*contains some distressing content*
Seymour Court Road existed as a trackway leading from the town up to Seymour Court House from at least the late 1700s but it was not until the 1890s that it was made into a proper road.
It then became the most practical way to reach the villages of Lane End and Stokenchurch, rather than the old way of first going up Munday Dean Lane and then along a tiny lane coming out at the top of Seymour Court Hill near Seymour Court. A tollgate lay near that house, about a mile from town and is discussed more fully here.
The old gradually inclining trackway was the site of the occasional foot race between individuals whilst once the new road was properly laid down its slope was an enjoyable challenge to tackle for Marlow's early cycling club. In 1904 when the Church Lads Brigade was having a fundraiser Mr Wethered of Seymour Court lent out his car for paid rides from the town up Seymour Court Road and back down the hill. At a time when virtually no one had ridden in one it is no surprise that it was the fundraiser's star attraction. Mr Wethered was one of the prime movers in getting a proper surface put down on Seymour Court Road.
Seymour Park Road was laid down in 1899, far earlier than you'd think. Large building plots 40ft wide and up to 180ft long were auctioned off there that year with the expectation that bungalows and villas would soon be erected there. The auctioneers stressed the elevated position of the new road and the wonderful country views new homeowners would enjoy from there. Of 35 plots offered only 12 were sold however. They fetched between £40 and £50 each. I can find no evidence of further efforts to sell the remaining plots, nor of the sold plots being actually developed which is an unexplained mystery.
I found one home there in 1930 and that's it before the Council homes were built there a little later.
I'll keep digging to see if I can find evidence of lost Victorian or Edwardian homes there! One thing to bear in mind is that the earliest name for Seymour Court Road (in the late 1800s) was New Road and this lead to Seymour Court Hill being called New Road Hill.
Above, Seymour Park, looking towards Seymour Court Road and Berwick Road.
The Seymour Court Road council houses date mostly from the 1930s with others arriving post war.
In 1939 resident James Perry became the first person in Marlow to be summoned for showing a light during the wartime blackout. He had one shining from number 83 at 10.30 in the evening. As everyone was still getting used to the rules James was not fined, only asked to cover the court costs.
Seymour Court Road was one of the first streets to suffer the loss of a resident in the war. Lance Corporal Alexander Butler of the Royal Tank Regiment aged 22, whose parents Fred and Mrs Butler lived at number 57, caught an illness which proved fatal to him while stationed in Egypt. Like many others he had spent part of his army training at the camp in Bovingdon Green before being sent abroad. He was interred in the cemetery on 10th August 1939 after a service at Holy Trinity church, the nearest C of E place of worship for Seymour Court / Seymour Park Road residents.
Six years later an American Corporal faced a court martial for the murder of Seymour Court Road 17 year old Beatrice Smith AKA Betty. Poor Betty was at the pub with her sister Vera when the girls got talking to two American soldiers. Drinks were bought and games of darts played together. At the end of the evening Betty, who was heavily pregnant by an individual her family did not know but was not an American soldier, was walked home by 23 year old Corporal Leonard Dale Robertson of Missouri. Some time later a resident of the quite new houses up at Sunnybank just off Seymour Court Road was awoken by groaning sounds as if someone somewhere was unwell. Corporal Robertson knocked on his door and said a woman was ill and could he have a glass of water for her. On inspection however, Betty was dead. It was suspected she had suffocated after being strangled.
A court martial was held by the Americans in the Chapel of Wycombe Abbey. The trial had several bizarre aspects, including the use of truth drugs on the defendant. He insisted that he had never placed hands on her throat but had been blowing air into her mouth because he thought that would be pleasurable to her (!), and that she had freely agreed to engage in intimacies with him. The army medic who gave evidence said Betty had died of an "air embolism". This could not be caused by strangulation but could have been caused by him forcibly blowing air into her. There were no signs of a struggle or violence on her body.
He was acquitted. Reports as to the case leave many unanswered questions, including whether Corporal Robertson had continued to blow air into Betty's mouth after she showed signs of respiratory distress, or whether she had truly consented to his actions. From what I can gather air embolisms do not kill easily. Charges of negligently causing her death don't even seem to have been considered against him.
The recreation ground was in place off Seymour Court and Seymour Park Roads by 1939. In the Summer of that year swings and a see saw were provided for the children. In the early 1900s the grass area between Berwick Road and Seymour Court Road, which was later used for council houses, was used as an unofficial play area for children who lived in Berwick Road.
As to shopping residents had one shop at the top of Seymour Court Road on the way out of town and others in easy walking distance in Queens Road and Dean Street.
Related Posts=
Early Residents of Berwick Road here
Trouble at the Toll House (the Seymour Court Toll Gate) here
To find other posts about specific streets etc see here
Sources included:
Reading Mercury 30th September 1899 and 21st October 1939. Gloucester Citizen 11th October 1945.
Personal interviews.
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