Life for the men of Bovingdon Green camp in WW1

 As many people whose ancestors passed through the First World War troop camps at Bovingdon Green have contacted us to find out what life for their relatives was like there, here's a post to give some more information. The camps may also be described as Marlow Common  - they did not as you may think only occupy the actual green at Bovingdon. When you realise the camp sometimes accommodated as many as 2000 men plus hospital tents, messes, etc you will see how they could not all squeeze onto that patch of land. They occupied farm fields around the area and did their training activities over a wider area still. 

For the detailed timeline of who was occupying the camps and when please see the timelines linked below. 

1914

1915

1916

1917

1918-19. 

Familiar spot for some

Troops came from various parts of  southern and eastern England. Some stayed weeks, others months. For many it was their last taste of sleeping in England before being sent to the front. The Bovingdon Green camp and land around Marlow and Temple had been used before the war for training camps by both the regular and territorial armies. So some of those attending may well have already been familiar with the area. And of course not all those in the camps or stationed at Marlow were non locals - the Bankers Battalion in particular recruited a number of Marlow area residents. 

Arrival

The men almost always arrived by train at Marlow station. This left them with a march through the town, up Oxford Rd to the small village of Bovingdon Green. Every single train bringing in troops was well known about in advance - and so the arrival was never allowed to pass unmarked. People gathered at the station even when technically they were forbidden to get in the way. Residents stopped what they were doing to watch the men pass. Most were proceeded by a band, or at least a drummer. Photographers captured many of these arrivals and turned them into postcards which were sold to the troops in camp as well as in local shops. 

The territorials had arrived for a regular training camp at Bovingdon Green just before the declaration of war in 1914. Their camp therefore broke up after less than 24 hours. The message bringing news of their mobilisation for war arrived at Marlow station. Station master Morgan was frantic as of course the moment the message came was exactly when all of his messengers were already out on errands. He saw Marlow man Vincent Timberlake who he knows has access to a car and asked him to take this "most urgent" message to the camp. Vincent's driving licence had just expired and so he initially said he could not go, but when told it was a subject of national interest he did. His reward was to be very unluckily stopped and arrested for driving without a licence! However the charges against him were dismissed when the nature of his errand was revealed. After the territorials aborted visit, Marlow was left without any troops billeted there for some time - much to their disgust. Some felt it was an actual insult for Marlow not to have received any - other local towns with less history of hosting had got them, so why not us they said. Marlow's General Sir George Higginson was asked to use his personal influence and connections to do something to remedy the situation. He said there was little he could do, but it was generally considered he was responsible for those first that did arrive - of the Grenadier Guards in May (advance party to erect camp) and June 1915. The result is that the troops that came appear to have been very much wanted and welcomed by the majority of residents. 

The area around the camp is rich with beech woodland, above. 

Camp facilities - post office and all

The majority of the men slept under canvas, with the officers mostly occupying other premises. Some of the officers temporarily rented a house in Marlow and bought their wives and children along. Others were sharing accomodation. 

As soon as the first men arrived at Bovingdon Green, a YMCA tent was erected. This was initially under the charge of vicars daughter Miss Audrey Light, who later was working as a nurse in military hospitals.  She lent on locals to furnish it with everything from trestle tables for the serving of refreshments to a meat safe, gramophone and a piano. The tent hosted concerts, lectures and sometimes religious services. Performances were not just by local enthusiasts but stars of the London music halls came down to offer entertainment. Another distinguished visitor was the Prince of Wales who motored over from Windsor in August 1915. And camp residents also put on their own performances in the YMCA tent - often for local Marlow charity appeals. 

Newspapers and magazines were gathered to provide the men with a "reading room" and there were also writing tables with free supplies of paper, envelopes and ink. Three thousand sheets of writing paper were given out every day at it's height! The makeshift post office even dealt with parcels. 

The local ladies at the YMCA tent helped the men organise transport when they were on leave and mended, washed and altered clothing free of charge. A fruit stall offered food at prices to suit soldiers meagre pockets - produce was donated by local farmers and greengrocers and sold at a loss. 

All members at the camp in 1915 were enrolled as free honorary members of Marlow Institute (now the town library in Institute rd). This provided access to a comfortable reading room, library and the ever popular billiards table. 

Officers outside their lodgings at The Old House, West Street. Image courtesy of Michael Eagleton. 

Obviously the majority of the men were there to finalise their training before leaving for the front, but time was still found for more fun activities that were also considered good for morale and skill building. Our visiting troops were very fond of water sports days and regattas and with the River Thames close at hand who can blame them? Marlow's own regatta was cancelled for the duration of the war so there was a ready audience to watch them. The officers were frequently seen on the river at weekends, enjoying the free use of rowing boats and punts that many offer them. The Marlow bathing place (a roped off part of the river backwater accessed from Quarry Wood Rd on the Bisham side of the Thames) was offered free of charge for soldiers use - outside of the time it was reserved for the ladies naturally. 

There are many reports of football and cricket matches played at the camp in the summer evenings. They also played in what is now Riley Recreation Ground againgst other military sides. 

