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The cottage was situated by the stream in Rocky Lane. All that is known is that a William Enticknap was born there in 1880 and his father had a donkey and cart. In 1952 William Enticknap was known to be living in Witley. The cottage was known to be occupied until 1905. This article, written by Jackie Rickenberg, was published in the Parish Magazine in January 2024 Stream Cottage Happy New Year to one and all! 2024 is an exciting and busy time for the Thursley History Society. We are currently in the early stages of organising an event to launch and showcase our new website. It will be relevant to, and hopefully of interest to, every single person that lives in our village and surrounding parish. It will be crammed with photographs and documents relating to the buildings, the people of Thursley and their lives.   In the meantime, if we cast our minds back to the December article, I asked about the location of a photograph featuring two Edwardian ladies standing on a path. Thank you to Sean Edwards, for not only did he recognise the photo, he had re-enacted it with his late wife Salosh and mother, Monica Edwards, exactly one hundred years after the original. The original was from 1897 and Sean’s reconstruction was from 1997. And the location was what we now refer to as The Valley of the Rocks, but in those days was known as Rocky Lane, at the top of Highfield Lane, just before entering The Punchbowl.   Notes, found in the archives but not signed, say:   “Rocky Lane, the BOAT (Byway Open to All Traffic), at the top right-hand side of Highfield Lane, was once an important track, as part of the route from Churt to Witley Station. Now, it is a lovely leafy path (written before off roaders obviously!) down to the stream at the bottom. However, if you look carefully, you may see the outline of a dwelling in the nettles. On the eastern side of the stream there was a cottage, aptly called Stream Cottage, which was inhabited up until about 1905. The Enticknap family lived there, one of the last members to be born in Stream Cottage was William in 1880. He became a bricklayer and lived in Witley. As a child, William remembered riding in his father’s cart pulled by the donkey which also lived at the cottage. William’s mother would go to Hindhead to see her uncle and aunt who kept The Royal Huts (a hostelry), known locally as Hut Inn, and William recalled seeing the local doctor driving his dog cart past on his rounds from Haslemere. Even though Stream Cottage has long gone, we are fortunate to have pictures of the Enticknap home. The first is a very old photograph of Robbie Morgan’s, of two young Edwardian ladies by the stream with a building in the background. However, a watercolour painting (see below) of Stream Cottage by Josiah T Wilson hangs in the Victoria and Albert Museum. On inspection, it seems that the artist has abused his artistic licence somewhat, as the stream seems be on the wrong side of the cottage.”    And another unattributed handwritten note from the archives states:   “The stream leading to Rocky Lane and Ridgeway Farm, which was originally Ridgeway Nurseries, note the shed on the right. In in my grandparents time there used to be a cottage there also.”   Last month’s photo, this time looking up Rocky Lane, still showing Stream Cottage 1897. The same view this time on 1st January 1997,100 years on with Salosh and Monica Edwards, but by now Stream Cottage has disappeared. An earlier view of the bridge c.1860, again looking up towards Little Cowdray.     Rocky Lane, 2009, by Sean Edwards

This small 20 page booklet is available from the Godalming Museum and the Lutyens Trust. It contains a circular car trail that allows you to see about 24 of Lutyens's designs in a fairly compact area. In Thursley it identifies The Corner , Lutyens's first executed work, Street House which was his boyhood home, Prospect Cottage which was formerly the Thursley Institute and Thursley Churchyard where there is a simple cross to his father and a memorial to his nephew killed in the first World War.

The first newsletter driven by articles from the website was delivered to subscribers on 1st September 2024. If you want to receive these updates, please sign up on the home page. We have also added newsletters from the beginning of the society when it was known as the History of Thursley Society. https://shoutout.wix.com/so/14Oz8EPSe?languageTag=en&cid=bceff40b-12d7-4ab7-879e-2fc25b2b4a42

