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In 1974, Margie Crawfurd and Georgina Harvey held an art exhibition at Thursley Village Hall as charity benefit. It was so popular that they continued to hold it annually for up to two weeks at a time until 1984. The exhibition consisted of work by artists and craftsmen from all over England, the large majority of whom were professionals. Over the years they managed to attract many leading figures in the arts and crafts, and as a consequence visitors to the exhibition came from far afield. We asked Georgina Harvey for her recollections and in February 2025 she wrote: The Thursley Exhibition began in 1975 as a fund raiser for the Thursley Conservative Association.   The idea was to get anyone in the village who had ever made, knitted, spun, sewn, weaved, carved, forged, thrown, blown, drawn, painted or whatever to show off their goods and skills.   The designated team consisted of artist Ros Kentish, Margie Crawfurd, Marion O’Brien & myself with Robert Tann being in charge of all things financial.  The Village Hall would be rented for 10 days at the end of September and a raffle and wine bar would cover expenses.    All committee members donated prizes and also helped man the hall during opening times.    The exhibition was open to anyone willing to pay the 10p entrance fee on Thursday & Friday evening and all day on the Saturday.   Sunday was the day to collect belongings or purchases and clean up the Hall. The exhibition seemed to grow exponentially and by the fourth year the political association was becoming a problem for some of the Artist and Craftsmen who were no longer locals.   For the next six years we had a keen viewing & spending public and exhibitors, some of which were more used to showing in London Galleries, still eager to show their work in our rural countryside.   The numbers and values increased and The Thursley Village Hall became a veritable hub of excellence in the regional autumn arts calendar.   Our Competition Judges were distinguished members of the Arts Scene and gave us credentials beyond our expectations.    It was time for a change.     For ten years The Thursley Exhibition had been able to have exclusive use of the Village Hall (which by 1984 had increased from 5 to 45 days).   A Nursery School wanted a home and 41 years later there is still one there. Artists showing their art over the years included: Nicholas Dimbleby - sculptor Mary Fedden - painter Paul Gunn - painter Ken Howard - oils John Makepiece - furniture Susan May - Jeweller Lorne McKean - bronze sculptures Bernard Myers - printmaker Charles Normandale - iron gate William Pye - a sculptor known particularly for his water sculptures Guy Taplin - driftwood birds Carel Weight - oils Mary Wondrausch - pottery Along with: Thursley's very own residents Salli Tomlinson (artist) and Peter Hanauer (handblown glass) An example of Salli's work: a musical artwork that opens up and reveals boxes within which also open and play music: painted on boards and approximately 1M x 1M Examples of Pete Hanauer's glass blowing which are exhibited in the V & A Museum Robert Tann, Margie Crawfurd, Alice Harvey and Georgie Harvey Introductory page and frontispiece for the 1984 exhibition, the last to be held 1983 Unknown publication 1982 The Field Magazine, 1982 1981 1980 The Herald, Friday, October 3rd, 1980 1979

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The house dates back to the 16th Century and was extensively remodelled in the Arts and Crafts style in 1897 and extended in 1909 by Sir Edwin Lutyens. It is a Grade II listed building (3rd May 1973) This article covers the involvement in the house and garden by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll: "Warren Lodge" Estate for sale in 1920 This pdf contains sale particulars and contracts for the sale of Warren Mere and Silk Mill Cottage over the last 100 years: Newspaper article about the sale of the house in 2015/16 Country Life's headline to the article below Country Life article dated April 16, 2019: https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/one-lutyens-first-country-houses-mere-two-miles-away-family-home-194948 Sales brochure, undated, for Warren Mere: Warren Mere has been a wedding venue: https://www.whiterabbit-events.co.uk/exclusive-wedding-venues/warren-mere/ The property is currently (March 2024) available to rent from Savills: https://search.savills.com/property-detail/gbfarefal220025l

