Last month’s article requested items to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee this year and this prompted a memory of mine when I met Her Majesty, in 1968, in Queen’s Road, Reading. I had worked for the GPO and on marriage had to leave because they did not employ married women. I was given my insurance cards to take to Social Security.  Each person would have a card for National Insurance stamps which were affixed weekly or monthly according to when you were paid and cancelled with a written date. These were returned to DHSS annually. A big change today, when national insurance contributions are taken at source.

Talking to the clerk there, I explained my position and she said that their new ADP department was looking for employees.  My job initially, as Personal Assistant to the Head of the ADP Division of the Ministry of Social Security (Health was added later on) was to check and monitor the new building going up in Queen’s Road to accommodate an innovative computer. This venture was a joint project with the Ministry of Labour which would issue unemployment benefit and sick pay cheques.

The computer, when it was built, covered the whole of the ground floor, ran on tape, was kept at a certain temperature, and was a forbidden and mysterious area for most of the personnel except the programmers who were regarded with awe.  Compare this with today when I wrote this article on my home computer and paid for my nephew’s wedding present all via the ether, not necessarily needing a building to house the computer.

Naturally it was a highlight for me, to liaise with Buckingham Palace and Westminster to arrange the visit of the Queen, Prince Phillip and Mrs Judith Hart, the Minister of Social Security.  I didn’t actually speak to the Queen but was proud to have been the arranger of her visit and I have the picture supplement from the local paper to remind me.
Are there any other personal Royal stories out there we could use for the Parish celebrations in June? Please let us know.
Margaret Bampton

October 2011’s article for Loddon Reach is taken from the introduction composed by the late Barbara Debney of the Group’s first book called Our Village of Spencers Wood.   The village originally lay within the boundaries of the Royal Windsor Forest.  By 1300, the area of the Forest had been reduced because of a dispute between the King and the bishop of Salisbury where it was decreed “whatsoever  is on the east side of the Lodona (River Loddon) in the county of Berkshire is the King’s Forest”.  Roque’s map of 1761 shows Spencers Wood no longer in the Royal Forest and with the Loddon as its western boundary.  Thomas Pride’s map of 1790 shows where Shinfield and Swallowfield were once partly in Wiltshire.

In the 13th century, portions of Wokingham, Hurst, Shinfield and Swallowfield were held by William Lungespe, Earl of Salisbury and were administered through his court at Amesbury in Wiltshire.  In her book, Swallowfield and its Owners, Lady Russell states, “Part Lane in Swallowfield, was so called because it separated Swallowfield, Berks from Swallowfield, Wilts.”  It was not until 20th October, 1844 that these areas became part of Berkshire.  Until the 1860s, Spencers Wood consisted mainly of common land but in 1863 the common land was enclosed and the majority of it was acquired separately by William Merry, who lived at Highlands and Frederick Allfrey, at Stanbury.

The village evolved mainly as a ribbon development along the Basingstoke Road and some houses built in Victorian and Edwardian times can still be seen along the main road and around The Square.  Most of these houses were built with bricks from the local brick kiln which was run by the Swain family.

Originally, the village lay within the boundaries of the three ecclesiastical parishes of Shinfield, Swallowfield and Grazeley.  On old maps of the area, a boundary stone is shown on the main road opposite the pond and a few yards to the north of what is now Spring Gardens.  This stone marked the dividing line between the ecclesiastical parishes of Shinfield and Swallowfield.  In 1908, the church of St Michael and All Angels was erected and following this, in 1913, the parish boundaries  were realigned and Spencers Wood became a separate ecclesiastical parish in its own right.  For civil administrative purposes Spencers Wood mostly comes under Shinfield Parish although some parts come under Swallowfield, which confuses me somewhat.

In the 1880s, Spencers Wood grew rapidly; the population numbered some 600, a third of which were children, with the majority of adults working on the land or a domestic servants.  A school was erected in 1890, by Frederick Allfrey, where the Library is today and closed in 1915, after the children were transferred to Lambs Lane School which had opened seven years earlier.
At the turn of the century, a new Congregational Chapel was built in 1903 on Basingstoke Road replacing the old one built in 1837, at the bottom of Chapel Lane.  The Institute, no longer there, followed the next year.   The village hall was erected in 1911 and celebrates its centenary this year.
The M4 arrived circa 1970 dividing the parish and was followed by the Swallowfield Bypass separating Grazeley.  Since then the parish has grown extensively and there is an enquiry in October about further development which we urge residents to attend to find out what is happening to our village.
Loddon Reach October 2011.