The Fountains of Dukes Place / Burroughs Grove

 The Fountain family lived in Dukes Place Great Marlow from (at least) 1908 to (at least) 1913. Peter Fountain was born 1868 in Wendover Bucks to Emmanuel, a gamekeeper for Alfred De Rothschild Esq, and Charlotte. Mary Ann his wife was née Clarke and married him in 1895. 

Peter appears on the 1881 census as a 12 year old plough boy. The following year his family suffered the loss of his baby brother Henry. The 16 month old died from convulsions brought on by severe whooping cough.

By 1891 Peter lived at "Dirty Bottom" Marlow Bottom and was an agricultural labourer lodging with a 62 year old widower James Clarke who was presumably a relative of his future wife. In the years prior to his marriage however he was working as a gamekeeper for Lord Carrington. As such he appeared in several court cases as a witness for the prosecution when poachers were bought to justice. That didn't seem to stop Peter taking an interest in poaching himself - he was fined in 1901 for stealing a nest of pheasant eggs from another man's land. At the time this was classed as poaching because pheasants were game birds. This didn't seem to stop Peter being employed in later years as a gamekeeper.

Mary Ann was born around 1869 just outside Marlow at Burroughs Grove. I saw an online tree that gave her parents as William and Mary however on the 1881 and 1891 censuses she was living at Burroughs Grove as the daughter of David and Mary Clarke. David was a farm labourer. 

In 1908 Peter was fined for being drunk in Little Marlow. This was (at least) his second conviction for public drunkenness. (Fine 10s including costs.) By then the family had moved from Burroughs Grove to Dukes Place. Greater trouble came to the family through Mary Ann a few years later. In July 1912 she was fined £1 for stealing a pair of scissors and a hairbrush from Mrs Debbin at Prospect House. Mary Ann was not a very careful thief as after the act she went for a drink at the Horns public house just down the street from Prospect House. Multiple people in the tap room saw the stolen scissors on the floor at Mary Ann's feet and the hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. In December that year she and James Clarke (perhaps her brother) were found guilty of stealing a ferret from the garden of her Dukes Place neighbour Archibald Grainger. Again careful planning was not foremost in Mary Ann's mind. The theft occurred while another neighbour Mrs Ann Tilbury from no 2* Dukes Place was visiting Mary Ann and was thus a witness to her and James disappearing into the garden and coming back with the ferret. When suspicion began to be thrown at Mary Ann and James, Mary Ann told Mrs Tilbury not to admit to having seen them with the ferret, while James tried to get rid of the incriminating animal by offering it for free to a fellow drinker in the bar of the Railway Hotel. The original intent was to sell it. James tried to say he had found the ferret in the garden of the Carpenter's Arms around the corner from Dukes Place but the court dismissed this explanation.

In May 1913 Mary Ann was jailed for two months hard labour for stealing the hand bag of another woman on the train between Cookham and Maidenhead. Her accomplice was another Marlow woman Gladys Edwards. Inside the bag was 2 sovereigns which the women split between themselves and a gold watch and chain. Gladys kept the gold items. She sold the chain to High Street jeweller Frederick Rowe. The bag was thrown down a drain to hide the evidence. When arrested Mary Ann claimed that the bag was found by Gladys on the Maidenhead platform and having asked anyone around if it was their bag, decided to keep it when it was otherwise unclaimed.

Context for this is provided by a newspaper report that later the same year Peter was brought to court for abandoning his wife and family and thus rendering them as paupers dependent on the Parish. Poor Mary Ann may have been desperate when she stole the ferret. Her youngest child Annie was then only two years old. How much of her previous stealing had been acts of desperation caused by an uncommitted breadwinner? Peter said he left his home because it was used for "improper purposes". The Bench said there was no doubt his house was "badly conducted" but that was no excuse to leave. He was sent to prison for a month. 

Four years later Peter, during WW1, was arrested in Marlow as a deserter from the army. More humiliation for Mary Ann. 

