We recently received another enquiry in our mail box, spwood.local history@googlemail.com . It came from someone who had recently moved into the Village and wanted to know more about the history of her new home, May’s Cottages in Beech Hill Road.
The four cottages – two semis – can be found on the left-hand side of Beech Hill Road, more-or-less opposite Clements Close. From the style they were built in the early years of the last century.
We pooled our knowledge at a meeting of the Group – the surname MAY is quite common in Berkshire but to the best of our knowledge hadn’t previously come up in any of the memories we’d collected from older residents of the Village. We also had no information about the houses but one of us recalled that the field at the junction of Yew Tree Lane and Beech Hill Road is marked as May’s Fields on old Ordnance Survey maps. The only other possible connection that we could come up with was Mays Farm in Ryeish Green.
A couple of us set to work and discovered that families by the name of MAY go back to c.1650 in Shinfield. At various times in the C19th and C20th people by this name were living in Spencers Wood and the surrounding district however, most of them were born outside the district and it has not yet been possible to establish whether/how they were related. The three people of greatest interest were
William Henry MAY, born Newbury, 1831 and died Spencers Wood, 1919
George Henry MAY, b. Hungerford, 1859 and d. Arborfield, 1914 and
John MAY, for whom we found a record dating to 1861-62
William Henry MAY was a saddler and for the majority of his life (c.1861-c.1910) lived (and worked) at 10, Gun Street, Reading. He was married twice, to Maria from 1856-1893 and to Fanny in 1901 who survived him. He had retired by 1911, living first in Mortimer West End but by 1918 was living in Oak Tree Lane, Spencers Wood, moving to Wyvenhoe, also in Spencers Wood near St. Michael’s, in 1919.
George Henry MAY is more interesting – both in the sense that he seems to have lived a more eventful life and in relation to his links to May’s Cottages. His early life is uncertain as his place of birth is given variously as Hungerford, Burghfield and Oxenwood but by 1881 he was living in Reading and working as a labourer in a tin factory [presumably Huntley, Boorne, and Stevens who made the tins for Huntley and Palmers]. In 1885 he married Alice Corbett at St.Mary Butts. Whether this prompted a change of direction is uncertain but by 1887 he’s recorded as being a grocer in Tilehurst and in 1891, as living in Katesgrove. By 1901 he’d changed career again and was recorded as a publican at the Sun Inn in
Swallowfield. In the 1911 census he is temporarily unemployed and living in Spencers Wood but two years later he is living at the Shoulder of Mutton in Binfield and when he died in 1914 is recorded as living at Duck’s Nest Farm, Arborfield.
The most interesting information about him is revealed in the Electoral Registers. In 1911 he is recorded as living at 2, May’s Cottages, Spencers Wood, Swallowfield – at this time Basingstoke Road south of the junction with Hyde End Road was in Swallowfield Parish. This was presumably where he was living at the time of the 1911 census. The Electoral Register also reveals that he owned 4 freehold cottages as well as other land. Not all this property was in Spencers Wood as the “qualifying property” is recorded as being at School Green – before the introduction of universal suffrage [for men] in 1919 the right to vote depended on what property you held. Later Electoral Registers show him in Farley Hill (1914).
John MAY
There are a number of people named John May living in the wider Reading area and it is not easy to be certain which is referred to, however there is clear evidence that one such had interests in Shinfield parish during 1860’s. In 1862 William Merry of Highlands House purchased 6 plots of land that allowed him to connect a drive from his house to the Basingstoke Road. He purchased the plots from Lannoy Hunter of Beech Hill House, John Thorpe a farmer and John May. This would imply that John May was a landowner, owning land in Spencers Wood at this time although he need not have been resident. This is supported by the 1861-62 Electoral Register for Shinfield which lists John May of Coburg Villa, London Road, Reading as occupying “freehold land and buildings” in the parish, although the exact location is not specified.
At this time we cannot confidently state that May’s Cottages were named after any of the three above. However since the properties were built in the Edwardian period and George Henry MAY himself occupied no2. in 1911 on the balance of probabilities he would seem to be the most likely. George Henry’s widow, Alice was still living at School Green at the outbreak of War so it is possible that the cottages still remained in her possession at that time.
Mays Hill is named on OS maps on both the first edition OS map of 1871 and the revised edition of 1900 and it is possible that the land belonged to John May who we know held land in the Village round-about that time.
Later occupants of May’s Cottages
In 1939 at the outbreak of World War II, the England and Wales Register shows John Barber and family at 1 Mays Cottages. At no 2 lived Elizabeth Charlton who was still there in 1953 when she died aged 83. The occupants of No 3 are not known but an Elizabeth Cox was at no 4.