When the Grenadier Guards were in camp their band visited about weekly, and the public were invited to attend. It was noted that the ladies of Marlow bought flowers for the visiting Guard musicians to take back to London with them. The performances were a very popular attraction. In fact the public were constantly joining events there. A grand 4,000 people attended the Grenadier Guard sports at Bovingdon Green in August 1915! Such sports days were a regular feature throughout the camps life. Events ranged from more serious sports to the definitely more fun - mounted wrestling matches, running races in fancy dress etc. In fact events involving dressing as a woman were perennial favourites! 

Once the Grenadier Guards left, Marlow's music lovers must have been disappointed but the Bankers Battalion did start a brass band when they were in camp in 1915. 

Above, The Royal Oak, one of then two pubs at Bovingdon Green.. unfortunately for the men both were periodically made out of bounds to them - but this was widely ignored. Marlow was a 10-15 minute walk down a footpath bordering Hanging Hill. 

News from the front

If you are used to reading heavily censored letters and materials from the second world war it can seem jarring to read the honesty of some of the republished letters from the front that appeared in local press in WW1. Copies of these papers were taken up to the camp and would have made sober reading for those waiting for their own turn at the front. Right from the start you can read descriptions of horrific mud, of men walking through woods with no room to place their feet except upon dead bodies, of men openly expressing the wish to be bought away injured in the face of such huge numbers of dead. Of course there was also very patriotic and jingoistic sentiments revealed too. As the war went on it's obvious that men are writing with the knowledge their thoughts and news would find its way into print, even if they recorded them in letters ostensibly to their parents.

The local papers also continued to report news about any groups of  soldiers that been billeted at Marlow after they left. It was definitely not the case that they were out of sight and out of mind once they had moved away even if they were not primarily local men. 

Training 

Shortly after their arrival in 1915 the Grenadier Guards were reported to have got stuck in to trench digging and field exercises in the woods to the North of Marlow. Some of the practice trenches dug during the war at Marlow common can still be seen today although they have become less defined and much shallower even in my lifetime. It is not certain whether those remaining were those dug by the Guards or were made by the Royal Engineers who followed them into camp. I think it's been the assumption that the latter were responsible as to quote many a local "digging trenches is what they do".  I think this is also partly because it was not realised that the Guards had definitely engaged in this activity at Marlow - and got there first. 

The sight of soldiers marching from camp through the town to the territorials long established shooting ranges under Quarry Woods was a familiar one. They often paused in Quoiting Square on their way in and out. There were complaints of the men using it as an outdoor urinal - and so Marlow's first so called "public" convenience arrived at a spot opposite the waterworks in Chalk Pit Lane. It was put up primarily for the troops but it seems anyone male could use it. This was the only real complaint I've ever seen about the soldiers behaviour in Marlow. 

Events of November 1915 and after

A gale in the above month and year flattened most of the sleeping tents at Bovingdon Green - and actually just about all the others such as the officers and sergeants mess tents. Only the beloved YMCA one plus a RAMC orderly tent and a couple used for storage in the ordnance depot were left standing - just about. The men did their best to shelter in what was left - and not for the first time. It was decided to secure accomodation in the various empty buildings in the town instead initially as a temporary measure. But in the end the majority of the men never went back there to live. They remained lodged in what must have been much more comfortable quarters in Marlow! However usage of the camp site was not immediately abandoned. It was decided to keep the ordnance compound tents, at least for a few weeks. And of course they could not be left unguarded so a few unfortunate guards were left camping there. 

The YMCA relocated to an empty shop in the High Street. 

When the Royal Engineers arrived later in 1915 they went into billets in the town too, and although they were also expected to re locate back to the Bovingdon Green camp after the winter, they did not. 

Some of the properties used for lodging for troops at some point include: 

Spinfield

Hillside (off Seymour Court Rd) 

Quarry Wood House (at junction Dedmere Rd and Victoria Rd)

The Old House, West Street 

Upstairs at The Institute 

The Public Hall (now the Masonic Centre, St Peters Street) 

The old boys school (aka the Church Hall, the Causeway)

Sunnybank (Riverside) 

The original cottage hospital (Cambridge House, Cambridge Rd) 

and many other homes, hotels, and former business premises. 

A certificate from The Overseas Club 1915 stating that a young Marlovian had contributed towards Christmas gifts to "our brave sailors and  soldiers who are fighting for honour, freedom & justice". 

Written and researched by Kathryn Day. 

Related posts: 

See links at top for info about Marlow in WW1 in general and info about troops billeted in Marlow after the camps break up. 

If you are interested in Bovingdon Green and Marlow Common in general see the post index here

© Kathryn Day 

So Who Did Eat Puppy Pie Under Marlow Bridge?

If you wanted to hear a choice selection of expletives in Victorian or Edwardian Marlow all you had to do was call out to a passing bargeman "Who ate puppy pie under Marlow Bridge?"

You didn't need to be in Marlow- the phrase was used not only upon the whole stretch of the Thames but on other stretches of water in England, and was known in Ireland too.