Mary Ann knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of theft. When she was six her sixteen year old neighbour Sarah Green and Green's father John were jailed for breaking into the Clarke's home via a window and stealing from a box some shoes, 2 pairs stockings, a bonnet and 2 petticoats. The loot was discovered by a constable under the Green family's kitchen floorboards. Mary Ann was out with her mother at the time. Her brother William discovered the theft.

Above, Dukes Place in 2022 including the row known as Sunlight Villas/Cottages. 

*numbering in Duke's Place seems to have altered since.

Related Posts:

All mentions of a person on this blog can be found on the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu - 4,000 plus individuals are mentioned here. 

A short biography of another, earlier Dukes Place resident Elizabeth Keen is here.

Everyday life in old Marlow post index here

Index of posts relating to specific streets, properties etc here 

Other Borroughs Grove related posts here

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

Sourced included:

Census transcriptions from microfilm. my own.

South Bucks Standard editions 18th July 1912, 11th December 1913. British Library Archives.

Bucks Herald 16th October 1875. As above.

Early History Of Dedmere Road and Field House / Field House Farm

Dedmere Road, Marlow existed as a rough way through the countryside  as "Dedmere Highway" [Deedmere, Dedmore, Dudmere, Dadsmere....] in the 1600s (access to Common Fields) but its residential development was mainly from the early 1890s onwards. One earlier exception was Dedmere House also known as Field House which existed as the home of James and Sarah Webb and their children by 1871. It was a small distance off of Dedmere Road.  They had moved there from West Street. 

James was a farmer of 20 acres on the 1881 census, employing one man. Two years previously a tame goose and some ducks were stolen from them.

In 1886 the Webb's son in law Charles Fisher a butcher of Harrow was charged with coming to the Webb's house and trying to shoot their guest Mrs Sarah Holm in an effort to force her to produce his wife Mary (known as Polly) who was there with her parents. Sarah had never seen Charles before in her life and seems only to have been confronted by him because she was in the house and opened her window upon hearing banging at the front door in the hope this heralded the arrival of a telegram she was expecting. She seems to have been out of the loop in regards a delicate family situation involving the Webb's and Fishers. The rest of the household, alarm raised by Mrs Webb, in recognising the door knocker had decided to studiously ignore Charles and not let him in to speak to Polly. He fired shots at both the front and rear of the premises. Charles ended up breaking down the door, assaulting a male house guest and asking another to fight with him out in the road. At his trial Polly was excused by the judge from "the pain" of testifying against her husband though she was called as a witness by the prosecution. It is a fallacy that women could not testify against their husband in court- look at court reports and you will see that they did so regularly, but judges and magistrates would be seen as ungentlemanly if they asked a wife to do so if other witnesses could do the job as well. As not everyone in the house had heard any shots and the accused had no reason to wish to harm Sarah Holm the case was dismissed with the option for the Webbs to decide to press charges for Charles breaking into their house or their guest to prosecute for being assaulted but it seems in neither case this happened. Polly was back living with her husband in Harrow at the time of the 1891 census, hopefully with some peace and happiness in her life and this embarrassing incident swept under the carpet. The case seems to have been poorly conducted with the bench ignoring the fact that Charles having a lack of personal animosity towards Sarah Holm was hardly the point on which the probability of his guilt of firing at her hung. She was shot at because she was being intimidated as a person, any person, in the same house as Polly with the aim that Polly would be forced to agree to see him. There is no question that Charles had a gun with him that night, though he initially lied to police about that fact. That poor Sarah Holm had had sufficient motivation to crawl, terrified, in her nightdress along the landing to get help was given no importance by the bench.

Note that Polly's sister Elizabeth was married to Charles's brother William.

The Webb's often seem to have had a house full of guests or lodgers. In 1874 one lodger, Harcout Hardy, who had made his money as a tea merchant in Shanghai, died at the Webb's home from the long term affects of less temperate drinking- several bottles of sherry a day plus whisky. He was only 37. The presence of a live in male medical attendant come servant was insufficient to stop his drinking. The inquest was held at the new Railway Hotel in Marlow. No mention is made in any report of where his wife Amy was living while Harcourt was trying to recover his sobriety in Marlow. The couple had a son Frederick together. Harcourt's will has as beneficiaries a James Hardy and John Gray Hill.

