ditto. Chrysanths were cut by the armful and my father’s working day often did not finish till seven or eight in the evening during summer. Our hours were 7 to 5 and 1 o’clock Saturdays. My wage till I was 21 was £1-1-0 per week and Bobs £2-10 or £2-50 in new money plus cottage.
Somehow and somewhere a disagreement set in as to the production of vegetables. The new order was that they had to be culled young and plentiful which in essence meant more work and more seed. One spring, Mrs. Jacobs decided that the Sweet Pea hedge, though plentiful always in flower, did not produce the dazzling splendour of long stems and fours and fives so temptingly displayed in the specialists catalogues. So the word went forth that holes were to be dug in the Chalet garden, 2 foot across and 2 foot deep and refilled with a mix of the soil manure and leafmould and bonemeal. These were supervised by Mrs. J. Seven foot bamboo canes were to be used and each plant tied up and side shoots taken out
The named varieties of seed were purchased from Boltons of Essex and handed to my father to rear. Here, mysteriously, something went wrong. The seeds germinated and in fullness of time were daily planted out and staked by Mrs. J. with splendid seven foot canes, but the expected splendid growth never materialised. They remained dwarf to the end of their days. The hedge of Sweet Peas at the bottom of the Kitchen Garden flourished as well as ever. There might have been a lot of suspicion and letters of complaint to Bolton but it was never satisfactorily explained.
For some reason that I never learned Dad declined to enter the Croxley Green Horticultural Society shows in September. Probably because as a professional gardener the classes were limited. Certainly Brookes at Durrant never entered either. So competition would have been limited to Adams of Elmcote, Miss Dugdale and one or two of the gentry that only had one gardener or groom gardener, in which case the regulations did not apply.
This did not mean that Brookes, dad and the Mr Brookes did not visit one another’s gardens and if one suffered misfortune one way or other, then it was in order to try and make good the loss. New plant or varieties of plant warranted close inspection and the cudgelling of a cutting, especially with Chrysanths and more particularly the Jap Mop Heads varieties – rulers were produced and heads measured 12” across and three blooms to a pot was reckoned good going – though loathed at the Big House for vase work.
One of my father’s specialities was Violas. In the Kitchen Gardens and in front of the Espalier pear and apple trees there were 6 foot wide boarders and approx. 100 foot long and edged with the inevitable crenellated blue tiles. Here dad had his display of vioas in block colours. I can recollect seven different varieties and colours and the end result was quite a sight and perfume on a warm day tremendous.
Every early August, they were cut back to the bone and tops burnt to discourage Thrup and Red Spider, by mid September they were bushy young growth again. Next the sections were dug out, split up and replanted in the replenished earth to bloom again in the following spring. Winter days were none the less slack because of bad weather. Pot washing and scrubbing would occupy 2 men two days, woodsheds tidied up, tool sheds lime-washed out, a greenhouse would be emptied and, by crowding out another and the whole house given a thorough cleaning down followed by repainting and lead paint was lead paint and not that easy to apply. The gloss was just as stiff as the undercoat, but always very durable.
One could keep very warm too, by carting out loads of leaf mould to the Kitchen Garden, squaring up the autumn collection of leaves and rubbish to sizeable heap and then left to decay until the following autumn. Logs to be cut. Seed boxes to be made, plenty to occupy ones time and hands and with a fire going in the Victorian grate in the potting shed, one could be as snug as a bug in a rug. Besoms were in constant use and dad used to order 12 at a time, from Woodmans of Pinner. They cost all of 10d each old money, so that the dozen were £1 bundle by taking the 12.
Many the time I was I trouble for ot using my back more in handling the besom, use the flat of the broom more, don’t wear the tip out. New brooms were always for feathering the leaves into lanes and the second best for sweeping the litter into heaps. The third best, or scrubbers, were meant for the really rough work, like the stable yard, keen too, the inspection of an old broom, before a new one handed out.
Harking back to the display of Violas in the Kitchen Garden, recently, in the Daily Telegraph, there was an article by a specialist in Kent on Violas and inviting readers to send for his brochures and prices. I was staggered to find that the price of the same varieties grown in the late 20’s were now no less than £1 each per rooted cutting, truly a sign of the time.
