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Arborfield
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Families
  Related sites:
Street names in Arborfield and their origins
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Arborfield has been shaped by influential families down the centuries. Indeed, in 1900, the main country houses in the parish directly employed half of the inhabitants of Arborfield and Newland. Since then, families from more humble backgrounds have left their mark on Arborfield, and their surnames live on in the roads of the Penrose Park and Badgers Mount estates as well as at Arborfield Cross. The Simonds family have lived in the area since Saxon times, while the Standens claimed to have been descended from the Attrebates, who lived in central Berkshire before the Romans came. The Bullock family is still celebrated in both Arborfield and Barkham by 'Bull' public houses. Until the 1960's the 'Bull' and 'Swan' pubs at Arborfield Cross were tied to the Simonds brewery in Reading, but the local branch of the Simonds family were actually connected with banking, not brewing. They lived at Newlands, a country mansion half a mile north of the Cross, but all trace of the house itself has now disappeared. Another branch of the family owned Sindlesham Mill, just to the north of the parish of Newland. The Conroy family moved to Arborfield at the beginning of Victoria's reign. Click here for more about the Conroys and Sir John Conroy's creation of the Victorian mock-Tudor mansion Arborfield Hall and of its innovative Model Farm. The Hargreaves family lived at Arborfield Hall by the River Loddon from 1855. Now only a memory, the original medieval Hall was first replaced by a Victorian mansion by the Conroy family, and in the 1960's the new owners, Reading University, demolished it and built a modern house called 'Aberleigh' for the Vice-Chancellor. It has been let out to private tenants in recent years. John Walter, the proprietor of 'The Times' newspaper, gradually built-up the Bearwood Estate to encompass not just Newland and part of Arborfield, but also much of Barkham, Wokingham Without around Nine Nile Ride, and Sandhurst. The Sale Document from 1911 gives detailed information on the Estate, while the Bearwood College school site relates the history.. The Allright or Allwright family owned some land in Arborfield between 1700 and the early 1900's, including Targett's Farm. They also owned the Dissenters' Chapel opposite the Bull. The Bentley family owned Magnolia Cottage for two centuries, and were Wheelwrights and later ran the Garage next door to the Cottage. William Clark was landlord of the Swan in the first quarter of the 20th Century, while Joseph Bushell ran the Bull from 1914 to his death in 1950. The History document compiled by the Women's Institute in 1922 goes into tremendous detail about several of these families. Commercial Directories listed the key families in each area; click here to see what was in the Slater Directory for 1850, and here to see the contents of Kelly's Directory for 1854.
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