Of long standing farming stock the Webbs would have been quite at home in the then largely still rural vicinity of Dedmere Road. Yes there was the nearby railway station from 1873 with its busy goods yard, and later a chair factory and saw mill in Victoria Road near the junction with Dedmere Road but mostly there were fields all about them.

As was typical in Marlow housing development when it did pick up in Dedmere Road soon far outstripped the ability of the powers that be to keep up with adding the necessary infrastructure. There was no gas main in the road in 1901. A small extension was made that way in 1903 to allow a few street lamps to be provided but five years after that the whole road still did not have the privilege of a gas connection. Nor did all the houses have access even to their own cesspit. The road remained unsurfaced until 1909. The local unemployed were roped in to do the labour for that job.

Flooding from the river could be a problem. Mr P Nelson Smith lived at Field House in 1904 and fumed to the council that the land around his home and the lane leading up to it was under a water for a third of every year. The same year the property was put up for sale by its owner along with 27 acres of accompanying land, pasture and orchards. The advertising stressed the "convenient arrangements" of the "well built house" but naturally did not mention the somewhat aquatic nature of its gardens. 

Previous flooding of the farmland may have been a factor in the business failure of a Mr Hutton Stallworthy farmer of Field House Farm (and Spring Gardens Bourne End) in 1893. He had been at the farm since around 1891 and returned with his wife to Oxfordshire following his insolvency. From there they moved to Hampshire, to Northants and finally via possibly a few other places back to Waddesdon Bucks.

On the plus side all that nearby water helped firefighters quickly quench a fire that broke out on part of the farm in 1892. This part was being used by farmer Mrs Morris so must have been let or sublet separately from the main farm which was then in the hands of Hutton Stallworthy and his wife Emma (nee Dodwell).

On the time of the 1891 census Hutton and Emma had 19 year old Ernest Coltman with them. He is described as a visitor but he was in fact a paying pupil learning farming from Hutton at a cost of £90 a year. Hutton borrowed £100 from him to help buy a traction engine but couldn't keep up with payments and it was seized. Ernest found it difficult to stick with any particular trade, or to stay out of personal debt and  he burned through an inheritance he had received at a rapid rate leading to him too being declared insolvent in 1894. Numerous Marlow tobacco sellers were left with unpaid bills.

Hutton and Emma's son "Earnest" born at Field House Farm in 1893 may have been named after Ernest Coltman as he lived with them at the time.

WW1 touched every part of Marlow including Dedmere. The Reading Mercury on 25th September 1915 reported that Private A Ayres of the Border Regiment, late of Dedmere Road, had died of wounds received at Gallipoli. I have not been able to trace his military service otherwise.

From 1899 to the middle of WW1 Field House Farm was occupied by Keziah and George Barrett who operated it as a dairy farm. It had by then increased in size from the 20 acres James Webb had had to 30 acres. They had bought the farm from the executors of an Alfred Webb in 1899. On the 1911 census the Barretts had a 20 year old servant girl Florrie Yates living with them but perhaps either servant or mistress was unhappy as a few weeks after the census Keziah advertised for a new servant girl - wages up to £11 a year.

Keziah and George both died in 1916 and the farm stock was sold off. Coming in after them was the rather shady Edward Fenner Fennel, horse dealer and dairy farmer, who went bankrupt almost immediately. He had a string of aliases making straightening out his financial affairs a challenge. In 1919 he was given 6 months hard labour in Kent for forging a reference.

After the war there was increased development in the Dedmere area. Though still mainly residential in character the neighbourhood included the Greenwich Saw Mill in Victoria Road which had replaced the earlier chair factory come saw mill as mentioned above. Dedmere Road residents were amongst those who went to the Council in 1946 to complain about the amount of sawdust from it that blew their way. The council did not consider much could be done about it.