The angry response came from the question being a reference to an alleged incident where an unwitting bargee had stolen a pie only to discover after he had eaten it up "under Marlow Bridge" that it was made from the flesh of unwanted, drowned puppies. The pie's owners was said to have been fed up with their pies being stolen so set the pie thief up, breaking the news as to the pie contents only when it was too late and the last crumb eaten.

It is likely some such incident did happen as there are too many references to the tale for it to be otherwise but the circumstances are not consistent across different versions of the story and nor is the time period given for the incident.

The nature of the person whose pie had been stolen varies too. Not all versions even agree that it was Marlow Bridge involved though by far the greater number do.

The earliest print reference to this story which I have found dates from 1846 and says that the awful pie was consumed under Maidenhead Bridge, not Marlow (The Era 14th June, British Newspaper Archives). The Pall Mall Budget newspaper in 1872 also set the scene in Maidenhead as did the Saturday Review in 1867. One later Victorian memory recalled bargees being asked who ate the puppy pie under Waterloo Bridge in London.

The earliest reference to Marlow being the scene of the crime was in a newspaper of 1848 but the author there said the pie question was a "hidden taunt" and he did not personally know any particular story behind this odd question routinely thrown at bargees.

Francis Francis the elder (yes that was his name) in 1854 thought the incident had happened at the "beginning of the 18th century" and gives a version not matched by any later versions. He says that a gentleman of Marlow was the pie owner. This cook used part of an unwanted litter of poodle puppies (only in this version is a specific dog breed mentioned) for the pie filling and left it wrapped in a blue cloth down under the bridge where all the bargemen had left their lunches for later, in the expectation that one of them would surely eat it. This version has more detail than most others with the breed of dog which was victimized given, plus the colour of the cloth, and the detail that it was wrapped at all. It was of course normal for working men to carry their lunches in knotted clothes or handkerchiefs, and the different colours and patterns of these helped the men to tell whose lunch was whose. It is possible that the gentleman pie owner had observed that a particular thief used a blue cloth for his lunch and was thus specifically targeting an individual for vengeance. He might even have swapped out the correct lunch for the sabotaged one, rather than left matters to chance.

In 1856 Bell's Life In London thought that the pies stolen by the bargees were the lunches of the men building Marlow's new suspension bridge (which happened between 1829-32). This building was beset with problems which caused Marlow to become not just a local but nationwide laughing stock. People specifically came to Marlow to ask the locals where their new bridge was as it didn't seem to have been built yet and to witness the embarrassed local reactions. You can easily imagine the passing bargees joining in the teasing and becoming resented as a result. A perceived theft (we can't be sure in any scenario that any bargemen were actually guilty of stealing any pies only that they were believed to be guilty. Itinerant people were pretty much always blamed rather than locals for any unsolved crimes in the past) of some lunch by them might have been the final straw and a plan of revenge hatched. Remember too that the effect of the new suspension bridge on river flow was a cause for concern for commercial river users and this would have lead to increased tensions between them and the bridge builders and townspeople responsible for thst. The works themselves must have created disturbance to the nearby wharves too.

The Preston Pilot newspaper in 1860 also  thought the legendary pie owner to be a gentleman. It mentioned that in other parts of the Thames the usual question to annoy bargemen was "Who ate the cats?" with no mention of Marlow Bridge. Was there another historic occurrence of revenge baking this time involving cats????

In the same year the journal Littell's Living Age stated that it was a Marlow publican who had been targeted by light fingered bargemen and that the bargees thought they had stolen a rabbit pie when they picked up his puppy one.

In the magazine Temple Bar of 1865 the aggrieved cook was given as the landlord of the Ferry Inn along the river at Medmenham though the puppy pie was still regarded as having been eaten at Marlow under the bridge.

Various different references to the "who ate puppy pie under Marlow Bridge?" question in the mid Victorian era regarded it as an old or ancient one and the originating story possibly a myth.

In A Drive Through England in 1885 James John Hissey agreed that the pie had been baked by the landlord of an unspecified Medmenham pub. This landlord had heard that some bargees on their way to the village had hatched a plan to raid his larder yet again and placed just the puppy pie in it to teach them a lesson.

Henry Jones in The Way About Buckinghamshire written 13 years later also thought that a landlord was inspired to bake the infamous pie upon hearing that a plan to attack his larder was afoot. But the author thought that the landlord was that of the Compleat Angler in Marlow. I'll deal with that possibility below.

In 1912 the Sunderland Daily Echo attempted to explain the well known Marlow puppy pie question to it's readers. It claimed that the bargees were in the habit of using a Marlow baker's ovens for their own pie baking. When they came to fetch their pies they would falsely claim the biggest pies there as their own, leaving the smaller ones they had in fact baked behind for other customers. It was indeed normal for people to pay to use a bakery's ovens to cook their pies in, as many people had no oven at home, or only a very small one. It is not very believable however that the bargemen could claim other pies as their own as each pie would have had a mark or sign cut into the pastry top in order to distinguish it from others. You also have to wonder if the bargemen really had the capability on their barges to make pastry. It is possible their wives at home had made the pies for their husbands to carry along with them but if so why give them raw uncooked pies which would, unrefrigerated, soon spoil rather than already cooked ones which would last longer?

