Will of Grace Church of Medmenham 1776

Will both written and proven 1776.

Spinster.

Says she sick and weak of body but of sound and perfect mind, memory and understanding.

To "my young brother" Mark Church a ring in remembrance.

To niece Martha Gray my bed, bedding, linen, clothes, wearing apparel and anything belonging to them.

To James Moss of Walworth in the county of Surrey bricklayer all ready money, any stock in funds, securities and any other personal estate left after debts and funeral expenses paid. James is made executor of the will.

Grace signed with a mark.

Witnesses: Henry Allnutt of Great Marlow attorney and William Bitmead.

This will summary was created from Charlotte Day's transcription of the original P.C.C will held at the National Archives Kew.

Grace's father Thomas a farmer of Medmenham and her mother Mary died in rapid succession of each other in 1770. Mary's will is on the blog here.

We focus on Marlow but try to include some surrounding area content. Over 100 will summaries are available on this blog. See the Will Transcriptions Index. More Medmenham related posts are indexed here.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use my research for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog.

The Smiths and Gammons Of Duchess Place

Duchess Place in Marlow consisted of a shop on the corner of Victoria Road and Dedmere Road plus 9 cottages and (in 1896 a "studio") adjoining that could be accessed from both streets. The buildings exist still but Duchess Place is no longer a separate street address.

George Gammon was a carter for a flour mill. As such in 1905 he was fined for driving his cart after sunset without having a light. He grew up in Hambledon. Before coming to Marlow he had been a baker. His wife Sarah had a laundry business at home of which George was also involved in the management of. They lived in Duchess Place from 1897 until circa 1901 when they moved to nearby Station Rise. By 1907 George was again calling himself a baker and but must have still considered himself a partner in his wife's laundry business as in that year George accused his employee Elizabeth Smith of stealing a child's dress which he had put in a parcel and asked her to send to Shepherds Bush from the post office. This will have been clean laundry returned to a customer. Good laundresses were seen as gold dust and households were happy to send important laundry miles to have it carefully done.

Elizabeth sold or gifted, it was unclear, the dress to Amelia White to whom she also sold some lace and a petticoat. In the same court Elizabeth stood accused of stealing a pig's head from a High Street shop. She pleaded in her defence a sincere desire to act honorably but admitted that she could not stop herself taking things. 

This wasn't the first time that the Gammons had accused an employee of stealing from them. Two years previously Sarah's charge against Hetty Bitmead for allegedly taking an apron from them was dismissed from lack of evidence. They certainly were robbed of a shirt front and collar on another occasion at Duchess Place.

Elizabeth Smith was sentenced to a month's hard labour which is a pretty light sentence given that she had 4 previous convictions for theft. Elizabeth was 31 years old and had lived with her father William at number six Duchess Place for at least 16 years. Relations were clearly sometimes strained between the two as in 1899 William took out an ad in the South Bucks Standard warning shopkeepers and others that he would no longer honour any debts which she contracted. It was probably already just the two of them left at home. Elizabeth's mother Ann AKA Annie had died at Duchess Place in 1894 aged only 51 and her brothers had certainly left home by the time of the 1901 census.

It was four weeks after that their next door neighbour at number seven, Mrs Gammon, advertised for a good laundress to live in with them. I had wondered if that ad just might have what provoked the financially pressed Elizabeth Smith to begin her employment with the Gammons but no, Elizabeth was a needlewoman not a laundress and still living with her widowed father in 1901. William was then a rag beater at the paper mills down by river but earlier was described as an engineer at the mills . By 1911 he and his daughter had moved to South Place in Marlow. There was a 2 year old boy William in the household listed as William's grandson. There is a fair chance that this is an illegitimate child for Elizabeth though he could also be the son of one of her brothers, William or Augustus. William her brother served as a soldier.

Researched and written by Charlotte Day. 

To see what else we have on Duchess Place or surrounding addresses in old Marlow see this index.

To find all mentions of someone on this blog see the A-Z Person Index.

See:

South Bucks Standard 2nd June 1899 and 25th October 1907.

Census 1891 and 1901. 

G.R.O death registrations.

The Street Family of Hurley Flour Mill

Hurley Flour Mill stood by Hurley Lock, next to the River Thames, and adjoining the grounds of Gen Owen Williams at Temple.  Thomas Street (born 1844 in Wargrave Berkshire to William and Miriam Street) ran the business for some years but he started out in a quite different occupation- that of a pub landlord. He and his wife Marie* first took over the Ferry Boat Hotel AKA the Ferry Hotel in Medmenham from Marie's parents Henry and Marie Bitmead, before moving on to the Black Boy in Hurley village in 1871. There they remained until William gave up the lease in 1883. Some time in the next 4 years, perhaps immediately, Thomas took over the flour mills.