Having already found an Elizabethan sixpence, Olly Lynes has also discovered a pocket watch belonging to Lt. Leslie Richmond. He must have lost it before he went to the front in WW1. This article was written by John Lynes. Discovering the watch It was with some surprise that local lad Olly Lynes came across a rather interesting artefact whilst searching  Punch Bowl Farm, owned by Sally Scheffers. Olly had been searching the farm for the past few years with many interesting items being discovered. On this occasion, as Olly removed the find from the soil he realised it was a silver military pocket watch. On getting home, and after a little research, it transpired that the watch had in fact belonged to a special Australian soldier, who was identifiable for rather sad reasons. The pocket watch belonged to Leslie Richmond of the 1st Gordon Highlanders. Thanks to an Australian article written about Leslie Richmond, Olly was able to learn a great deal about the history of the person behind the watch. Lt . Leslie Richmond, an officer in the 1st Gordon Highlanders, was the first Australian-born casualty of World War I. Born in Armadale, Victoria, in June 1888, Richmond was killed at the Battle of Mons on August 23, 1914. This battle marked the first major engagement of the British Expeditionary Force in the war. Despite his service in a British regiment, new research has revealed that Richmond's Australian roots merit his inclusion on the Australian War Memorial's (AWM) Commemorative Roll. From Australia to Scotland Richmond's family history is a tale of migration and success. His father, James Richmond, left Scotland for Australia in 1863, becoming a prosperous pastoralist. The Richmond family later returned to Scotland, renting the 17th-century Monzie Castle in Crieff, Perthshire. Census records from the time show the family lived a life of relative affluence, employing several household staff. The Battle of Mons and Richmond's Service The Battle of Mons, where Lt. Richmond lost his life, was a critical early conflict in WWI. On August 23, 1914, British forces faced a superior German army and were forced to withdraw, suffering approximately 1,600 casualties. The battle is also notable for the legend of the Angel of Mons, which purportedly appeared in the sky to protect retreating British troops. Lt. Richmond's military career began with his commission in the Gordon Highlanders in 1906. By 1909, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant. He married Ruth Greenwood in April 1914, and she was pregnant with their only child when he died. Their son, also named Leslie, was born in January 1915. Recognition and Family Legacy For many years, Seaman William "Billy" Williams and Captain Brian Pockley were believed to be the first Australians to fall in World War I, having died on September 11, 1914, in the Battle of Bita Paka in Papua New Guinea. However, recent findings by Toni Munday, curator of the HMAS Cerberus museum, and Diane Morris, the AWM's centenary communications officer, have brought Lt. Richmond's sacrifice to light. Munday discovered a notice about Richmond in The Argus newspaper from October 1914, prompting further investigation. Richmond's descendants, Jeannie Furphy of Shepparton, Victoria, and Alexandra Ramsay of Warren, NSW, were aware of his military history but had not considered him a candidate for recognition in Australia due to his service with a British regiment. The AWM's criteria allow for Australians who served in foreign armies to be included on the Commemorative Roll, provided they meet specific criteria. A Family's War Tragedy The Richmond family's history is marked by the tragic loss of both Lt. Richmond and his son. The younger Leslie was killed at Dunkirk in May 1940, shortly after his marriage, while serving with the 10th Royal Hussars. Ruth Richmond, Leslie's widow, never remarried, enduring the profound loss of both her husband and son. Lt. Richmond is buried at St. Symphorien Military Cemetery in Belgium. From ABC News Australia: WWI Scottish regiment soldier 'may have been first Australian-born casualty' https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-23/leslie-richmond-first-aust-born-soldier-killed/5685774 A portrait of Lieutenant Leslie Richmond of the Gordon Highlanders who died at the Battle of Mons. (Supplied: Richmond family) Lt Leslie Richmond From Obituaries Australia: https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/richmond-leslie-18261 From Newscorp Austalia: https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/how-leslie-richmond-and-william-chisholm-became-the-first-aussie-casualties-of-world-war-i/news-story/ecbc8f42f454a3de46c96ebb4907f715

With thanks to Sean Edwards. *aka The Sailor's Murder, see links below.