The Marlow bakery involved was said to be a small one near the river. There would be at least two possibilities for such a bakery in early Victorian or late Georgian Marlow if that is the correct era to be looking at. 

In the 1914 editing of The Gourmet's Guide To London thought that the keeper of the Compleat Angler at Marlow had baked the puppy pie at the time of the old Marlow Bridge which was sited differently to our modern one. The Bisham side of it ended just by the Compleat Angler before it was condemned in 1829.  No time frame is given but the Creswell family had the inn in the early 1800s and were in part barge masters so it may not be particularly credible that they would wish to enrage the bargemen, or that the bargees who wish to enrage a potential employer. 

In 1939 in A Few Naval Customs etc Napier Thomason Beckett thought that the pie thefts had occured from an unnamed, but no longer existing, inn by the bridge, so not the Compleat Angler which still existed. This could be the former Waterman's Arms by the river or the Bowl and Pin which was demolished so that the new church could be built in 1833. Read more about the controversial church build in this post.

Also in the 1930s historian Francis Colmer thought that the pies originally stolen were cooling on a bench at Mr Rolls Wharf which was indeed at the foot of the bridge. He guessed that the pies came from the nearby Waterman's Arms but he probably didn't know about the Bowl and Pin. I'm not sure why they would choose a busy wharf as a place to cool their pie though!

A letter written to the Daily Mirror in 1949 by a Mr Walker of Mitcham Surrey placed the original incident "70 or 80 years" ago which was clearly far too late. He said the puppy pie was baked by the cook of the Compleat Angler and that game pies were the ones previously stolen. 

That's all clear as mud isn't it? Various of the story versions above have some plausibility as to time and place or situation but many have implausible aspects too and none seems without question the right one.

There is one curious thing about all versions of the story. Namely that the prankster pie maker gets the last laugh. As a group bargeman were protective of each other and quick to take mutual offence. When the boys of the Marlow based Royal Military College 1800s annoyed the bargemen it led to months of running battles between the two groups. Bargees angered by a Marlow man's behaviour in the 1760s (seemingly beating a boy) rioted and robbed the town over 3 days. There was clearly a secondary motivation of anger at local corn and wheat prices behind that riot. They also joined in with the rioting women of Marlow who, incensed at unaffordable food prices in the town, pulled down three bakeries in 1800. It doesn't seem very credible that anyone could feed a bargeman a trick puppy pie and there be no reaction from their fellow bargemen. Unless the thief stole their pies too and they were also fed up with him!!

Still, those merely mentioning the pie to a bargeman years later were not uncommonly ducked into the water, given a black eye or bombarded with missiles. The pie baker was taking a huge risk in upsetting the bargemen.

It is interesting to note that the 1760s riot incident involved larders in the town being ransacked. Innkeepers were amongst the many targeted. Did this lead to a lingering association in the town between thefts from larders and bargemen? Does the incident of the puppy pie actually come from some misremembered act of revenge after these larder raids? The town was said to have been almost emptied of food by the angry boatmen at that time.

The question of "who ate puppy pie under Marlow Bridge?" was previously used as an example of a question to which no possible answer could be given. If someone asked you a question anywhere in England which you felt unable to answer you could shrug and say, "Who ate puppy pie under Marlow Bridge?". It was equivalent to our "How long is a piece of string?" So clearly very early on the identity of the unfortunate pie thief was forgotten or was never known by anyone but the few people present at the eating.

It was, by the way, believed in Victorian England that Chinese people routinely ate puppy pies, and according to some missionaries it was also a dish in Zanzibar. I'm not sure about the kitchen set up as was in Zanzibar but Chinese people at that time didn't typically do any baking.

Nevertheless the unsafeness of puppies if a Chinese visitor was nearby was a running joke in England. People would also use the expression "I could eat a puppy pie" to express the fact that they were so hungry that they could eat anything.

In case you are wondering whether anyone could actually eat a puppy pie and not realize that something wasn't quite right, the flavour of dog is apparently just like game. That information comes from those Zanzibar missionaries, we promise. No animals were harmed in the production of this post. 

Honestly, I'm a vegetarian.

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

Related posts= Creswells of Compleat Angler here  and here. Detailed post about the history of Marlow bargemen here

©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to use my research with credit to this blog.

Additional sources quoted above=

The Real Salt by Francis Francis the elder, 1854.

The Gourmet's Guide To London by Nathaniel Newnham Davis.

The Living Age vol 67 . Google Books.

The Preston Pilot 28th January 1860, Sunderland Echo 7th June 1912, Daily Mirror  5th January 1949. British Library Archives. Via the British Newspaper Archive.