From (at least) the 1920s to at least the late 1950s Field House Farm was used by the Pinches family as a stud specializing at first in cart and van pulling horses then later in quality riding horses. It was also a riding school and I believe a livery stable too. It was sometimes then called Pinches Farm. Mrs Pinches who ran the riding school was Margaret nee Morris whose family were at Barmoor Farm in Marlow.

Researched and written by Charlotte Day.

Related Posts:

For more history posts about specific Marlow Streets or named houses see this menu. There is a lot for instance on the people of nearby address Glade Road.

Over 4,000 people are mentioned on this blog. Search for all mentions of anyone on the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. You will find plenty more Webb family mentions amongst many other people.

Everyday life in old Marlow post index: Here

Sources Included:

Reading Mercury 12th August 1911 and 17th July 1886. British Library Archives, accessed via the BNA.

The Timber Trade Journal and Saw Mill Advertiser Volume 77 published by De LA Rue.

"England and Wales, National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1957," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPJ3-3DBS : 30 August 2018), Harcourt William Hardy, 16 Oct 1874; citing Probate, England, United Kingdom, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, Great Britain.; FHL microfilm .

Census transcription by Charlotte Day except 1891 Harrow which was by Jane Pullinger.

GRO marriage registration index, GRO online.

Marlow Directory and Almanack 1907, Marlow Printing Company.

Kellys Directory 1915 by Kellys Directories Limited. 

Slough Eton and Windsor Observer July 17 1886 - Slough Library

Maidenhead Advertiser 29th July 1904. 

South Bucks Standard 30th June 1893 and July 13th 1894. These two editions British Library Archives, accessed via the BNA.

Bucks Free Press 10th November 1916, Bucks Free Press Archives.

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

History Of Duke Of Cambridge Pub and The Railway Hotel, Marlow

 

THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE, Queens Road. 

Updated by Charlotte November  2025

In 1862 William Plumridge was a publican somewhere in Marlow. In 1863 and 1864 William Plumridge was listed as a beer seller at Cambridge Place off Queens Road / Cambridge Road. He may be at the pub known to have been once located in what would later be the original cottage hospital in Cambridge Road. That building was built as a pub, probably by the Plumridge family. It's pub name is unknown to me. The early years of those premises are currently being researched and this research will hopefully bring more clarity. I believe William was not in the future hospital building at this time even if he had been earlier. Instead I believe that he was trading out of a converted cottage close by in Cambridge Place. Certainly in 1869 a Mrs Hewett was resident at the future hospital building and it was not a pub but an ordinary home then. William was also a builder, the son of another William who likewise worked as a builder and publican. This older William built The Wheatsheaf in Station Road and ran the White Hart in Chapel Street. 

1865 - William Plumridge listed at Duke of Cambridge, Marefield specifically. This is likely to be its current Queens Road premises as Marefield was a loose location covering this road and others. I have confirmed that William himself built the Duke as a beerhouse. It was subsequently fully licenced. Wife Emma. 

A cottage in Cambridge Place, which may have been the first Plumridge beer house in the area returned to domestic use, remained in the Plumridge family for some time. 

1869 - William Plumridge. Gets spirit licence. 

1871 - William Plumridge. Listed as bricklayer on the census. This would be closer to a builder in our modern understanding. An occupation followed by a vast number of Plumridge men!

1875 - thieves stole a pound of tea from William, selling it on for 14d and a pot of beer at the Travellers Friend. The 3 men convicted were sentenced to 3 months hard labour. 

1880 - William Plumridge handed over reins to his son William Henry Plumridge and passed away soon after. The pub was sold by the Plumridge family as a result (for £2000 to the Wethered family) but William the son immediately took back on the licence. He too was also a builder. His widowed mother Emma lived on until 1898, when she died in Queens Road after a long illness. Emma ran a little general store there for some time in her widowhood.

At the time of the pub sale the pub was described as consisting of a bar, taproom, large parlour, sitting room, 2 cellars, 4 bedrooms, 2 w.c, washhouse, with garden, stabling, outbuildings and conservatory. The "lucrative" trade was 7 barrels a week plus a steady custom for spirits. The "conservatory" was probably the hot house described in 1882 as a place where William was growing peaches which were stolen by a visiting drinker he had shown them off to.

