We awoke to another fine day-it's unbelievably warm - 17 degrees today. It encouraged us to put away our scarves and get our T-shirts out again.
After an excellent breakfast, we set out, on foot, to find a rental car firm. We worked off our breakfast, and more, took local advice, and finally succumbed to buying a street map. We looked at the public transport options for visiting Aldbourne, (where my Gt-Gt-Grandfather Robert Coxhead was baptised) but there were no trains or buses that we could figure out, so we decided that a rental car was the way to go. Reading has almost no street names that we could find. We did find Budget Rent-a-car and the very helpful man sent us off happily in a very new Vauxhall Something.
We programmed 'Gertie' and set off to find Aldbourne. She sprang back into life with a map of Holland, but finally found she was in England and took us to Aldbourne. This is the town where Robert Coxhead (senior) was baptised in 1820. It is a lovely old village, with houses from 1600-1800, a village green and a most interesting church, where family members were baptised, married and buried over a number of years.
What a lovely village - it was very unspoiled apart from the traffic that passes through. I am so pleased that we found it. It is built around a village green. There are two village pumps. The people were friendly and happy to talk to us.
First of all we visited the beautiful old church. We didn't search the graveyard as others have already down that without success. Many of the gravestones are covered in moss, and impossible to read. (My great-great-grandfather was buried in NZ, so we would have needed to go back a fair way.) We met a lady in the church who took my email address and promised to keep me posted on any information that may come to light.
The church holds (for safe-keeping) a couple of horse-drawn fire engines from the early 1800s. They were bought after a number of fires in the village when up to 15 thatched cottages were destroyed inthe late 1700s and early 1800s.
The home that Robert Coxhead actually left, was a cottage in the small village of Snap (nearby). We asked some locals for directions. After lunch, we set off. This village was located about 2 miles west of Aldbourne. There was a walking track, so we parked the car and found we could walk to what was once 'Snap' by following a walking track through some fields. (Stinging nettles, blackberry, pheasants,electric fences, but no cattle beasts were encountered).The village had ceased to be used in the late 1800s and was now mostly fields. We decided to hunt for 'ruins'. We located what we are fairly confident, are the the old Coxhead house remains. We had an old map and were able to locate this windmill that is shown on the map. Only parts of a couple of walls remain. Doug found a piece of brick, for me, from the rubble.
On the way home, we visited Hungerford. This is the town where (Robert Coxhead's father) was born in 1787. It is a much bigger town, on a canal.
On returning to Reading and had decided to keep the rental car overnight (at no extra price), to save us taxi fares in the morning. We will take the train to Farnham, then the bus to Heathrow that runs each 10 minutes and takes 30 minutes. It sounds so easy compared to dragging our bags without handles onto the tube!
Note: This wasn't possible - there was however, an excellent bus service from Reading Station to Heathrow.
So we end our trip in nice warm weather, with the leaves now mostly on the ground. Ahead lies a 25 hour journey back to reality.
What a lovely time away we have had!
