The Warborough Stores & Henfield View
This article looks at some of the history to the area and what we see today, and all started with me asking Sue Dyke ‘Why is your house called ‘Gore House’?
Grateful thanks to Sue & Robin Dyke who gave me access to the all the paperwork, deeds & mortgage records relating to buildings and land highlighted on the 1925 map shown below.
The pink area is fully documented and consisted of the house and stores; the building remains largely the same as it is today. with another cottage ‘shooting’ onto the footway and the large area of orchard and some outbuildings which was described as the Gore¹. The small white section was Clack’s Cottage and appears to have always been a separate property.
¹ A gore is a small, usually triangular, piece of land first recorded before 900AD; Middle English gor(e), gar(e) “triangular piece of land, triangular piece of cloth,” Old English gāra “triangular piece of land, corner” (cognate with German Gehre “gusset”); akin to Old English gār “spear”;
The Shop as we know it today has always fronted the main road in Warborough although it was originally called The Street and later Thame Road.
Prior to 1782 the house was owned by a William Wakelin but although the name of Wakelin is evident around the area, nothing has so far been confirmed as to this William. A William Wakeling was buried at St Laurence on 20th April 1788.
The house was then occupied for nearly 50 years by Thomas Wallis, who was a schoolteacher, and he may well have taught the children in his home, as the date on the St Laurence Hall, which was originally the village school suggests it was built after Thomas Wallis died. In his will, states:
I give to every Boy and Girl that are under 15 years of Age and has been my Scholars, shall have a Plum Cake and half a pint of Ale a piece at my Funeral.
Thomas left the House, Garden and Trees and all things belonging thereto to his brother Jesse Wallis, a Carrier in Wallingford. The house was then occupied by John Saunders, his wife Phoebe and six children.
In 1846 the house was purchased by Robert Saunders, Brewer of Shillingford and occupied by Edmund Hill, who is listed on 1861 census as a farmer.
In 1860 an Esther Godwyn purchased the house, Esther is mentioned in 1851, 1871 where she is now a widow living with her sister Elizabeth Beisley. In 1861 she was a nurse in the house of William Bannister and at the time of the 1881 census she was living in Wolverhampton with her granddaughter.
Esther died in 1881 in Wolverhampton and left her estate to her son, Samuel, who was a shoemaker. Samuel does not appear to have occupied the premises but instead Joseph Gammon lived there. Samuel sold the House to Mark Smith for £100.00 in 1886, who altered the front to a shop and traded as Baker, Grocer & Provisioner. He put the date 1886 above the door and on the south face of the roof, although the roof has been retiled and is no longer there.
In 1888 Jabez Cane Smallbone bought the house, shop, orchard known as the Gore along with various small cottages and outbuildings for £400.00. Jabez traded as a grocer for 25 years, living with his wife Edith and their two children, Charles Haddon & Winifred Emily. The business was taken over by Frank Gardner and a Mr Eminton on 1st January 1903 with Jabez selling the property to Edward Holroyd Bousfield in August 1903. The Smallbone family emigrated to Canada in 1905.
When Gardner and Eminton took over the business from Jabez Smallbone they paid the sum of £300 but in September 1904 Frank Gardner announced in the press that he would, with effect from 1st October, become Sole Proprietor.
Later in 1906, when bankruptcy proceedings were being held Gardner stated that Eminton had ‘got mixed up with a girl and he was glad for him to go’ and had paid £180 for him to leave the business. At that time, he stated that he ‘thought the business was solvent and although it may have been a bit behind, he thought he could turn it around’.
The Store sign at time of occupancy by Frank Gardner
Following Gardner’s departure, William Kay Fletcher took over the lease of the shop and at the time of the 1911 census was living with his wife Fanny, known as Nance and children Dorothy, Victor, Marjorie, Marie, Ronald, Olive & Eric along with niece Ethel Windows, who was a mother’s help and Winifred Marsh, who was working in the business.
By the time of the 1921 census it is just William, Fanny (Nance), Marie, Ronald & Olive living on the premises.
William moved to River View, Shillingford and on the 1939 register is listed as a Wholesale Grocer & Confectioner until his death in 1951.
Headstone in St Laurence Churchyard
The title had passed to Edith Bousfield on Edward’s death in 1918 and in 1925 was sold to William Cecil Newton Burns for £950.00
The 1939 register shows William as a Grocer & Provisions Merchant, he was also a Special Constable.
