When I saw the topic of 'full house' for #52Ancestors, there was one place that immediately came to mind: Pound Cottage.
Pound Cottage was where my maternal grandparents lived, where my mum, aunt, and uncles grew up, and where I have many memories of family gatherings.
Located on the junction of Hollow Lane, School Green, and Arborfield Road in Shinfield, south of Reading, Pound Cottage was the 3-bedroom, semi-detached house with large garden where my maternal grandparents, Colin and Doris Galbraith, lived and, for the most part, my mum, my aunt, and my 5 uncles were brought up.
It's also where I have some distinct, happy memories.
The origins of Pound Cottage
Every village having an animal pound was a common feature of medieval villages. It was typically a small enclosure where stray animals could be rounded up until the owners could be found and a fine paid.
A leaflet produced by a local volunteer group in 2023 suggests the location of Shinfield's pound:
The roundabout adjacent to the current School Green was a triangular green area called ‘Pound Green’, with an enclosure for stray livestock and a small lock-up for minor miscreants.
Indeed, looking through the map archives published by the National Library of Scotland, there's been a recorded building on the site since at least 1872, the earliest map they've published for the area, and a pound is marked nearby. Earlier, less clear, maps also appear to show a building on this site since at least 1809.
Whether the house got its name from the proximity to the pound, or it was the home of the poundkeeper, I could not say.
Visiting Pound Cottage
Every Saturday morning we'd visit both sets of grandparents - first to my nan (paternal grandmother) in Shinfield Rise where we'd spend an hour or so, and then on to my grandad and Nanny G's.
I was too young to understand about house ownership, it was just "grandad's house", but whilst I was writing this post I discovered a University of Reading buildings register from 2011 which lists a Pound Cottage amongst the University assets before they were sold for redevelopment. Most of the buildings make up the former NIRD buildings.
A052 Pound Cottage (N)
Of course, my grandparents used to work on the University farms, so it kinda makes sense that being able to rent a house from the University was also available.
No idea what the (N) stands for, though; most buildings have either an N or R suffix. I did email the University Estates office, but have had no reply.
Anyway, back to the visits. Being as the drive to the house was right on a roundabout, I remember the odd occasion this caused confusion; another car would pull slightly too far forward, blocking the drive resulting in my dad's gesturing to a confused driver that we were going into a driveway rather than round the roundabout.
The front door was never normally used - I only remember once going through the front door and it felt weird! Going in and out of the house was always through the side door, through the scullery where the washing machine, boiler, and downstairs toilet was, then into the kitchen. Ahead of you was a pantry cupboard then, turning left, you were into the living room.
Looking around the room clockwise, there was an armchair just inside the door on the left, then a fireplace. The large, wood effect Pye TV stood in the corner with shelves behind. Along the opposite wall was a large window, with another armchair to its right. Behind the chair, on the right-hand wall, was a dresser on which stood the telephone. At one point I remember the phone being a black, candlestick type phone with the separate earpiece you held up to your ear whilst talking into the main body held in the other hand.
In the corner of the room, on the same side as the kitchen door, was a door through to the rest of the house, with a sofa between the two doors.
Out into the hallway and turning slightly left, a smaller living room was to your left, the front door in the far right corner, and the stairs on the right.
At the top of the stairs, the bathroom was straight ahead, then the three bedrooms: two at the back of the house, one at the front.
The rear garden was huge, especially so as a kid. There was a small fish pond surrounded by a large lawn, a vegetable patch, apple tree, gooseberry bushes, greenhouse, and a garage.
At the front of the house was a smaller front garden that sloped towards the road, with a wood panel fence we could peer over to watch the traffic go by.
Sadly, the semi-detached cottage was demolished in 2017 and the land is now a road through to an under-construction Lidl. Google's satellite view captured the semi-detached cottages, Pound Cottage and neighbouring East View, in March 2017 standing solemnly with their surrounding land cleared ahead of their demolition.
So, what are my memories of being at Pound Cottage, and why did the mention of 'full house' remind me of it?
Nanny G
I have just one memory of my Nanny G, and that was in the house, and most probably on one of those Saturday morning visits. I remember going into house, through the kitchen to the living room, and climbing up on to her lap. She had her left arm around me, and a cigarette in her right hand. That's it, just that.
