Your House and Mine |
The Horse Pond |
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Introduction
Map of Frieth Moor End Bramblings Astrea Merrydown Cottage Corner Cottage Moor's End Cottages Moor Gate House Underwood The Copse Fingest Road The Forge Folly Cottages The Willows Perrin Springs Lane Perrin Springs West's Cottages Ellery Rise Hilliers Lynden Cottage Frieth Hill Hillside Cottage Rowleys Pear Tree Cottage Hillside View The Platt Little Barlows Cutlers Cottage Yew Tree Cottage Little Cottage Barlows Birch Cottage Tedders / Rose Cottage The Old Stores The Yew Tree Inn Fairfield House Flint Cottage 1 Flint Cottage 2 Inglenook Middle Cottage Sunny Corner The Gables The Orchards Hilltop Cattons Mallards Hillswood The Old Parsonage White Gates The Laurels The Cottage The Firm Marlstone Westwood Bradstone Haylescroft The Niche Rivendell Summerhill Ashcroft Selborne The Ranch House Sara's Cottage The Cherries The Old School House Innings Road Collier's Farm Innings Gate Down the Lane Sunset Cottage Fermain Chilterns Rowan Cottage Creighton Cottage Apple Tree Old Well Cottage The Cottage Flat Roof Whitsun Backlins Red Kites Maidenscraft Spurgrove Lane Maidencraft Cottage September Cottage Spurgrove Cottage Gable End Willems Elder Barn Sunnydale |
The Horse Pond at Frieth crossroads was not the small ornamental one there today [ ? ] but a large one coming right out to the road and bounded by a concrete curb [kerb] to contain it from flooding. It was fed by an underground pipe from the spring in the road above it on Frieth Hill and similarly from run-off surface water from Moor Common. Overflow from the pond was ducted under the road and down the gully by the side of the road to Fingest. The Forge
The Forge and two cottages stood on the corner diagonally across from the pond. One of the cottages was let to the blacksmith and in 1890 Mr Collier names him as Mr Audrey. Succeeding him was Mr Johnson ( first father, then son ) he was farrier and wheelwright as well as blacksmith, repairing farm implements and crafting wrought iron gates and seats etc. [ The forge building stood approximately where the garage is located in the later photograph below. There are more photographs of the old pond and the forge in "Frieth a Chiltern Village" ]
Neither the cottages nor the forge were shown on the Tithe Map so they must have been built after 1845 and are said to have been built for Ephraim Webb who lived there some time before 1849. [ You can find the Tithe Map under "Hambleden" on the menu bar above ]
[ Bill Johnson, the last Blacksmith to work at The Forge, enjoying a joke at a party held for senior folk in the village in 1961. Left to right are : Mrs Lee, Mrs Woodward, Bill Johnson, Mrs Johnson, Mrs Sue Webb, Dorothy Gomm and Alf Fry. This image is reproduced with permission from John Harris's collection ] |