This article written by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Thursley Parish Magazine, August 2024 If you haven’t yet checked out the Wedding Belles exhibition on our website, it’s really worth a look. It was put on over the course of a weekend in 2007 and was a collection of photographs and stories of couples married in our beautiful church of St Michaels and All Angels. If you or anyone you know has been married in the church since 2007, and would like to have a photograph included, please send all the information to: davidjohnyoung51@hotmail.com Of course, there were and are lots of people living in the village who did not get married here and this story is one such example. It is the romantic wedding story of a young couple, Captain Alastair Banks MC RHA and Corporal Ann Crichton WAAF, during World War 2, who then at some time in the future moved to Thursley (Springs in Pitch Place to be exact) and lived out the remainder of their lives here. Both were born in 1920 and Ann died in 1998 and Alastair in 2002. Both were very involved in village life for many, many years and are buried in Thursley churchyard. Their story was given to Sally Scheffers, by them, to be included in the first VE/VJ Day exhibition in 1995, celebrating 50 years. Prudent timing as we have just celebrated the 80th anniversary, plus also, their wedding took place in this month, the 12th August 1944. “By 1944 standards it was no ordinary wedding. The Second World War had been raging for five years. Two months earlier, the Allies had finally opened the Second Front with the invasion of France on D-Day. The 23-year-old Captain Alistair Banks, who had been attached to a Royal Marine Commando unit, had gone ashore at Ouistreham on June 6th – to be welcomed by a German shell. He left France fairly sharpish, with fragments of metal in his legs and head. He was sent to convalesce at Somerley Park, a large house near Ringwood, Hants. By August he was up and about but still on crutches. Meanwhile, Corporal Ann Crichton WAAF, his fiancée of six months – also 23 – was stationed at RAF Rudloe Manor near Box, where she worked in an underground bunker as a plotter. When she heard that Alastair had been wounded, she went AWOL (absent without leave) – but that’s another story. During July, she and her great friend Flight Sergeant Eleanor Higgins hitch-hiked several times to Ringwood to see the wounded soldier. During these visits it became clear that Alastair was going to be sent back to his unit in France within a month, so they decided to get married as soon as possible. Easier said than done in wartime. There were shortages of all kinds. Food was seriously rationed – one egg a month, one ounce of butter a week; clothing could only be obtained with coupons which were hard to come by; and film (for wedding photos) was rare as hens’ teeth. Those weren’t the only problems facing the young couple. There were fatherly objections to the match from both sides. Dr Banks said the marriage would impede Alastair’s regular army career. Officers were not expected to marry before they were thirty – and, if they did, the army wouldn’t give them a marriage allowance. Dr Crichton thought that Alastair’s head wound was likely to send him potty. However, in the spirit of the times, the forced on regardless. The formidable Granny Banks, then living at Burstall near Ipswich, moved into action. She decided that Bath Abbey possessed the requisite social cachet for her grandson to get married there. She had lived in Bath during the First World War; her sons Ian and Ronald had been born and christened there. She began to telephone the relevant people in Bath – the Archdeacon, for example, and the manager of the Pump Rooms where the reception was to be held. Meanwhile, just as it looked as though Granny Banks was going to hijack the whole affair, Ann ran into her cousin “Rockhouse” Jim and his wife Patricia, who had been living in Bath since they were married a couple of years previously. When the capable Patricia heard that Ann was getting married, she immediately offered to help. For a start, she lent Ann her wedding dress. It had to be taken in a few inches but where else does an impecunious WAAF corporal get a wedding dress in wartime Bath? There was no time for banns to be called, and the couple had no money for a special licence. So, some jiggery-pokery was called for. The only