The Guardian article shows how writers have been drawn to The Sailor's Murder, one of two historic murders to have taken place in Thursley (see links at the bottom of this article). Gibbet Hill by Bram Stoker is published by The Rotunda Foundation on 26 October. Paul McKinley’s exhibition Péisteanna is now on at Casino Marino, Dublin. More information on the Dublin City Council Bram Stoker festival can be found at bramstokerfestival.com https://rotundafoundation.ie/gibbet-hill/ Guardian article: Reader stumbles on Dracula’s ancestors in a Dublin library The unknown Bram Stoker story Gibbet Hill, published soon before the author began working on Dracula, has eerie echoes of his vampire classic by Ella Creamer, Sat 19 Oct 2024 In a Dublin library once frequented by James Joyce and WB Yeats, beneath a turquoise and white domed ceiling and surrounded by oak shelving, Brian Cleary stumbled across something by Dracula author Bram Stoker he believed no living person had ever read. Cleary, who had taken time off from his job at a maternity hospital after suffering sudden hearing loss, was looking through the Stoker archives at the National Library of Ireland when he came across something strange. In a Dublin Daily Express advert from New Year’s Day 1891 promoting a supplement, one of the items listed was “Gibbett Hill, By Bram Stoker”. He had never heard of it, and went searching for a trace. “It wasn’t something that was Google-able or was in any of the bibliographies,” he said. Cleary tracked down the supplement and found Gibbet Hill. “This is a lost story,” he realised. “I don’t think anyone knows about this.” The story follows an unnamed narrator who runs into three children standing by the memorial of a murdered sailor on Gibbet Hill, Surrey, which is also referred to in Dickens’ 1839 novel Nicholas Nickleby. Together, the four walk to the top of Gibbet Hill. Distracted by the view, the narrator loses sight of the children. He takes a nap among some trees, and wakes to see the children a short distance away, before a snake passes over his feet towards the children, who appear able to communicate with and control the snake. Later, the children attack the narrator. The story culminates with the snake wriggling out of the narrator’s chest, gliding away down the hillside. Cleary approached Stoker biographer Paul Murray to authenticate the story. Though Murray was excited by the finding, he wasn’t surprised – he had already discovered three similar stories, so he knew there was more Stoker material out there. But “as I learned more about the story I became more and more intrigued, because it was published – and almost certainly written – in 1890,” he said. “That’s the year that Bram Stoker begins working on Dracula”. The quintessential gothic horror novel “didn’t come out of nowhere”, said Murray, who has been researching Stoker’s development from the mid-1870s to Dracula’s publication in 1897. “To me, Gibbet Hill was a very exciting new piece of that jigsaw. It fitted very well into my theory of the long gestation of Dracula. And so this seemed to me to be a kind of waystation on that journey of over 20 years that Stoker spent evolving his fiction.” Gibbet Hill has parallels with Dracula. There is the gothic imagery, a trinity of malevolent characters, and a description of eyes that “gleamed with a dark unholy light” – anticipating the eyes that “blazed with an unholy light” in Dracula. Another thematic parallel is that of “reverse colonisation”, said Murray. In Gibbet Hill, two of the children are Indian. In Dracula, you have “the Count coming from Transylvania, which is on the borders of the known world at that time, coming back to threaten England”. While Dracula might be read as a critique of British imperialism, it is also a “reverse colonisation fantasy inviting the British to see themselves as potential victims”, wrote David Higgins in his book Reverse Colonization. A book featuring the story, commentary and artwork by Paul McKinley is now being published by the Rotunda Foundation, the official fundraising arm of the Rotunda hospital where Cleary works. All proceeds will go to the newly established Charlotte Stoker Fund – named after Bram’s mother, who was a campaigner for deaf people – to fund research on risk factors for acquired deafness in newborn babies. An accompanying exhibition is showing at Casino Marino in Dublin, and the first public reading of the story will take place at the Dublin city council Bram Stoker festival. It is “not very often” that a discovery of such magnitude is made, NLI director Audrey Whitty said. Yet she emphasises that “anybody’s capable” of a find like Cleary’s. “Who knows what lies undiscovered in any national library in the world?” The story has also appeared in The New York Times: A Fan Discovers a New Story by the Author of ‘Dracula’ The work by Bram Stoker, previously unknown to scholars, will be read and included in a book launched during Dublin’s annual Bram Stoker Festival. By Sarah Lyall Published   Oct. 19, 2024 Updated Oct. 20, 2024 The discovery left Brian Cleary “gobsmacked,” he said. “I wanted to turn around and shout, ‘Guess what I found?’” Ellius Grace for The New York Times Brian Cleary, a clinical pharmacist in Dublin, was trawling through the archives at the National Library of Ireland a few years ago when he stumbled across something extraordinary: a virtually unknown short story by Bram Stoker, author of the Gothic masterpiece “Dracula.” The story, a creepy tale of the supernatural called “Gibbet Hill,” had been published in a now-defunct Irish newspaper in 1890, but had not appeared in print or, it seemed, been mentioned anywhere since. “I was just gobsmacked,” said Cleary, who works as the chief pharmacist at the Rotunda maternity hospital and has long been fascinated by Stoker. “I went and checked all the bibliographies, and it was nowhere. I wanted to turn around and shout, ‘Guess what I found?’ but there were proper researchers and academics there, and I was just an amateur.” Indeed, the story wasn’t included in Stoker’s archival papers, and was unknown to scholars, said Audrey Whitty, the director of the national library. While it isn’t unusual for something unexpected to turn up in the library’s archives — a collection of 12 million items — Cleary’s discovery stands out for the way he made it, she said. Cleary first saw a reference to “Gibbet Hill in a copy of the Dublin Daily Express published on New Year’s Day, 1891. Brian Cleary He first spotted a reference to “Gibbet Hill” in a promotional advertisement in the Dublin Daily Express on New Year’s Day, 1891. Then he tracked down the special section in which the story actually had appeared — two weeks earlier, on Dec. 17, 1890 — and where it had been “hidden in plain sight,” he said. The story takes place in Surrey, England, at a spot that became infamous when three men who had killed a sailor were hanged there in the 18th century. (A gibbet is a gallows.) In it, a young man goes for a stroll and comes upon a trio of eerie children — a boy “with hair of spun gold” and a wriggling mass of earthworms concealed in his clothes, and two pretty, dark-haired Indian girls. The trio perform a strange ritual involving music and a snake (for starters), tie the man up and menace him with a sharp dagger. Though he passes out and isn’t sure what happens next — they are gone when he wakes up — the unsettling experience has repercussions that do not bode well for his future. “Gibbet Hill” is a creepy little tale. It is also, according to Paul Murray, author of the biography “From the Shadow of Dracula: A Life of Bram Stoker,” and an expert on Stoker, “very significant” and “an important new addition to the canon.” He then found the special section in which the story had appeared, published on Dec. 17, 1890. Brian Cleary The story, and the book it will be included in, are to be unveiled to the public during Dublin’s annual Bram Stoker Festival , held this year on Oct. 25-28. (Ireland, a supremely literary nation, commemorates many of its writers with special festivals.) Cleary said he hoped the book would draw attention to the breadth of Stoker’s work — in addition to “Dracula,” Stoker wrote more than a dozen other novels and several short story collections, and worked for many years as the manager of the Lyceum Theater in London. “Gibbet Hill” was published at a pivotal moment in Stoker’s career, when the author was beginning work on “Dracula.” Many of the novel’s thematic preoccupations — the thin line between normalcy and horror; the shadowy transactions between the living and the dead; the elements of Gothic weirdness — show up in the story. And in common with “Dracula,” Stoker presents the events of “Gibbet Hill” so naturally that he makes “the incredible seem credible,” Murray said. “It’s a story you can’t explain rationally, and yet it’s so well presented that it carries you along.” Finally, it has a theme of colonial unease also expressed in other books from that era, like Wilkie Collins’s “The Moonstone," published some 20 years earlier: “the English fear of the threat coming from the periphery of the empire to exert revenge and disrupt English life,” Murray said. “It’s the idea that there would be this invasion of foreigners into England.” For Cleary, there’s a more personal dimension to his interest in the story. In 2021, he woke up one morning to find that he had gone deaf in one ear. The discovery of “Gibbet Hill” was made after he got a cochlear implant and undertook a grueling program of auditory therapy, including listening to music in the library as he did his research for what he hopes will eventually be a novel with Stoker as a character. “I was like a baby learning to hear again,” he said. The story will be read in public during Dublin’s annual Bram Stoker Festival, held this year on Oct. 25-28. Along with its back story, it will be included in a book as well. Ellius Grace for The New York Times Cleary lives not far from the street where Stoker was born, Marino Crescent on the north side of Dublin, and passes Stoker’s old house frequently. But there are other connections between him and the author. By an odd confluence of events, “a thread of deafness” runs through the history of the Stoker family as well as his own story, Cleary said. Stoker’s mother, Charlotte, was a social reformer and campaigner for the deaf. In 1863, she became the first woman to present a paper to the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, arguing that the state should pay for housing and education for deaf people. (Using the now-jarring language of the time, her paper was called “On the Necessity of a State Provision for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb of Ireland.”) In the small world of 19th-century Dublin, she had the support of Sir William Wilde, Oscar Wilde’s father, a renowned eye surgeon and polymath who had initiated a special census of the deaf in Ireland in 1851. Deafness touched the lives of the Stokers in other ways. One of Bram’s brothers, George, published a paper on deafness in The Lancet medical journal; the wife of another of his brothers lost her hearing after taking malaria medication. Though he was omitted from the novel itself, a deaf character featured in the original notes Stoker kept for “Dracula.” Proceeds from the sales of the book, Cleary said, will go to the newly founded Charlotte Stoker Fund at the Rotunda Foundation , which is associated with the hospital where he works. The money will finance research into risk factors for acquired deafness in newborn babies. In the preface, Cleary writes about listening to lullabies from the library’s collection — streamed directly to his cochlear implant — while reading Stoker’s descriptions of the “eerie musical ensemble” in “Gibbet Hill” for the first time. “A lot of things wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t suffered from hearing loss,” he said. Sarah Lyall is a writer at large for The Times, writing news, features and analysis across a wide range of sections. The story provoked wide interest and it has been covered by the news media at home and abroad. This from the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9119l64qo

