Retro: History down on the mystery farm

David Cliffe • Published 17 Mar 2010 09:00 1 Comment

THIS attractive and accomplished watercolour has the words 'Cooper's Farm, Tilehurst,' written on the mount, and so far, I have been unable to find a Cooper's Farm on old maps of Tilehurst, or in directories.

The painting is signed, "W., 1953," so we know that the farm was still standing in coronation year, though the wooden farm building to the right appears to have holes in the roof, and I expect that the farm wasn't left standing for much longer.

A pencilled note on the back says, "Painted by Mr Willett, Borough Architect," so the artist must be Cecil Harold Alva Willett, who joined the staff of Reading Borough Council in 1925, and who became Borough Architect when the Architect's Department was set up at the end of the Second World War.

At the time of his retirement in 1961, he was living at 41 Lawrence Road, Tilehurst.

It has been reckoned that in the course of his 36-year career, Mr Willett was responsible for the design of 5,227 houses!

This was not one of them. In the picture, we see a timber-framed farmhouse, with a pitched, tiled roof which has one dormer in the front slope. It is hard to say whether the gable we can see is tile-hung or boarded.

Next we have the entrance to the farmyard, and then a single-storey brick building with a tall chimney, and then come two boarded buildings with tiled roofs, the roof we can see being in poor condition.

To the right of the buildings is a small caravan, which appears to be of the type I remember from the 1950s - cream above, pale blue below, and with one pair of wheels.

Please get in touch if you know where Cooper's Farm was.

The farm probably had an official name which would have appeared on maps, but because the Cooper family ran it, Cooper's Farm is what it was usually called.

Call 0118 955 3303 or email ahewitt@berksmedia.co.uk

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• 

  Graham Waite
  Unregistered User
  Mar 23, 12:28
  Report comment

  St. Michael's Road, near to the church?
  
  Recommend?   Yes 0     No 0

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