Nanny G died in March 1985 shortly after I turned 3 years old.
Years later, I remember visiting her grave - a black, kerbed grave filled with green chippings - with mum, dad, and my sister. Without thinking I sat on the edge of it, about halfway down. Dad immediately told me to get off, but mum stopped him. "No," she said. "He always used to sit on her knee."
The smaller living room
I don't remember much about 'the other living room' except for three things that I was explicitly invited in to see in there:
- A Macintosh computer. I have no idea whose it was, where it came from, or where it went, but I only saw it once.
- Models of milking parlours. I've mentioned this before, but I remember my grandad having some wooden milking parlour models in the small living room. If they're not the same ones, there are some very similar ones that are now museum pieces.
- A model railway layout. My grandad's layout ended up being built in here. In later years, in one of the houses he went on to move to, the garage would become home to the layout, where it also grew to pretty much fill the room.
Bonfire nights
The huge garden came in to its own on 5th November.
At the end of the garden there used to be a builders' yard, I think it had been closed for a while but it was near that back boundary wall where the fireworks would be set up, with a bonfire built in the middle of the garden.
I may, of course, be misremembering these events, but it felt to me like a big annual gathering. One particular fireworks night I remember the whole family being there - including my aunts, uncles, and my two cousins at the time, and their friends standing in the driveway between the house and the garage.
Once the fireworks had started, however, it seemed like the whole village had shown up, with people in the front garden, creeping up in to the driveway, and lining the fence along the pavement outside.
These bonfire nights came to an end when the builders yard was redeveloped and an office, now the Shinfield View care home, was built on the site. I can still kind of hear a conversation between my dad and my uncle Paul, standing at the end of the garden considering the future of the event.
I can't remember for sure if the bonfire nights ended with the building of the offices, or if they did have one more but got complaints (I think there's a vague memory of that), but the offices were definitely the reason these gatherings came to an end.
Christmas
Finally, there's Christmas, and this is where 'full house' really comes to mind.
From when I was very small in the 80s until, I'd say, the mid-90s, my early teens, there was usually a visit to Grandad's on Christmas Day. With mum being one of seven siblings, Pound Cottage naturally became a family meeting point with various aunts and uncles coming together for a couple of hours to share presents.
Other random memories
- A Blondie poster in the garage. There was also a yellow car number plate that read BLONDIE.
- My first taste of gooseberries from the bush in the garden.
- Standing on a stump behind the front fence to watch the traffic going past.
- My uncle Andy's story: grandad was confused one day when he returned home to find a random car in his back garden. When the owner returned and grandad confronted him, he asked: "this is the council car park, isn't it?". Not sure how many council car parks aren't signposted, have a narrow driveway between a house and a garage, and have a washing line, pond, and vegetable patch in them.
I can't quite remember exactly when my grandad moved out of Pound Cottage; late 90s, I think. Other people moved in, but the house became abandoned in the early-mid 2010s. Looking on Google StreetView it's really quite sad seeing the house slowly succumbing to ivy, surrounded by overgrown grass, weeds coming up through the concrete driveway.
Come the October 2018 StreetView update, though, and the cottage is gone.
Today, stand on the pedestrian crossing on the south side of Beke Avenue, just off the now-widened Arborfield Road roundabout, and you'll be standing where Pound Cottage's living room once was.
More photos from Pound Cottage
References and further reading
Most of this article was written based on my recollections and photos, but I like to fact check (read: get distracted!). During the writing of this post, I found these resources helpful and interesting:
Jefferies, P. J (1971). A short history of Shinfield. Shinfield: St Mary's Parochial Church Council. Retrieved from http://www.shinfieldhistory.org.uk/histories/Jefferies_A_short_history_of_Shinfield.pdf
Shinfield and District Local History Society http://www.shinfieldhistory.org.uk/
Shinfield Parish Volunteers Group (2023). Shinfield Parish easy history walks for all. No. 4: School Green. Retrieved from https://shinfieldparish.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/B28145-School-Green-leaflet-HT-v2a.pdf.
All map images used on this page reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland, unless otherwise stated. Search and view the maps in their amazing collection at maps.nls.uk.