This article was written by Dora Duncan and was originally published by Oxhey Village Environment Group in February 1999. Her words remain unedited.
Footnotes with additional information are available after Dora’s article.
I came to Oxhey in December 1944, when the War was just finishing, and we moved into Paddock Cottage, at the end of Upper Paddock Road. This is an old house built in 1867. It had been a sort of smallholding, and the land from it was bought by a builder, a Mr Maxwell. He built thirteen houses on it, which is now Maxwell Rise. They have the gardens, with apple trees and so on which would have been from Paddock Cottage. Paddock Cottage is at the end of Upper Paddock Road, facing down towards Villiers Road. There was a little shop in one of the rooms in the cottage, a general store.
When we moved there was a little alleyway that ran from Upper Paddock Road round to Sherwoods Road – we used to call it the ‘Piggery’ because there was a pigsty in it and one or two pigs. During the war several of the neighbours clubbed together to buy a pig, then had it killed, and shared it out. Further down this alleyway, there was a stable – a Rag and Bone man used to keep his pony and cart there – a Mr Narroway, who lived in Lower Paddock Road. Now of course this alleyway is called Field End Close. But it was a pretty little lane, with a five barred gate. I painted this alley, as it was.
In the summer after we came to Oxhey, there was a street party, in Upper Paddock, for Victory. All the children were there, and everybody gave something, like biscuits or jellies.
Not many people had cars in those days, and petrol was short anyway, so Bushey Station was busy, morning and evening, because so many people commuted to London by train. We used to walk down to the station in the evening, if it was nice, to meet my husband – so many people got off the train! Men, not women. Women didn’t go out to work much in those days. Bushey Station was a friendly little place then, where we could sit and wait, and look at Holiday Posters, and leaflets about excursions. The platforms were beautifully kept, with lovely flower beds, which were kept by the porters. But the last time I was there, it was bare, and unfriendly.
I did most of my shopping in Oxhey, I wouldn’t buy food in Watford. I only went there for clothes and that sort of thing. Oxhey used to have at least five grocers, now I don’t think they have one! There was one at the corner of Field Road, and of course Palmer’s was always a nice grocer. Then there were two greengrocers in Capel Road – Brown’s and Turner’s. On Saturdays there were long queues at both.
When I did go to Watford shopping, I would take the pushchair (pushchairs were much heavier then, not like today’s buggies) and leave it in the left-luggage at Bushey Station. Sometimes they would charge me a few pence, sometimes not. Then I would get on the bus with the children and get the push-chair when I came back.
When we first moved to Oxhey, the Haydon Arms was a little beer house, selling only beer. They had an outside lavatory for men, right opposite our house – a little wooden place. (I don’t think women went into that pub). It used to be nick-named the Gardener’s Arms because the men came to it from their allotments, with their wheelbarrows, with their vegetables in them. They would leave their barrows outside the pub, while they had a beer. George was the landlord then. Later they applied for a licence to sell spirits and wines. This could only be granted if they had inside lavatories for men and women. Some of the trees were cut down unnecessarily I think, it was a nice little country pub at one time. There was always allotments at the back of us – the Paddock Road allotments – and during the War, some of Attenborough’s Fields were used as allotments. Even after the War, when I used to walk there with the children, we used to see some signs of things from the allotments – for many years there were horseradish plants which came up.
Oxhey Green used to be a rubbish dump – and I mean a rubbish dump! It was terrible, the smell in the summer, and the flies! It was some years before the Council flattened it all and made a Green.
My sons both went to school in Merryhill Road, until they were about eleven. They would walk across Attenborough’s Fields, not together, as there was seven years between them, but you didn’t have to worry about them in those days – it was quite safe.
There was a Coal Office at Bushey Station, where you could order your coal, and a Cooperage at the back, where they used to make barrels. And there was a W.H.Smith on the corner of Aldenham Road, where I used to get library books, for I think twopence a week.
I left Oxhey about ten years ago, and moved to Meadowcroft.
Further information
Dora Duncan was a keen artist and frequently painted flowers and landscapes, in oils and watercolours, at Marguerite Frobisher’s studios in Bushey. She is mentioned in a Watford Observer article by Lesley Dunlop.
In a later OVEG history article, Lawrence Larcombe claimed that Maxwell Rise was actually built by a James Maxey; not Maxwell. We currently have no evidence to prove nor disprove either claim! Laurence noted that Mr Maxey lived in “the detached house at the far end of the cul-de-sac” – presumably 14 Maxwell Rise.
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