legal way of achieving the desired result was for Ann and Alastair to go through a Registry Office in Chippenham. In those days, Registry Offices were not like today’s more elegant premises. The Chippenham one was dingy and there appeared to be boxes of kippers stacked in one corner. The witnesses were Eleanor and one of Alastair’s Royal Marine comrades. Owing to the emotional nature of the occasion, Alastair and the Marine had fortified the inner man and as a result were running fractionally behind schedule. Ann had her rollers in under her WAAF hat. The mists of history have closed over some of the ensuing events. Suffice to say that A) they were duly – and officially – married, B) there was an altercation over a highly polished Sam Browne belt, and C) a brand-new wedding ring found its way – temporarily – into a gutter in Chippenham. The sun, as Alastair is forever reminding his children, always rises again tomorrow, as it did on this occasion. Chippenham was forgotten, and Bath Abbey awaited. There hadn’t been any time for proper invitations. It was almost impossible to get time off. And, even if you could get leave, it was almost impossible to travel. So, the guest list comprised only very close family, Ann’s WAAF friends, and Alastair’s Royal Marine colleagues who by coincidence were quartered next door to the WAAF camp at Box (the fence between the two camps had a substantial number of person-sized holes in it!). It was the time of Doodlebug raids on London. Some braved the horrors of wartime travel to get to the wedding. Ann’s sister Liz, nobly travelled on a train from Scotland, standing all the way. She couldn’t even stay for the reception as she had to get back to her WAAF unit the same day. Ann’s friend Diana Miller came up from Devon to be Matron of Honour. Alastair’s Best Man was going to be his battery commander (also recovering from wounds received in Normandy) but, almost at the last moment, brother Peter arrived literally out of the blue, having flown over in a Mustang fighter from his forward airfield in Normandy. So, he became Best Man. Peter had arrived in the flying gear he stood up in, so an urgent request went out to the Royal Marines for a pair of boots. The boots – size 13 – duly squeaked fiendishly all the way down the aisle. Granny Banks meanwhile had whisked Peter into Moss Bros or the equivalent and hired a service uniform for the occasion. The wedding in the Abbey, conducted by the Archdeacon himself, was stupendous. On one side were the light blue uniforms of the bride’s WAAF friends, and on the other side were the dark blue uniforms of the bridegroom’s Royal Marines. For the reception, the resourceful Patricia scrounged food supplies from friends, and her husband and Grandpa Banks organised booze from nowhere. Granny Banks talked the local newspaper into sending a photographer to take one or two pictures, and Ann’s WAAF friends contributed one clothing coupon each towards her rather fetching French blue going-away outfit. After the reception in the famous Pump Rooms, Peter beetled off to fetch his Mustang and returned to circle the Abbey at an alarmingly low level, doing a victory roll and weaving round its towers – much to the dismay of Granny Banks and others. He later explained that there were no markings on his plane so he knew he could get away with it. The happy couple caught the train to Cornwall for the honeymoon, standing wedged in the corridor all the way to Plymouth. Alastair had a fortnight’s leave but Ann had only one week. The second week was punctuated by telegrams from the RAF, ordering Corporal Crichton to return to duty immediately. Ann – or Corporal Banks, as she now was – gaily tore them up, knowing that her unit was no longer playing a vital role in the war effort. On return to duty, however, she was put on a charge for going AWOL (again!) but got away with it by weeping copiously when up before the Wing Commander. Her punishment? – the word “Admonished” stamped in her paybook. Almost immediately after the honeymoon, Alastair was posted to 6th RHA in Norfolk, and finally after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing rejoined his own regiment, 4th RHA. Ann and Alastair didn’t meet again until after the German surrender in May 1945 when she was reunited with him in Germany where he was stationed. For 50 years, they shared their lives, the majority of it in Thursley”.