1939 Register – Ancestry
William ran the shop until he retired in 1946 and then on 7th January 1946 the House, Shop and land known as the Gore was sold to George Alec Howes. William had the use of the house for six months following the sale and eventually moved to Paignton in Devon, where he died in February 1966.
Painting ‘The Stores Garden’ by Charles Edwin Flower
Charles Flower was a well-known local artist who lived on the Green South, it is not known if this is a true representation, but the Howes family have a copy.
At the time of the sale, George Howes had another business in Didcot, so the Stores was managed by Billy Wells, before George, known as Alec and his wife Kathleen (Kath) moved to Warborough in 1954.
In 1956 George Howes made an off-licence application which at that time appears to be a somewhat strange procedure.
THE STORES, THAME ROAD, WARBOROUGH, OXON
OFF LICENCE APPLICATION
George Alec Howes of The Stores Thame Road Warborough Oxon will say
I am the owner of The Stores, Warborough which is situate in the centre of Village on the main road leading from Wallingford to Thame.
On Sunday the 15th of January 1956 I fixed to the Notice Board outside the Warborough Parish Church before the hour of 10 a.m. in the morning a notice of my application and I now produce a copy. I attended at the church at approximately 1 p.m. on the same day to ensure that the notice was still there and again at 5 p.m.
I carried out the same procedure on the following Sunday the 22nd of January and again I was satisfied that the notice had remained posted throughout the days.
I have been proprietor of the Stores for the las 9 years but until 12 months ago it was run by a manager. I took over the personal supervision after selling my business at Didcot which I ran for 21 years where I held an off licence for 20 years. I have not applied for an off licence in Warborough until now owing to being fully engaged in running the Didcot shop.
I feel that there is a real demand for off licenced premises both for Warborough and surrounding villages to which I deliver such as Shillingford Newington Stadhampton and Dorchester in none of which is there an off licence. This demand is evidenced by a petition contacting the signatures of 205. Customers. In addition, members of the public representing different villages are also here in person to support my application.
The only other premises in the Village from which alcoholic drinks can be obtained are the three public houses, only one of which is on the main road, and there are a number of people who would prefer to obtain their supplies from a shop and if my application is granted, I shall be able to make deliveries which is not done by the public houses.
Harold Brown who delivered for Alec Howes
Alec & Kath ran the shop until they retired in 1975, delivering goods to local villages.
On their retirement, when they moved into Wallingford, their son Andrew took over the lease for three years until it was passed to Kenneth & Patricia Arnold in 1978.
Ken & Pat went on to purchase the house & shop with some garden from George Howes and in 1985 planning permission for the house now known as Gore House was granted and gifted to Robin & Sue, nee Howes, Dyke, and their home was built and appropriately named Gore House.
Ken & Pat retired on 27th January 2006 when the shop was leased separately to Raj & Sophia Niventheran.
The Post Office, having been in several premises in the village over time, was incorporated into the shop in 2016.
When one turns into Henfield View, the shop is on our left and on the right, we have Church View, an early 18th Century cottage which is one of the villages many listed buildings but is officially on Thame Road. In the 1910 Valuation Office Survey (online at The Genealogist) the property was included in the estate of Mrs R Tripp, deceased, and occupied by Mr T Kirby & family. Mr Kirby was a bricklayer. Also included in this plot was Beverley Cottage which has its back wall on what is now Henfield View.
The lane now known as Henfield View appears to have several names over the years. It was little more than a foot path and in many of the original documents was referred to as the footway to Dorchester. Both a Conditional Surrender document (ref B21/7/206/D1/1) and An Abstract of Title document dated 1851 (ref B21/7/206/D1/3) held by Oxfordshire History Centre) for the Gore notes it as ‘shooting on to Church Way’. The 1901 census refers to as Little Lane and a 1984 article for the Society referred to it being once called Shop Lane.
The documents held by Oxfordshire History Centre show at one time the Gore included a tenement used as a Public House, called The Cricketers Arms and occupied by John Tripp, Butcher.
The original records show that the Cottage, The Gore and Clacks Cottage changed hands several times, between familiar names in the village, such as Saunders, Frewin, Hammans & Bailey but rarely did they live in the properties.
On the left originally, there was a cottage, roughly where Gore House now stands, and another known as ‘Clacks Cottage’. It is not clear when any of these dwellings were demolished but the 1901 census records (Ancestry) states there were four properties in ‘Little Lane’ with ‘Clacks Cottage’ occupied by George Harwood, Widower, & his son William who were both agricultural labourers.