1883 - William Henry Plumridge

1887 - A Jubilee public dinner was held in Queens Road so the pub and street was adorned with bunting, flags etc. For more see here .The following year William organised a Marefield area cricket team to play against the workers of Burrows shoe manufacturer of Cookham. It was played on a meadow adjoining the chalk pit off Oxford Road, and the Marefield team was victorious. Afterwards both sides sat down to a celebratory dinner at the Duke. 

1891 - William Henry Plumridge Still also builder/bricklayer)

1899 - Williams 50th birthday was celebrated at the Duke with a special smoking concert and copious toasts to the health and wealth of the host. 

1903  - William Henry Plumridge (also a bricklayer). Owner of a champion apple tree - see here

1920 - William Henry Plumridge

1932 - William Salisbury. He died this year. Previously at the Railway Hotel. His widow Alice briefly held the licence then it was transferred to John Thomas Edwards.

1932-39 - John Thomas Edwards

     The Railway hotel, Above 

THE RAILWAY HOTEL updated by Charlotte December 2025

(Later The Marlow Donkey), Station Road. 

1873 -Brewery got a spirit licence for these new premises in exchange for the Black Boy loosing theirs. Walter Porter.

1876 - Walter Porter 

1877 - Walter Porter

1880 - suffered minor damage in the 1880 election riot. The men were called off as Mrs Porter was now a widow. For more, see here. A biographical post about Walter and Sarah's son is on the blog here.

1881 - Mrs Sarah Ann Porter born Wisbech, Cambs.

1886 - Mrs Porter 2. William Harris of Maida Vale appears to have been a proposed new licensee and he was granted a holdover of the licence but his permanent takeover of the premises fell through. 

1899 - Mrs Sarah Ann Porter (See her grave on the blog here)

1903 - Charles Henry Porter (son of Sarah and Walter above). Also coal merchant. 

1904 - Walter Duplock managed Railway hotel livery stables 

1905 - Mr Porter

1911 - Charles Henry Porter

Adverts, 1905. 

1915 - William Sailsbury

1921 - William Salisbury (moved to the Duke of Cambridge)

1926 - 29 W Francis White "Electric light throughout". "The only hotel with modern sanitary arrangements" they say.  Sports meadow available to hire. Garages available for customer cars.

1934 - William F White is forced to retire due to ill health. He is due to move to Sheerness. Replaced by Harry Allin of Newbury. 

1939 - Frederick Wallace Jones 

1960 Tony (Anthony) and Margaret Hollingworth.

1961 - name changed to The Marlow Donkey. Tony and Margaret Hollingworth take over from Mr H Kemp who was moving elsewhere.

1963 - Tony and Margaret Hollingworth. Residential hotel.

Above  - front cover of the Marlow and District Motor Services Ltd first annual dinner as hosted at the Railway Hotel in March 1931. On the menu were both mince pies and plum pudding, a reminder that the habit of using these at celebratory meals at any time of the year had not quite disappeared at this time. From the collection of Michael Eagleton, with thanks. 

This photo ©Colin Groves 2021. The "off sales" entrance on corner facing Glade Road is now a window. 

©Marlow Ancestors.

To find all pub/hotel related posts see the pub related option on the top drop down menu. To see all mentions of your ancestor no matter how small, chose the A-Z person index. Here's a link to a list of historic Marlow watering holes: here 

SOURCES

Numerous historic newspaper reports relating to annual licencing sessions, and other events relating to the premises, in the South Bucks Standard, and Maidenhead Advertiser accessed via the BNA including: 

Reading Mercury 8th Sept 1866, 13 September 1873 as above

Bucks Herald 10th September 1864, as above

Census 1871,1881, 1891

Kelly's Post Office Directory 1864,1869,1877,1883,1895, 1903, 1911, 1915 

Dutton, Allen and Co Commercial Directory. 1863

Harrods Royal County Directory 1876

Marlow Guide 1903, 1907, 1915

Marlow Directory and Almanack 1881

Bucks Free Press 8th June 1934, High Wycombe Library