This article by Jackie Rickenberg was published in the Parish Magazine, December 2023 You will forgive me if I make this month’s article all about me! Well, not really. In fact, it is all about us i.e., Thursley History Society. We are at a very pivotal time as we work to complete a task that has been years in the making, and has involved many, many volunteers. It is currently being driven by our very own David Young, with his extensive and invaluable experience in the world of publishing. The task I speak of is (drum roll) the launch of our beautiful updated and incredibly fascinating website. Firstly, a little about us. The Society was inaugurated at a public meeting in April 1991, so fairly recently by village standards. In those days it was known as History of Thursley Society but it was changed to Thursley History Society in order to extend its remit. In its constitution it states: “The object of the Society shall be to discover, record, discuss, collect, purchase and display artefacts, written materials and records and other matters relating to the history of the village of Thursley, for the interest of local people and to undertake anything which shall be deemed by the committee to be desirable in order to achieve the objectives of the Society”. With the change in name, it allows us to include the whole parish, including Pitch Place, Warren Park, High Button and Bowlhead Green, and to also include research into other matters relating to but perhaps not restricted within the boundaries of the parish. Our first chairman was the Rev Edmund Haviland and others have included Michael O’Brien and Anthony Langdale. Today it is Leon Flavell. In 2007, when the archives were stored in a cupboard in the village hall, there was a flood from the upstairs flat. The result was, according to the chairman at the time “the grievous and total loss of much irreplaceable material put together by the original founders of the Society”. It was at this time that the decision was made to move the archive to a more secure location within the village. Until now! As so much of this archive is extremely precious and unique, the current committee have been keen to finish the complete digitisation process – begun many years ago – in order to be in a position to hand the entire archive over to the Surrey History Centre, where it will be indexed and most importantly, safe and secure. At the same time, the records are being uploaded onto the new Thursley History Society website, as alluded to by James Mendelssohn in his PC column in last month’s magazine. There have been many villagers through the years who have contributed to this enormous effort, including but not exclusively: Alie Hanbury, Sukey Langdale, Sally Scheffers, Lisa Woods, Simon Treadwell, Peter Rickenberg, Leon Flavell and of course the project leader, David Young. Our thanks go to everyone who has helped through the years and indeed all previous and current members for keeping our history so alive and available. However, a special mention must go to Tim Walsh, who has been our efficient and steadfast archivist over many years. Had it not been for the tireless and thankless task of studiously scanning, recording and filing these priceless archives, the current task of uploading them onto the website would be a far more laborious and time consuming one. The village owes him a huge debt of gratitude. Thank you, Tim, from all of us. We are so excited by the new site, brilliantly built by Helena Traill’s company Nooh Studio, and managed by the committee. It will allow each and every villager, and indeed, any interested party, to have the archives at their fingertips. This will allow everyone access to research their family, their house or many other matters relating to the village, using the new linking systems which allows for much richer and extensive results. The absolute wealth of information will be incredible, but it will always be a work in progress, as material will be added both current and from the archives. As extensive as our records are, we are very happy to take copies of any documents that you may have access to, in order to save them for posterity and future generations to enjoy. Finally, Happy Christmas from the Society and watch this space for details of an exciting launch event. If you can’t wait until next Spring, here is an example of a photograph from the archives, showing two Edwardian ladies standing in a spot that will be familiar to many of us. Can you identify where it is? Answer and article next month. The first meeting of the History of Thursley Society, 14th May 1991 :

