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This Autumn Miss Tuddenham Asked Me to Help the Slough Civic Society

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This Autumn Miss Tuddenham Asked Me to Help the Slough Civic Society Lascelles Playing Field Park: a history by Tony Pilmer Lascelles Playing Fields, Slough: a history By Tony Pilmer 1 Lascelles Playing Field Park: a history by Tony Pilmer Acknowledgements This project was initially started to provide background information for a historical case to support the redevelopment of Lascelles Playing Fields Pavilion, however when the project was put on ice, this history become a bit of a hobby. Thank you to Malcolm Hellings who trawled through three years of the Slough Observer and discovered much of the historical background to this piece. Angela Tuddenham provided some wonderful facts on the origin of the fields and persuaded me to start this project. Thank you also to Leah Pilmer proof reading this, and hundreds of other pieces of my work and Ros Sirr who made some suggestions on an earlier draft. Thank you to Colin Bailey and Bruce Hicks of Slough Borough Council’s Parks Deparment for some invaluable material on the recent history of the Playing Fields. Thank you also to Slough Library and their local studies collection. The vast majority of this material has been gleaned from their collections. Thanks also to the staff of the Berkshire Record Office who trawled through handwritten draft catalogues to find some amazing material. April 2006 2 Lascelles Playing Field Park: a history by Tony Pilmer Lascelles Playing Fields has been shaped by many of the forces which have made Slough the town that it is today. Its name is a connection to the town’s most noble family, while the land itself has been changed by enclosure, the invasion of the nineteenth century middle class and the forces brought by a rapidly expanding industrial town. It has also provided a home to some of the town’s most important civic events and is the legacy of one of the town’s anonymous heroes. Enclosure Slough at the turn of the nineteenth century would have been unrecognisable to someone living in Slough today. There was the small village of Langley Marish around their ancient church, a collection of houses around the village pond in Cippenham and the prosperous coaching stops around Salt Hill and Colnbrook. Nearer to St. Laurence’s Church was a collection of small private and common fields, two hamlets known as Upton and Chalvey, and the small coach stop of Slough. This collection of three hamlets made up the parish of Upton-cum-Chalvey. In 1809 the small common and private lands were enclosed.1 This process transferred the ownership of small pieces of private and common land to one owner who could then make larger profits from farming one block of land. Michael Bayley’s map, The Farms of Slough, shows that the enclosure included Pound (Gate) Field. This land was later to become Lascelles Playing Fields. Purchasing the park Slough was transformed in the nineteenth and then again in the early twentieth century. During the mid-nineteenth century the middle class were attracted by large houses and apartments, the country address, a view of their 1 Judith Hunter, The story of Slough p.49 3 Lascelles Playing Field Park: a history by Tony Pilmer royal neighbours at Windsor and the convenience of an easy railway journey to and from London. The land around St. Laurence’s church had been transformed by this influx. James Bedborough’s Upton Park development provided flats and houses around a picturesque park, and large houses were built around the Windsor Road. Large houses also reached the western boundary of Pound Field when Upton Road was developed. However, the Ordnance Survey maps dated between 1876 and 1925 suggest that the Lascelles Family, who were the new owners of Pound Field, did not sell the land for development but continued to use it as farmland. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought industry, with the establishment of Ellimans, Horlicks and the fledgling Slough Trading Estate. The new jobs created by these companies drew people from across the country and as a consequence, the town’s population exploded. This in turn put pressure on local services run by local government. Roads, schools, parks and the water supply were all designed for a small town and they needed to be expanded. With a view of making such improvements to Slough’s open spaces, a plot of land which ran along Lascelles Road and up to the Bath Road, and formally known as Pound Field, was bought by Slough Urban District Council (Slough UDC) in 1928 at a cost of about £7000.2 Slough UDC earmarked their new fields as a site for a new Grammar School and for public playing fields. The area intended for the fields covered ‘twenty-six acres of ground and afford[ed] every facility for games’.3 There were two men without whom