On major occasions, Thursley History Society sometimes produces exhibitions which are invariably displayed in the village hall. The photographs below are of the display boards for an exhibition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War 1, July 28, 1914 to November 11, 1918. Beneath these is a list of Thursley villagers who went to war and photographs of headstones of some of the fallen provided by The National Archive. See also 'Thursley Remembers'. These three posters, produced for the exhibition, are A3 size so there are pdfs below should better clarity be required: The following articles were written by the then Incumbent, the Reverend Charles K Watson, for the September and October 1914 issues of the Thursley Parish Magazines.

The garage was situated on the old A3 opposite the The Red Lion. It was owned for many years by Reg Cottle who recorded many of the tragic accidents that not only occurred along the A3, especially alongside the Devil's Punch Bowl, but also literally impacted his garage and the pub opposite as can be seen from the articles and photographs below. NB: All of these documents and also the ones referred to in Reg Cottle and the Red Lion Garage are in the physical archive in a box marked "Red Lion Papers". And here are two of Reg Cottle's photographs of the vehicle above being recovered: On the rear of the second photograph, Kay Gunner has written, "Before they built a bank round the Punch Bowl bend, cars used to go over and down into the bowl. The breakdown is parked on the footpath and the rear view is of Don Keen". 1950s. Reg kept an album recording many of the tragic accidents and the wrecks that he recovered over the years. Here are some examples and the entire album is in the pdf below: The press reported on these tragic accidents as can be viewed in the pdfs below: Unfortunately, many of the cuttings do not include either the source or date but the pdf below featuring the death of a husband and wife was from the Farnham Herald, May 5th, 1967: And this was from the Surrey Daily Advertiser, September 6th, 1974 Reg liked all sorts of mechanical tool, instruments and engines and this extended to short wave radio which helped to catch a thief!: April 27, 1954 More details are in the attached pdf:

Tuesday 1st October 2019 On their first visit to the UK, The American Lutyens Trust selected Thursley, where Lutyens grew up, to start their tour and view his early architectural work. Many were architects in their own right and were enchanted by both the village and its hospitality. Coffee was served in Sallie Roles barn followed by a walk through the village, accompanied by Martin Lutyens, past Prospect Cottage (The Institute) , Street House (where Lutyens grew up), through the gardens of Corner House (his first architectural commission) and up to the Church and Luytens's connections in the graveyard. This was followed by a delightful lunch in the pub, much enjoyed by everyone. One of the party had a small piece of glass and a sharpened piece of soap, the tools used by Lutyens in his teenage years wandering around the local countryside, who demonstrated how Lutyens copied the local architecture to provide him in later years with a source of architectural details. Christmas card sent to Mr and Mrs Anthony Langdale in 2024

Reg Cottle was the proprietor of the Red Lion Garage on the Old Portsmouth Road from 1934 until his retirement in 1980. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was called up by the Royal Tank Corps. However, the farmers of Thursley made such a clamour at the loss of the one man who could keep their farm machinery running that the authorities hastily released him. The documents below show the trajectory of his work and challenges running the Red Lion Garage and end with tributes from his family. NB: All of these documents and also the ones referred to in The Red Lion Garage, Reg Cottle and many road traffic accidents are in the physical archive in a box marked "Red Lion Papers". Reg covered a radius of about 20 miles and worked very long hours, mostly 7 days a week. It was often difficult to obtain spare parts for the farm tractors, machinery and generators, but Reg was such a resourceful man that he would often make them himself. His garage petrol pumps were commandeered for military use, so Reg had to drive to Godalming for his petrol. Many tanks churned up the forecourt of the Red Lion Garage and each one had to be refuelled by manually turning the pump handle. Not the most popular job in those days! More photographs: Licence to keep Petroleum Spirit, 1934 Compulsory Purchase 1938: Licence to keep Petroleum, 1939 Rating Notice, 1947: Signage - Reg faced a number of planning issues over the years: Reg Cottle recovered many damaged cars from the A3 and the Devil's Punch Bowl but his garage was not immune from accidents: Rent increase, 1958 Site Plan 1958: Reg Cottle acquires the Red Lion Garage in 1959: Compulsory Purchase Orders and Opinions 1969 - 1972; there are 28 pages of documents in the pdf below: Undated Red Lion site plan: Correspondence relating to signage for the garage between The Right Honourable Maurice Macmillan, MP, and The Right Honourable Anthony Crosland, Secretary of State for the Environment. The letter below to Reg Cottle shows the disappointing result: Closure and sale of the business; Reg Cottle retires: Reg Cottle, a tribute by Maureen Waters (daughter), Chalie Waters (granddaughter), John Gunner (son-in-law) and Jamie Banks (friend A eulogy (unattributed) for Elsie Cottle: Growing up in Thursley by Maureen Elsie Cottle: The scans above can be found together in this pdf:

Published by The History of Thursley Society in October 2008 and written by Edmund Haviland and many others, see contents list below. Read here...

January 1960 November 1967 April 1981

In 1981, as part of the pipeline Esso built to carry products from Fawley to Purfleet via Gatwick airport, a trench was dug across Thursley Common. The article below describes the project. From Esso Magazine Number 188 Summer 1981

These walks were created in 2008 and may not now be accurate!