The Harvest Supper was celebrated in the village hall to great acclaim on Saturday, 21st Septermber 2024. The idea of resurrecting the event came from Susanne Hunter, Sally Scheffers, Tamsin Taylor Matthews, Lisa Woods and Lizzie Young (who also selected the readings). Sarah O'Brien spoke on behalf of her father, Michael, who unfortunately could not attend. His well-chosen words are below.    Welcome.   I am not the only one here who will remember the first Thursley Harvest Supper in 1972   - 52 years ago - but we are becoming fewer.   That first supper was the idea of the then vicar, Kenneth Matthews, who had a distinguished service record serving as the padre onboard HMS Norfolk during her major actions during WWII. During that time, he witnessed the important role ‘community spirit’ played in bonding everyone together.   One of my roles that first year, and many times after, was to organise the seating plan. It was hard to please everyone, and a certain Brian Camp was often very critical!  I am happy to have relinquished that task.  So, if any of you have complaints about who you are seated next to this evening - I am not your man!   This leads me to thank everyone who has worked so hard to revive this wonderful supper.   The committee: Lisa Wood, Lizzie Young, Sally Scheffers, Susanne Hunter and Tamsin Taylor Matthews and the many others of you who have cooked the food and helped set up the hall.  It all looks wonderful and I hope this custom can be continued for many years to come.     Michael O’Brien, The Lodge     A huge effort had been made to make the tables attractive and the night sky joined in to help Photographs by Alex Smart Between the main course and dessert, these readings were given by villagers: Photographs by Alex Smart