there may not have been a Lascelles Playing Fields. The first was Alan Bromly A.M.I.C.E, Slough UDC’s Surveyor & Engineer & Manager of Water Works. Bromly is one of Slough’s unsung heroes and without him Slough would not have some of its most pleasant areas. As the town’s surveyor he was the council officer responsible for planning, running and developing the council’s infrastructure. He did this throughout the inter-war years when the population exploded from 16, 392 to 2 S. Logan, “Round and about No. 32 – Lascelles Playing Fields”, Slough. Windsor & Slough Express, September 1938, Slough Library’s Local Studies Collection Cuttings file. 4 Lascelles Playing Field Park: a history by Tony Pilmer 66,2504 and he was planning for an eventual population of over 100,000 residents. In this capacity Bromly was in charge of the design and building of Slough Waterworks, the “futuristic” Slough Cemetery and 242 council houses along Stoke Poges Lane. Bromly was also passionate about parks and open spaces. During his time of employment he oversaw the expansion of Slough’s allotments, the building of Salt Hill Pleasure Grounds and an open air swimming pool on Montem Lane, as well as the purchasing and development of Lascelles and Upton Court Playing Fields.5 His passion can most clearly be seen in his notebooks. In his notes for the 3 July 1931 meeting of the Playing Fields Committee he argues for greater land for open spaces considering the exploding population, and laments his failed attempts to persuade the council to buy the parkland once belonging to Baylis House. The parkland containing lakes and landscaped gardens was then developed for housing.6 Bromly’s influence over the council’s parkland went further than persuading the council that it needed more open spaces. As surveyor he was in day-to- day control of the playing fields, as well as their development and design. As shown below, he also had the key role in building the Lascelles Playing Fields Pavilion. The second key individual in the purchasing of the park was a man called Richard Jewry Harbert. Jewry Harbert was an insurance agent, former florist to Queen Victoria and Edward VII, magistrate, and at the time of the park’s purchase, Chairman of Slough Urban District Council.7. According to “Sweep” in the Slough Observer, a mysterious private individual was also interested in 3 S. Logan, “Round and about No. 32 – Lascelles Playing Fields”, Slough. Windsor & Slough Express, September 1938, Slough Library’s Local Studies Collection Cuttings file. 4 1921 figure from Maxwell Fraser, The History of Slough, p.153 & 1938 estimated figure from Patrick Abercrombie, Greator London Plan 1944, London 1945 p.197 5 “Some interesting biographies”, The Slough Observer Chartership Supplement, 16 September 1938 p.11. The article also includes a photograph of Bromly; something he avoided in the Town Hall opening supplement of 1936. 6 Report for 3 July 1931, Surveyors SPF Parks Report Book. Berkshire Record Office ref S/AC4/1/7. p.37 7 “Death of Mr. R. Jewry Herbert”, Slough Observer, 1 May 1931. 5 Lascelles Playing Field Park: a history by Tony Pilmer buying and developing the site for housing. Luckily for the town, Jewry Harbert privately obtained an option to buy the land. This gave Slough UDC time to complete the purchase before the developers were able to put in a bid.8 The threat which Jewry Harbert fought off was not the only one which may have prevented the transformation from farmland to playing fields; the second threat came from the County Council. During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Buckinghamshire County Council’s Higher Education Committee was searching for a site for a new Technical Institute for Slough. During 1929 and early 1930, the committee actively considered the playing field site as the new home for their adult education college. Fortunately for the generations that have played on the fields, early in 1930 Charles Watkins, the Bucks Education Secretary, stated that ‘having regarded all of the circumstances of the case the Committee are of the opinion that the site offered is not suitable for the purpose of a Technical Institute, and no further action should be taken over the matter’.9 Naming the Park On 31 January 1930 the power to shape the new playing fields was given to Slough UDC’s Salt Hill and Playing Fields Committee. One of the first jobs of this body of Councillors was to suggest a name for Slough’s newest playing field. In March 1930, Slough UDC’s Playing Fields Committee suggested to a meeting of the full council that the new playing fields should be named after the Lascelles Family. The full council discussed alternatives to the plan. Councillor Shrapnell suggested that the park should be called Upton Playing Fields, as they had already honoured the Lascelles family by naming the adjacent road after them.
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