Life in 1500s Marlow

The 1500s Town -

The very earliest reference to a named street in Marlow that I have found is the will of Robert Sands of Harleyford, proved 1509, in which the testator left his daughter Jane a house and plot in Oxford Lane, now called Oxford Road. West Street is mentioned in 1574 and a little later we hear of "Hawkins Lane" leading to Hawkins Farm. We know too that the High Street, Dean Street, Spittal Street, Chapel Street, St Peter Street (and what we now call Station Road leading to it), Old Pound Lane and the part of Pound Lane which connects old Pound Lane to the High Street all existed in the 1500s though not necessarily under those names in all cases. In the first few years of the 1600s Quoiting Square (as Quoiting Place) and Potlands are mentioned and it is safe to assume that they were also present in the 1500s. The Potlands (note not "Portlands" as today) area included a footpath down to the river and church. This is now known as Portland Alley. It has been speculated that this might have been an actual roadway in the even more distant past. Similarly the idea of an old roadway connecting Spittal Street at around the site of the Cross Keys to St Peter's Street has been floated. In the 1610s we find mention of the Medmenham Highway (now Henley Road), Dedmere Highway (Dedmere Road) and Gun Lane (now Trinity Road). All were likely also present in the late 1500s at least.

The Danger of Smoke Free Homes..

In the collaborative Hollinshed's Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland published in 1577 writer William Harrison wrote that there had been recently a huge increase in domestic building in England. "Never so much oke hath been spent in a hundred years before as in ten years of our time, for everie man almost is a builder, and he that hath bought any small parcel of ground, be it ever so little, will not be quiet till he have pulled downe the old house if anie were there standing, and set up a new after his own device" As well as the new cottages and houses springing up there was much expansion and alteration to the older style homes of the rich. 

The population of England had grown considerably, doubling since the 1510s, so the need for new properties was obvious. It is likely therefore that the footprint of Marlow grew during the Elizabethan era and that individual streets became more crowded with buildings.

The building boom led to a nationwide shortage of timber by the end of the 1500s. Brick and stone buildings were both now commonly used for homes for the better off but wood was still needed for them. According to architectural historian Nickolaus Pevesner the hall of the Old Parsonage in St Peter Street Marlow was constructed the previous century if not earlier, of chalk with stone windows which shows another option that 1500s housebuilders of Marlow may also have used. There was a chalk pit up at Harleyford by the 1550s. The origin of the Old Parsonage is not certainly known.

The raising of the oak frame of a timber framed house occured once the frame had been left to season for a while by the carpenter who crafted it. The raising must have been a significant job, and probably involved helpers other than the householder and carpenter's workmen as it was common to have a little feast, drink distribution and celebration on the day of the raising, which sounds like a community thankyou. 

If you think of a timber framed building of the 1500s you probably picture a black and white or black wood and brick structure but according to the authors of The Cottage Homes of England this blackening of the wood was often done artificially in the 1800s, and Tudor woodwork would have been left naturally greyish most of the time. I have seen elsewhere however reports of house frames being "burnt" before use which implies possible deliberate darkening of the wood. Perhaps it was down to individual choice.

Only a few people had glass windows, the rest had holes in the wall, covered by translucent cloth. Floors downstairs in humble cottages were often of compacted earth. These were skillfully laid and not quite the equivalent of kicking around in the mud as you might imagine. Don't worry though, with unpaved streets 1500s Marlovians had plenty of opportunity to squelch their way about the town following any rainfall.

Chimneys had become common by the mid Elizabethan era, and indeed fancy chimneys, were a status symbol. Poorer people still made do by and large with a hole in the roof to allow the escape of smoke. Some household smoke was thought to cure and strengthen the timber used in the construction, and even to make the inhabitants healthier! It also smoked any cheese or meat hung from the beams and rafters of the house. For this reason the clearing of the air in the home caused by new efficient chimneys was regretted by more than a few people, including William Harrison. He couldn't believe the amount of coughing, choking and rheumatism caused by living in a smoke free home!

Smoke would have deterred domestic flies but it doesn't seem that mice found it too off-putting. Though keeping cats as mousers was common, an attitude of resignation as to living with some mice had to prevail. There were as yet no daddy long legs spiders in English homes however. They cadged a lift on ships from warmer climbs a century later.

A surge in home furnishings also occurred in the homes of all but the poorest (but remember that they made up the majority of the English population). William Harrison wrote that inferior artisans and mean farmers (his description!) "have for the most part learned also to garnish their cupboards with plate, their beds with tapestries and silke hangings, and their tables with carpets and fine naperie".

All household items cost far more in real terms than they do today so that items that we would not consider special were seen as worth singling out as gifts for loved ones and friends in wills. Reynold Shirwood of Marlow who left his will in 1528 as well as his valuable pewter bequeathed tablecloths and napkins. His wife Margaret mentioned napkins too and even a towel alongside her more obviously valuable amber beads, ring, girdle and raw cash.

The poorest people lived in cottages with one or two room downstairs, often with sleeping compartments reached by ladder above them. A yeoman family usually had more rooms downstairs, and might have a fully floored upper storey for sleeping, though that was still reached by ladder not a staircase. It is presumed that any people who could not manage ladders would bed themselves down on the lower floors. Most beds were straw filled pallets. Homeowners could expect beds with frames on which hangings for warmth and privacy could be attached, but other family members in the same household were not always so lucky. Servants did not expect any covering on their beds beyond an over sheet, and maybe not even that.