Other residents of the lane were William Strainge with wife Nellie and children Winifred and William. Also living there is Emily Strainge, sister. William is listed as butcher, shopkeeper and slaughterman, working from home. Emily is the bookkeeper for the butcher’s business. It is likely that this is the William Strainge who had the Butcher’s business in Benson, it is unlikely that was a slaughterhouse in the Lane.
Charles Bond, a carter, with wife Louisa and children Sarah, Charles, and Frank were also residents as was the widow Maria Collins, a washerwoman with her own accounts along with Charles Bond listed as son and William as grandson, both of whom were agricultural labourers.
The map below was extracted from the deed documents for 14 Henfield View by permission of Nigel & Liz Long. The shaded area was sold to Crowmarsh Rural District Council by Langford Bailey, and this is where the Council houses 7-14 Henfield View, were built around 1920. The house numbers 7-14 were an extension of 1-6 Henfield View, these being the houses behind the village pump and now numbered as Thame Road.
At that time none of the new properties would have been built and they would indeed have been a view to Henfield.
The map shows the Farm Buildings that are seen in the main photo and were on the right side of the lane.
More homes have been built in Henfield View, the Council building the two bungalows 15 & 16, the dates are unclear but possibly around 1970.
Documents produced in 1940 to estimate how many evacuees Warborough could accept shows the following residents.
7 Henfield View – Mr & Mrs Lawrence Vaughan
8 Henfield View – Mrs T F Hawkins (Kate)
9 Henfield View – Mr & Mrs E H Absolom (Bob)
10 Henfield View – Mrs & Miss Phelps (Mr Phelps was in the RAF)
11 Henfield View – Nr & Mr Harold Giddings
12 Henfield View – Mr & Mrs F Currell
13 Henfield View – Mr & Mrs Charles Bumpass
14 Henfield View – Mr & Mrs Walter Absolom
In 1961 Mr & Mrs Walter Absolom of 14 Henfield View were the first people to buy their house from the Council.
In the late 1950’s No 17, originally called Abbey View was built on the site of Clack’s Cottage by Alec Howes for his wife’s parents Walter & Nellie Hobbins. In June 1966 the property was sold by Charles Forsyth & R Fleming Smith to Mrs A C Raphael. This was when the bungalow became associated with Warborough Cottage and was the housekeeper/gardener’s residence. William & Beryl Woodward occupied the cottage. The property was sold again in 2020 and has been significantly extended.
Bungalows No’s 3, 5 & 6 were built in the 1960’s by G F Bradley of Hammer Lane, Warborough.
In 1986, Gore House, No. 18 was built and uses a gateway which was the entry to Clack’s Cottage. The brick shed in the garden is the remains of one of the original cottages.
Henfield Cottage, No. 4 was built in 1998 and uses the gateway to the field that was by the barn. The Barn is believed to have been demolished in the late 1980’s when it was in a state of disrepair. The farmyard marked on old maps was owned by the Misses Stapleton and worked by the Hyatt family although there is nothing to suggest there was a homestead there.
The ownership of the road is still debated as it has never been adopted and despite it having vehicles using in from all the houses a conveyance in 2023 brought up that the road is effectively still a footpath.
At the end of Henfield View it does revert to a footpath and this passes diagonally across Henfield towards Overy and Dorchester. Known as Footpath 9 on the current definitive map it was formerly known as Stone Stile Path. Sue Dyke recalls it being a wide raised path, but it is now ploughed annually and reinstated by driving a tractor across it. It is sometimes now referred to as The Diagonal.
An unconfirmed story goes that the choir boys would leave Warborough Church and race across the diagonal to get to Dorchester Abbey for the service there.
We end with the piece of land known as Henfield now a 47-acre field on the western edge of the Parish. An open field system was functioning in the 12th century and may have been established even earlier. In 1206 three fields were named, Henfield being one of them and may have been included within Shillingford field ( www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon) The 1606 Corpus Map shows it as Henne Fielde and it is considered to be a small field. The word Henne appears to be of German origin and does indeed refer to the female chicken.
We know that in the 1836 Tithe apportionment the field was split into at least 52 strips of land, and these were mainly used as arable land with some meadows. These strips were owned or leased by several well-known names in the history of Warborough including Ashby, Saunders, Beisley, Swell & Gammon. Only very rarely were their strips of land adjacent to one another.
Interestingly it is pointed out that the area within Henfield marked Linches was c1200 pastureland. The reference to this probably indicates that this was unusual.
Researched by Lynda Raynor 2024