Wooden mill buildings were always a fire risk and the Hurley mill burnt down on 5th November 1887 when a stray rocket firework landed on the roof of the main building during local Guy Fawkes night celebrations. Some reports suggest it was the Street families own fireworks that caused the blaze. The mill as well as the stables was reduced to ashes and Hurley lock gates badly damaged but thanks to the effort of Charles Miller Foottit's fire brigade from Marlow, the Temple fire brigade and residents of Hurley and Temple nearby houses were not harmed and the mill horses were rescued from the stable. The mill itself was owned - and insured by - Sir William Clayton of Harleyford. But the Streets lost the entirety of their machinery and equipment, 1,500 sacks of flour and vast quantities of grain etc, the cost of which their own insurance did not quite cover. 

The mill reopened in August 1888 with all new fittings for Thomas Street and his employees. The "best modern machinery" was provided by Mr H Simon of Manchester. A party of millers from London and elsewhere toured the mill shortly after it re opened to admire this up to the minute plant.  They were treated to lunch at Hurley, complete with bread baked from flour produced by the new machinery. They declared this bread "excellent". 

Marie Street died 3 years later so it was Thomas alone who had the pleasure of seeing their second daughter Edith marry in Hurley Church 1892 Alfred Pledge of Abingdon.

The next year would not be so happy for the family- Thomas's 22 year old business partner George Cullingworth killed himself by tying one of the mill weights around his neck and jumping into the Thames. The inquest into George's death was held at the Street family home. While this may seem odd there were few public spaces for such events and they usually took place in the nearest pub or sufficiently large house to the place of death. Thomas and Marie's son Thomas Junior, who had spent George's final day alive with him, gave evidence at the inquest. He and his father searched everywhere for the young man when they realised he was missing. They knew him to be depressed and had their worse fears confirmed when they found his jacket abandoned on the riverbank. With the help of the Hurley lock keeper his body was recovered. George apparently could not free himself from the distress he felt at his father writing to tell him to wait a year before marrying the sweetheart he had met in Hurley. It was not the first time that a close associate of the family was pulled from the Thames- in 1881 Marie's elderly mother was found drowned in the river at Medmenham. It could not be determined how she came to be in the water but foul play was not considered.

In 1896 the Streets suffered another terrible shock when their house guest Thomas Smith dropped dead at Shaw's boatyard in Marlow while waiting for a boat he wanted to hire to be got out. The Street's daughter Gertrude (b 1875) had gone with him and a friend into Marlow and was present at the time of his death. Thomas Smith told Robert Shaw that he was not likely to live long. Just minutes later he collapsed and died. Gertrude gave evidence at the inquest.

Gertrude was a go getting young lady who rowed and canoed as a competitive amateur in local competitions (see a biography of one of her rowing mates here), helped her mother Marie exhort charity donations for the local hospitals from boaters trapped in Hurley Lock and sang in local church concerts. It wasn't just Hurley Lock that had the Victorian equivalent of chuggers by the way. Between themselves the local ladies had most of the local locks covered on Summer weekends and were either very charming or very intimidating as they were a great success at collecting donations. When they had organised a fundraising drive, for a boater to travel between say Henley and Maidenhead was to basically except that they would be rendered penniless by journey's end.

The Street family's mill was completely destroyed in another fire in 1903. This time it did not reopen. Hurley rallied around Thomas, organising a fund raising testimonial for him though there is no reason to think the family were left destitute. I believe they moved to Furze Platt.

*The couple married in Medmenham in 1867. Marie's mother was German, née Rahn. 

Written and researched by Charlotte Day. Additional research by Kathryn Day. 

Related Posts:

To find all mentions of an individual here use the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. 

For posts related to Marlow Mills, the River Thames and everyday life in old Great Marlow and nearby see the index here

Posts specific to Hurley,Temple and nearby: here

Land lord listings for Hurley, Medmenham etc licensed premises can be found here

Otters, lampreys, eels and other wildlife in the 18th&19thc Thames at Marlow & Hurley here

Robert Shaw, boatbuilder and fisherman here

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use my research with credit to this blog for family or local history purposes.

See:

"England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:J94G-LV5 : 19 March 2020), Thomas Street, 1844.

Henley Advertiser 25th March 1893. Reading Mercury 19th March 1881, Maidenhead Advertiser November 1887.  British Library Archives.

Hurley Parish Registers. Medmenham ditto.

Slough, Eton and Windsor Observer 1st September 1888, Slough Library. 