William, Lord Paget had Great Marlow Manor by grant from Queen Mary in 1554. The manor had been in Crown hands since early in the reign of Henry 8th. Tucher Bold had Harleyford Manor Marlow from 1516. In 1542 he got a license to have a preacher there to officiate worship as his home was so far from the parish church in Marlow. William Lord Paget ended up holding both Harleyford and Great Marlow. The other Marlow manors of the day were Semers or Seymours and Widmere. John, Lord Russell occupied Widmere from 1571. Earlier it was held successively by the Widmere family, the Knight Templars and Knight Hospitallers. 

Little Marlow Manor was in the hands of the abbess of the priory there, until of course the Dissolution.

Commercial life

Marlow is known to have had multiple inns and the like during the 1500s. The Upper Crown existed by 1596 (where Boots is now). Shopkeepers usually served customers from their homes. Marlow for generations had had two fairs a year which provided additional retail opportunities, as did the weekly market. In later times this market focused on meat sales but there is no reason to think it was not a general market in the 1500s.

Self-sufficiency was key for most people rather than commercial consumption. A cottage's garden was the medicine chest, perfumery, and culinary flavouring resource for it's residents. Some would keep bees for honey. It is often said that honey was the only sweetener available in England before the arrival of sugar but that is not strictly true. Sweet birch sap, and pollen from various flowers were available. Sucking the sweet young flowers of white dead nettles was the 1500s version of sucking a lollypop for the kids. Linden tree blossom could also be sucked as a sweet and made into a floral-scented tea. The roots and leaves of angelica plants, cultivated in gardens, also sweetened dishes.

The Bridge 

There had been a bridge crossing the Thames at Marlow since at least the late 1200s. It is presumed that the bridge of 1500s Marlow and earlier stood at the bottom of St Peter Street, as the new bridge constructed in the 1780s certainly did. Davy Shirwood / Sherwood left money for the repair of Marlow Bridge in his 1524 will. Historically the people of Marlow seem to have been pretty poor at maintaining the structure despite our bridge trustees having multiple pieces of land in their hands to rent out and thus gain income for necessary repairs. 

The People

While most people were not too far ranging during their lifetime it shouldn't be presumed that all the residents of the town in the 1500s were from ancient Marlow families. Not many of the last names of 1500s Marlovians were names that had been present in the 1400s and vice versa, implying plenty of population movement, even if it was only to and from the wider local area. A 1524 tax list for the town shows us one resident had come much further away - Henry Conrade the Dutchman. He'd be subject as a foreigner to additional tax. His occupation isn't known though quite a few Dutch and Flemish iron workers came to England at this time. I have some in my own family, though they set up in the Sussex Weald, a known iron making area, rather than Buckinghamshire. 

The countryside

It is an open question as to how native the beech woods of South Buckinghamshire are. What we see today may be largely the result of human manipulation due to the needs of the later furniture trade. That's not to say that beech trees are not native to England, or that the woods around Marlow did not anciently contain beeches. It is thought however that the woods started out as a mix of beech and other native species, most of which were slowly removed by humans so that mixed woodland became beech dominant woodland.  Whatever woods there were would have been used as foraging spots for Marlow's free ranging domestic pigs by those residents who had pannage rights.

Work

Agricultural labouring would have occupied the majority of men, and women also worked on the land as a matter of routine. Marlow wills suggest that sheep were the predominant livestock kept in the town. Married couple Margaret and Reynold Shirwood who died within days of each other, probably from a contagious illness, in 1528 mention in their wills growing barley and wheat. They were clearly doing well as Margaret specified that her farm cart is a horse cart. Horses were expensive and the use of oxen was more usual. She also talked of the ploughs and harrows that she possessed in plural terms, so we know that she and Reynold could make use of at least two teams of workers at once when it came to ploughing and harrowing.

Farms known to have existed in the 1500s are: Blounts, Seymour Court Farm then just known as Seymours or Seymers and presumably part of the lost manor of Seymers, Hawkins Farm, and in Little Marlow Monkton Farm. Most of what we now consider Marlow would have been only farmland. Large swathes of land, were kept as common fields and divided into strips for individual holders. This system would continue for many years after the 1500s.

Field boundaries where they existed historically in England were mostly banks and ditches with a hedge of hawthorn atop the bank. Hawthorn known then as quickthorn or maythorn was chosen as it makes such a good animal barrier. Hedgerows were also strategically planted at intervals with those trees whose leaves provided extra fodder for livestock (cows love young lime leaves and other trees have foliage that can be dried and used for animals in the winter), or berries and hazelnuts for humans. 

Even those who had other trades frequently farmed some land as well. 

I published a reconstructed 1500s trade directory on the blog last year which can be read here. As you will see from that post I found multiple men in Marlow occupied as bargemen, butchers, carpenters, innkeepers (who were often brewers too or at least their wives were), shoemakers and weavers. We also found one off individuals who were bakers, blacksmiths, drapers, glove makers, millwrights, and wood merchants. Obviously we can recover traces of the occupations of only a fraction of Marlow people during this time. Commercial fisherman on the Thames at Marlow are known earlier and later so we can safely presume they existed in the 1500s. 

