Retro: What's the star attraction?

David Cliffe • Published 23 Jul 2009 08:00 0 Comments

RECENTLY I've been cataloguing pictures from an album given to the library a couple of years ago.

Most are captioned, and I've been able to see where they were taken, but the caption in this case is just "Star Avia". This has left me puzzled.

The photographs in the album were taken mostly in Reading in the 1970s, so I'm hoping someone can recognise this rather ugly house, which appears to be derelict. It may well not exist any more.

The house may be in Caversham, near Henley Road, since the pictures just before it show Woodlands Cottage and Woodlands Farm, in Lower Henley Road.

I would guess that Star Avia is the name of the house, though a search through the street directories and electoral rolls for this part of Caversham has not revealed its whereabouts.

It seems a rather odd name - in my mind the word Avia is associated with wristwatches. With its brick quoins, the round windows, the little gable and the porch, the house is certainly distinctive - please get in touch if you recognise it.

Although the pictures in the album are only 30-odd years old, which seems no time at all to me, they record a number of buildings which are no longer there.

These include commercial property in Blagrave Street, buildings in London Street, Balmore Hall in Caversham, and the granary at Toots Farm, at the corner of Highmoor Road and Darell Road in Caversham, which caused controversy before it was finally demolished in the 1980s.

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