Medmenham Pub / Hotel Landlord Listings and History

 Updated April 2026

Every time we see a landlord listed in a court case, advert, will, property deed or the like we note name and premises. Lots of listings for other pubs that would have been in the Great Marlow wider parish have already been published here, and lots more are in production.

We focus on pre 1940 landlords. Dates next to names are when we have evidence of the person there. They may have been in occupation longer without us finding evidence for any named landlord thus far.

Ferry Boat / Ferry Hotel originally also sometimes called The Ferry House Inn / The Ferry and later the Abbey Hotel.

1829- Pub exists - "The Ferry Public House"

1839-48 John Johnson. Always gave a big dinner for his friends at the pub on Christmas Day. Also hosted an annual Eel Feast. In 1835 its thatched stable burnt down. John left 1848. He died 1849 aged 77. John ran the actual Ferry across the Thames too by 1831.

1859-63 Henry Bitmead and his German wife Marie. She drowned in the river in 1881, in what was suspected as suicide. She was then aged around 70 it was said. The inquest was held in her former pub. Henry was fined in 1861 for selling short measures (a very common offence, and not necessarily deliberate as publicans struggled to buy measures that could be proved to be correct).

1871 Thomas Street, who had married the Bitmeads's daughter Marie. Left that year to go to the Black Boy, Hurley. See here.

1871-72 Thomas Hudson Holbrook. He died very soon after he got the license.

1872-84 Henry John Todd.  "Ferry Hotel".

1885 "Ferry Hotel". Barmaid then was Annie Marie Bryant.

1891 Ferry Hotel - "A very popular popular riverside inn, presided over by Mr Fred Johnson who is well known to most up river men."(Marlow Directory and Guide to the Thames, 1891) It's noted the ruins of the Medmenham Abbey which now form part of the hotel are a distinctive feature.  (See below) 

Abbey Hotel (see above) 

1911 Fred. Johnson. 

Dog and Badger

Building believed to be 14th century. We are told that the main Marlow to Henley road next to the pub dates only to the days of the turnpikes in the 1700s. Various dates are suggested for the start of the premises being used as a pub, from the 1400s to the 1700s. Originally it was the Church House for Medmenham - banns for marriage still being formerly read out there apparently in the late 1800s! Nell Gwynne was rumoured to have enjoyed sitting by the fire there on her visits to Medmenham. A cannonball was found lodged in one of the walls during 20th century restoration work. Probably this was from the civil war. There was certainly fighting in the area at Hambledon and Fawley during that war.

1831-32 Johnathan Osborn.

1833 James Sawyer, wife Mary. 

1845 New brick facing put onto the pub.

1847 T Sawyer [Thomas]  

1858-63 James Sawyer as above. Fined 1861 for having a short pint measure.

1866 Mrs Sawyer.

1872 Mary Sawyer.

1873- an illegal lock-in was discovered at the pub. The sound of customers singing and a concertina being played were just something of a giveaway to a passing constable!

1877-82 Alfred Edmund Neighbour (See also the post here). In 1877 Alfred married Emma Sawyer, daughter of James above. (Alfred's first wife was Hannah nee Hoare)  Alfred was previously at the Red Lion, Marlow. In 1881 he described 15 year old son Charles as his ostler and 13 year old daughter Hannah as his barmaid! (Emma Sawyer had been described as a bar maid at around the same age by father James above in 1851.) Other son Edward, a scholar, age 10 would in the future run Neighbours licenced grocery and general stores in Quoting Square with wife Catherine nee White. Alfred Edmund Neighbour was the son of Victorian head gardener John Neighbour of Potland's and Remnantz. To read more about John see here

1882-85 William Grant.

1885-1901 Frederick Wright. In 1895 the pub was bought by Wethered's Brewery of Marlow. Wright was of course the tenant not owner.

1907 Henry ? Wright. 2. Frederick Wright 3. Frank Richard Searle. This rapid turnover of landlords suggests some difficulties at the pub.

1911- William Alfred Jarvis.

1917 - Licence transferred from Reuben Peacock to F.W Denison.

1933 -1940 (at least) John Nye.

C1959-1983 Sonny Kirby assisted by his two daughters. He retired to Dorset in 1983.

For similar posts about pubs in Great Marlow, Little Marlow and Hurley see Pub Related on the menu here.

List of 100+ Great Marlow beershops, alehouses, pubs, inns etc see here

For more Medmenham related posts see this index

 All mentions of someone on this blog can be found in the A-Z Person Index which can be found on the top drop down menu. Thousands of people get a mention.

Researched by Charlotte and Kathryn Day.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this research for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog.