Englefield, Berkshire

Hello. Thank you for coming by. Do you like researching family history?  I do and I've found out so much of interest about my family in the process. I had a head start as my mother had collected a lot of information and then I did a course at our local library on family history research and added more details. Two cousins on different lines of my family have also contributed to my knowledge.

Today I'm sharing a little about my great grandfather Alfred (my father's maternal family line) who was born in the county of Wiltshire where some of my ancestors came from.  I can trace them back to the 16th century because I have a special document of heredity which has been passed down the generations.  (More about that another time).  Great Grandpa Alfred moved over the county border to West Berkshire and settled in Englefield where he was an agricultural worker on the Englefield Estate.  He married, but by the time he was 28 years old his wife, Harriet, had died. He then married my great grandmother, Mary Anne (Annie) who came from a nearby village. My grandmother, Helen May, was their first child and the couple went on to have 7 children, although two tragically died when they were children within the space of two months in 1893, probably from something as simple as influenza which in those days could prove to be fatal without our modern-day medical treatments.

One of my great granduncles, Charles, stayed in West Berkshire in nearby Bucklebury and I well remember visiting him in his cottage on Bucklebury Common when I was a child in the 1950s.  He must have been in his 70s by then.

After his wife Annie died in 1927 Gt Grandpa Alfred moved to Little Sandhurst in south east Berkshire to be near his grown up children, Albert Richard and Rose Amy. (Rose married someone from this community. My parents and I often visited them and I'm still in touch with great Aunt Rose's younger son). My grandmother Helen May and her husband followed the Methodist movement of Christianity and my father became a Methodist lay preacher so it was natural to go to Sandhurst for special church events at the Methodist Church near to where GtAunt Rose lived and my Dad would preach on these occasions.

Great Grandpa Alfred at GtAunt Rose's wedding (1932)

On the right is my grandmother Helen May and on the left is

 her oldest daughter, my Aunt Doris and Aunt Doris's only daughter, Rita.

By this time Alfred lived in Sandhust and was being looked after by his son, Albert.
  Helen was the oldest of the seven children and Rose Amy was the youngest

so there was quite a difference in age between the sisters.

Back to Englefield Church where Alfred and Mary Anne were married....

By the time we got there it had stopped raining.  I regret not taking photos of the church then as when we came out an hour later the rain was pouring down. Today I'll show you the Estate and outside of the church and tomorrow I'll post about the inside as there are a lot of photos.

Englefield House, for many years

 the family seat of the Benyons

primroses along the path up to the church

snowdrops under the trees

a standing cross and the lychgate on the right

looking towards the church from Englefield House

Our daughter has promised to take me back sometime to visit the church yard.  The memorials inside the church are very interesting and it's a beautiful place of worship. Do come back and take a look when next I write about it.