The Vestry Screen for Thursley's Church was designed by Tracey Sheppard FGE, was unveiled by the Dean of Guildford on 26th November 2024 The photographs above were taken by Sean Edwards Before these beautiful doors were made and installed, the work had to be specified, funds had to be raised and a designer found: Fund raising : The Designer : Programme of Work and Techniques Use d: The construction : The Design : The artisan at work : The Dedication : Press comment and appreciation :

Thursley History Society was delighted to receive this cookbook: many thanks, Lisa Woods. It contains recipes from villagers including Hilary Barr, Sue Ranson, Marion O'Brien, Patricia Coles, Sandy Hanauer, Sukey Langdale and Anne Wakeley. Featured recipes : The complete recipe book, which begins with an index, can be found in this pdf:

An article from The County Magazine, February 1965 This unattributed cutting from our archive is dated 27th November 1987:

Bowlhead Green Farm is a medieval three bay open hall house with the central bay open to the roof. Photograph taken from a report published in 1978 Photograph used in the Surrey farming personalities article below taken in December 1964 Sketch by an unknown artist Bowlhead Green Farm : extract from a 1978 report prepared by the Domestic Buildings Research Group, Surrey. The full report is in the pdf below: Bowlhead Green Farm Barn : extract from a 1978 report prepared by the Domestic Buildings Research Group, Surrey. The full report is in the pdf below: A pdf of this report will be available shortly. Mr and Mrs Tom Ranson, December 1964 The article below appeared in the Surrey NFU Journal in December 1964: The farmhouse in August 2024