Servants in grand houses such as the manors were usually male with the exception of laundresses and dairy maids. Only less well off families employed female servants (who were cheaper but carried no distinction). The male and female employees of farming families were routinely referred to as servants despite spending much of or all of their day out working on the land rather than in tasks we would associate with "servants". The word servant also referred to trade apprentices and shop assistants.

Young boys were sent out to fulfill apprenticeships as far afield as London if the example of young Peter Russell of Marlow apprenticed in 1512 is anything to go by.

Religion

The All Saints of the 1500s (not the church we see today) seems to have had a chapel dedicated to Saint Mary and probably still had an altar sacred to Saint Anne as it had done back in 1495 when Radulph Carter wrote his will and mentioned it. When chantry chapels were shut down by Henry 8th the one at Marlow was worth £8 13 shillings and 4 pence. The chantry priest then was a Sir James Grai (Grey, Gray, one of the most common last names in 1500s Marlow, probably in fact the most common).

The church warden accounts of the late 1500s show that the church bells, the ringing apparatus and the clock (vital for the town as virtually no one had any timepiece at home) required constant expenditure. A visit by Elizabeth 1st to Bisham caused one of the bells to be hastily mended in order for her to be saluted. Well you didn't want to upset Queen Lizzie did you? The church bells in the late 1500s were routinely rung at the anniversary of her coronation and on St Hugh's Day. I know what you're thinking- Saint who? Hugh's not well known today but he was once Bishop of Lincoln and Lincoln was the mother church of Marlow. Wills of 1500s Marlovians often mention gifts to the mother church as well as to Marlow church itself. Hugh's feast day was in November. He was the patron saint of amongst other things sick children, and appropriately for Marlow, swans. His pet swan at Lincoln had guarded him while he slept and followed him everywhere he went. 

Above, medieval St Hugh. Public domain image.

In 1595 some players were paid by the church to "play" in the "church loft" the location of which isn't certainly known. Presumably these were performing a religious play for the townspeople. The payment was made in May, the traditional time for Mummers plays. As well as the Church Loft there was also an unplaced "church house" in Marlow. Church lofts are referenced elsewhere, including at West Wycombe, where it was a separate building (and still exists). The phrase could also refer to the musicians' gallery common to churches then and which was usually sited above the rood screen. Plays could be performed on such galleries.

The churchwardens had custody of a set of morris dancing costumes. They were willing to let other parishes borrow these. What morris dancing, rooted as it was in pagan pre-Christian rituals, was thought to have to do with the work of the church is anyone's guess. May Day or midsummer celebrations were the main times for Morris dancing in Tudor England. 

Talking of unusual articles kept in a church, in some earlier Tudor parishes a communal plough was stored there ready for anyone to borrow but there is no evidence of this occurring in Marlow church.

At Little Marlow stood a church dedicated to St John and a small, moated Benedictine priory dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The priory was home to five to six nuns at a time. Margaret Vernun, prioress at the time of the Dissolution, received a transfer to the famous abbey of Malling in Kent, which would have been a significant promotion- albeit a short lived one as that was also forced to close just a couple of years later. The priory site at Little Marlow was given briefly to Bisham Abbey then leased to Elizabeth Restwold and John Titley. Elizabeth was already leasing some of the Priory's other lands when the nuns first left.

Margaret Vernun's origin is unknown but she was clearly from a wealthy family, most prioresses were. Before being based at Little Marlow she had served at St Albans. Margaret was a friend of Thomas Cromwell, to whom she wrote many times. How they met is unknown but the friendship was genuine. She kept and educated his son Gregory at her priory, and it appears Thomas visited her socially at Little Marlow. She and her other nuns had also gone to dine with him and invited him to Little Marlow in return. Entertaining one of the King's senior ministers was perfectly acceptable for a cloistered woman. Nuns in this era don't generally seem to have been as closed off from the world of men as we might suppose, indeed it wasn't an option for any prioress or abbess to live that way. They were landlords and administrators of the finances of their institution, ladies of business. The priory held lands not only in Little Marlow, but at various times also at Great Marlow, Hambledon, High Wycombe, Penn, Taplow, Wendover, Colebrook, Weston Turville, Beaconsfield and Benfield in Berkshire. At one point Margaret borrowed money from Cromwell in order to buy some extra land for the priory which she knew she could quickly turn a profit on. 

The nuns of course had a live-in male chaplain for mass and confession. In 1835 Margaret paid him £5 6 shillings 8d a year. At least one priest engaged by Margaret for her nuns at Little Marlow brought with him his own pupil which he had previously been engaged to educate. It was the norm for parish priests to supplement their incomes by taking in pupils so it is likely that the priest at All Saints church in Marlow had his own little "school" too. No other known educational provision existed in 1500s Marlow.