I have been asked if my parent was a handyman with tools. The answer is a decided yes. I well recollect the making of a wheelbarrow out of Highfield Elm and some Ash timbers from Walkers timber yard. Templates were cut for the shaped body-work, and which carried the indispensable “Top”, and for bulky loads. Even the wheel and spokes were fashioned by him, but the iron rim was forged at Gibb’s smithy in New Road now Mead Autos. Also made was a plant carrier, simply a sort of bin with deep sides to convey a load of newly potted plants to their new home. There were no wheels for this so it was rather a weightly affair to carry. He was also instrumental in excavating the soil to make a convenient drive out from the Coach House (Garage) so that the Rolls could be conveniently turned and brought out in the house front in safety.
The containing walls of the recess were matched to the rest of the flint walling with the piers of red brick. He also did another and very effective piece of work to the large greenhouse and so far in all my years, despite great advances in the science of air flows, I’ve never seen since.
It was quite simple in its application. Imagine a 30 foot long brick based greenhouse, replete with side and top ventilation which was the usual thing (and still is) for greenhouse. My father worked out that oftimes the side ventilators were actually detrimental to the well being of the plants within the draft from open vents. So he closed the side vents more or less permanently, but took out sufficient bricks below the staging level and inserted a simple vent(s) of sliding doors some 2’ x 15” perhaps.
Thus the flow of air beneath the solid staging was nicely warmed up by the hot pipes, before entering the greenhouse and exiting the top vents. It is a “pretty” fad of todays greenhouses that the potted plants sit on slated staging. Whereas if the owners of such staging would put either corrugated iron sheets, or preferably flat sheets and then cover the metal sheets with an inch deep level of shingle, so that surplus water can drain down into the shingle/ashes and give off a humidity such as greenhouse plants revel in. This, combined with below staging ventilation would bring great benefit in healthier plants. Possibly, with today’s “know-how” and Automatic Vent openers, the automatic part could be extended to and adapted to ventilators below the staging level as well as the ones in the greenhouse rooves.
It was in 1931, the year that I became 21, that an event took place that was to alter my life and eventually my parents also. It was Whit-Saturday in May of that year and I was busy in the woodshed, getting the weeks supply of kindling ready for the Big House. Chopping away merrily at the cordage (old bean sticks), I unluckily put the bill hook across the wood at right angles instead of obliquely. The wood flew up and caught my eye and I was immediately blind in both eyes, one through shock and one through damage. I reeled up to the potting sheds, trying to get my vision back in the interior gloom.
Then help came and it was not long before I was driven off to Watford Peace Memorial and the eyes dressed and sent home again. It was three days before the sight came back in the good eye but the sight of the left eye had virtually gone. I was sent up to Moorfield Eye Hospital in the case of Duke Elder very eminent specialist.
Eventually, after three months visiting I was told that some sight would come back but in later years I would develop Glaucoma and then cataracts – all came true when I was 64 years old and I was operated on and some sight restored.
However, back to those first few days, about 14 in all.
After about a week, Mrs. Jacobs began to pester my father for me to go back to work despite shades on my eyes and my inability to face bright sunlight. Eventually and because my father was in almost the busiest period of the gardening year – I was asked if I could try and do some pricking out of the seedlings in the shade of the potting shed this I did.
In early August, we moved to Northwood to a villa type house and remained there until their deaths in 1933 and 1937 respectively.So thirteen years of life at Highfields came to an end and an age of great change was entered into.
Highfield sank into a decline from then on. Bob Chater left to work at the Royal Masonic Schools at Rickmansworth not very long after the coming of Mr. Derrick, the new Head Gardener. Thereafter Derrick was on his own. The chauffeur had to do the mowing and so the once tidy estate fell back bit by bit, until the day that Mr. Derrick died at Highfield Lodge. He was never replaced and the once immaculate drive became weedy, greenhouse neglected and Nature claimed sovereignty once more.
One tale I remember Dad telling of his Highfield days involved a car using the entrance to Highfield to turn around. Dad’s Mother rushed out to admonish the driver, only to find a chauffeur-driven limousine taking Queen Mary to Windsor.
The admonition quickly changed to humble obeisance. Apparently a tree had fallen and was blocking Scots Hill.
