Foxes Piece Marlow History

Foxes Piece was originally a name given meadow off what is now Glade Road (but was a mere track then). This was on the opposite side of the road from the modern Foxes Piece flats and school. The meadow got the name from school proprietor George Faux (pronounced Fox) who with his wife Ann, a former servant of Princess Amelia, ran a private boys' school where Cedar House is now from 1757 until George died in 1797. The boys used the meadow as an extension of their playground and as a cricket pitch. A detailed post about this school with more about the Fauxes can be found on the blog: here.

Across the road from the school were two more fields called "Upper and Lower Foxes" comprising parcels of land known as Foxes Two Acres, Foxes Little Two Acres and Foxes Lower Acres, presumably also once used by Faux. Over the years all the fields became known collectively just as Foxes Piece. The Faux school meadow site was eventually built over but the name Foxes Piece lingered for the rest of the fields and for the area around them.

 

 Above, from the 1839 map drawn by William Francis for the Platts Farm estate sale which included land  within Marlow Fields such as Foxes Piece. The land is shown as plots 20-23 comprising lot VII here. Glade Rd can be seen running between plots 20 and 21. 

Part of the site amounting to 23 acres extending down to the side of Glade Road as well as Little Marlow Road was hired out as private (and not particularly cheap) allotments by the end of the Victorian area by landowner Sir William Clayton. Previously they had been let to farmers. The allotments were put up for sale in one lot in 1910. At the time land in the Glade Road area was highly desirable for property development. The buyer was John Langley, whose interesting biography Kathryn has written in a post under our Marlow Heroes series here. He did not immediately build on the site. Part of this land was later given by John to the town for the building of the Cottage Hospital.

In 1939 part of the Foxes Piece were bought by the Urban District Council under sanction of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry of Health at a cost of £1300 for use as community allotments. These are the modern allotments.

During the second world war many evacuee children came to Marlow. There was relatively little playing space for them or for the children who were already living in the town so the future school site at Foxes Piece was purchased for £800 by the council in 1940 as a recreation ground which became known as Foxes Piece Playing Fields. It totalled 8.5 acres.

After the evacuee families left Marlow the recreation ground remained in use for local people for a few years but in the 1950s Foxes Piece First School was built on part of the site between 1954-56. There were only three classrooms back then plus cloakrooms, a staffroom and scullery. It isn't clear whether any part of the playing fields were retained for public use or whether the whole of the playing fields were enclosed for the school use. I remember being told multiple times by Marlow people as a child in the 1980s /90s that a public right of way ran through the school playing fields and that you were allowed into the fields themselves at the weekend. I remember them seeing people walking dogs there and many people walking through the school grounds on a weekend as a shortcut. My dad took me through there himself. I am sure that that was not with the council blessing and certainly the site is not open access today! I presume that the lingering belief that the grounds were public land was a throwback to the days of the official playing fields there.

In 1966 it was decided that the critical shortage of infant school places in the town meant that new schools had to be built. Foxes Piece was picked as the site for a middle school to adjoin the first school. Following an over two year build the school welcomed its first pupils in 1969. It had a 320 child capacity. The two schools together combined were then known together as Foxes Piece Infants School with Mrs Nye as the new head. Later the schools were again  referred to separately as the First School and Middle School.

By 1969 the school buildings were used as polling stations in elections, something which gave the pupils some welcome days off!

Newly built next door were the local authority owned rental flats of Foxes Piece (the first families moved in 1964/1965). The flats were initially usually described as Foxes Piece Estate. Council houses in the Newfield Gardens area were also in their early days referred to under that name. 

Meanwhile the Foxes Piece allotments continued. They were mostly unfenced until 1974 when sadly the theft of produce and some vandalism forced their enclosure behind fence and padlock. They remain in cultivation today. More on the history of the various allotments in Marlow and those who used them here.

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

Sources:

1833 Parochial Assessment of Great Marlow,  surveyors working notebooks in my family possession and transcribed by me.

1839 map, copy in my family possession.

Personal Interviews.

Bucks Herald cuttings May 10th 1940 and 16th July 1910.

Bucks Examiner December 2nd 1955. British Library Archives via the BNA. Reading Evening Post February 11th 1966. As previous. Reading Mercury February 11th 1939. As previous.