The taking in of both male and female residential pupils was also very common for 1500s priories. Cromwell junior had left Margaret not long before the Dissolution but Margaret was hoping towards the end of the Priory's life to negotiate the arrival of new residential pupil, a little girl that she had heard of as staying in Bisham. Margaret hoped that if she came the girl would be a comfort to Margaret in her "old age". We know she had had multiple pupils at St Albans and pupils before Gregory Cromwell at Little Marlow too. Such children came from well off families and it is presumed those families paid well for the privilege. A male teacher was provided by his father for Gregory Cromwell at the Little Marlow Priory with Margaret supervising his work. Another little boy shared his lessons. The bringing in of outside teachers seems to have been the usual way of serving the pupils in priories.

As well as her income from pupils and land rentals Margaret raised money by selling wood. The priory owned 8 acres of woodland. Her priory was also entitled to offerings from a chapel at Colebrook, for unknown reasons.

Margaret's distress at the impending loss of her Little Marlow home was poured out in her letters. She pleaded with Cromwell to do what he could for her and her fellow nuns. He secured her the Malling post.When Malling too stood on the brink she again wrote asking to be allowed to sell one of the manors belonging to Malling to fund either a one off lump sum retirement payment or ongoing pensions for her nuns. There was only so much Cromwell could do. In the end the manor sell off was not allowed to take place but Margaret did manage to secure a £40 a year pension for herself.

The closure of Little Marlow happened over several months. First the king's men came to assess whether any nuns aged under 24 were present and if so to declare them no longer nuns. The state didn't want young people starting out in the cloistered life. Margaret had 3 such women and the day they were ordered out she lost most of her community. A few months later the priory was shut entirely and Margaret and her last remaining colleague left. Four servants and a priest lost their places along with the nuns.

Before the Dissolution Henry 8th happily allowed the persecution of the growing number of Protestants in the country who were challenging Catholic beliefs. Marlow did not escape these persecutions. At some point between 1518 and 1521 John Gardiner of Marlow reported his own sister Agnes, by marriage Agnes Ward, also of Marlow for blasphemous (as in Protestant) beliefs. He also pointed the finger at a slew of other Marlovians at the same time, including Reynold Shirwood we heard of earlier in this post. There were clearly other snitches and spies about- poor John "Simonnds" and his wife (probably the same woman as Mrs John "Simon" above) were on a separate occasion charged with having a book of the Gospels written in English. This was a great crime as it implied you were exploring your faith yourself rather than relying on the interpretation from Latin of your approved local priest. Another time John and Isabel Gardiner of Marlow -the same John?- had to be forced to swear to the fact that they had heard Thomas Rave (perhaps Reeve) of Marlow say that pilgrimages were worthless and chapels dedicated to the saints pointless. Rave was already in trouble having been ordered to go to the Bishop of Lincoln to do penance for an unknown religious offence. Whilst in Lincoln he disrupted mass and was clearly unrepentant. The Bishop got rid of him to finish his penance in High Wycombe, unsuccessfully. The fate of the other accused Marlovians is not known to me.

Both Margaret and Reynold Shirwood, and other 1500s residents asked to be buried in the churchyard of Marlow. Burial inside the church itself required deep pockets. The Shirwoods could have afforded it but some people thought expensive memorials an example of sinful pride so would not ask for them regardless. Outside graves were not typically permanently marked in this era. 

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

©Marlow Ancestors.

Selected Sources=

The Urban Experience: A Sourcebook : English, Scottish, and Welsh Towns, 1450-1700. Kiribati, Manchester University Press, 1983.

Copy of returns of vintners, innkeepers and alehousekeepers 1577 Bucks Archives ref=

D-X423/1 bucks archives

The Cottage Homes of England by Helen Allingham and Stewart D-ck 1909 published by Edward Arnold, London (population increase).

The Holinshed Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland Volume 1, compiled by Raphael Hollinshed for the Stationers Company, 1577, London.

History and Topography of Buckinghamshire by James Joseph Sheahan, published by Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1862.

Many wills including those of Thomas Bevington, Reynold Shirwood, Margaret Shirwood, David Shirwood, Robert Sands. All are at the National Archives.

The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe by John Foxe, revised edition published by Seeley's of London 1856.

Home Counties Magazine article by Miss E.M Walford  (quoting bridge land property records from 1617) https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Home_Counties_Magazine.html?id=_HIaAQAAIAAJ#v=onepage&q=Marlow%20%22high%20street%22&f=false 1899 published by F.E Robinson. Volume one.

Records of Buckinghamshire Volume 5 compiled by James Pickburn 1878 for Buckinghamshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, Aylesbury. Via Google Books. 

Peter Russell of Marlow apprenticeship https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C5522927

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_Lincoln

Account of the Nunnery of Little Marlow by Walter De Gray Birch, published in Records Of Buckinghamshire Volume 4, 1871. Via the Archaeology Data Service https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/details.xhtml?recordId=3254649&recordType=Journal

Reading and Writing during the Dissolution: Monks, Friars and Nuns  1530-58 by Mary C. Earlier. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Memorials of the Danvers Family (of Dauntsey and Culworth) by Francis Nottidge Macnamara published by Hardy and Page 1895, London. Via Google Books.

Historic England record for Little Marlow Priory https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archsearch/record?titleId=1036080

Lovelace vs unknown Six Clerks Office National Archives ref=

C 1/1306/53