Frog Hall Drive - or Froghall Drive?
Chris French, May 2020
Acknowledgement
Sadly, Chris French died in November 2022. We are retaining his original text documenting his historical researches into Froghall Drive, Wokingham's pubs, and his favourite local walks.
Introduction
This part of the website deals with Frog Hall Drive (FHD). An alternative spelling is Froghall Drive - and the council oddly uses both variants on the name boards at the entrance to the drive.
Which is the correct spelling??
The premise is that there was a house, in a marshy area near where the The Three Frogs pub is now, on the main road - called Frog Hall. The area around it was called Froghall Green (and still is - though successive maps show it further east or west and sometime north or south of the main road!). This house was eventually demolished. Meanwhile, there is a substantial house at the end of a 400 yard drive, south of the main road. Its name at the time of its construction is not yet known. After being called Waterloo Lodge for many years, since the 1850s, then Frog Hall and then briefly Buzzacott House, this house was finally renamed Frog Hall. The name of the drive then became Frog Hall Drive. (Why the pub is called the Three Frogs has yet to be discovered).
Froghall Drive and Frog Hall
The history of Frog Hall Drive and its houses are of course dominated by the history of Frog Hall. I believe that our house (No. 19) was built in 1955, but the fact that 10 different people owned Frog Hall in the last 100 years means there is MUCH more information available about its history. I am lucky that Les Roland at No. 40 (see below) has already done a great deal of research and obtained many original documents, including an interesting set of photos of the drive, from 1954. He kindly lent all this to me for several weeks and from these, and my results from much time Googling, I have produced a history of Frog Hall and the Drive including photos, maps and documents relating to changes of ownership in the period studied.
You can view the History here.
Maps
I had a couple of old paper Ordnance Survey maps which include Frog Hall Drive and I then started searching out others online. So far I have a collection going back a couple of hundred years - I have identified the key changes as we go further and further back. When I circulated this to other residents of the drive I had at least a dozen expressions of interest and two great sources of more detailed information (see below).
See my Maps Page
Les Roland (No. 40)
Les had already done quite a lot of research into the drive, but more specifically the history of No. 40, for personal reasons. The Cottage, as it was once called, has often been sold as a separate property from the hall. I have the originals of his research and have taken the generic facts from it and will be expanding them as I get more information. An interesting set of photos of the drive exist, from 1954.
[NB: I must add that Les Roland died in February 2016].
See a copy of his original report (8 pages - PDF document)
Stuart Ingwell (No 47A)
Stuart has the deeds for No. 47A and supporting maps showing the period when the hall was called Buzzacott Hall, in the late 1940s. This information relates to the area around Nos. 43/45/47 and 47A.
See the deeds for his house.
Sylvia Smith
Following correspondence on the "Memories of Wokingham" Facebook group pages, Sylvia Smith sent me some detailed information regarding Nos 44 & 46:
I believe my father Richard Emlyn Hughes bought 10 Buckhurst Grove off Peter Telling in the summer/autumn 1963, I believe Telling was living in the house at the time. The property consisted of the bungalow set on 1 acre of land and an acre and a half of lake, also the alleyway leading from Buckhurst Grove to Froghall Drive.
When Telling sold Froghall to Charlesworth he kept the old granary (No 44) and adjoining land (where No 46 is now). The granary was a timber building up on stone mushroom. In 1963 it was occupied by Len and Maud(?) Telling, a cousin (I believe) of Peter Telling. The dwelling consisted of a small lounge, a dining room, a kitchen and one bedroom. In approximately 1965/66 my father Richard Hughes bought the adjoining land (where No 46 now stands) and maybe bought No 44 at the same time: I'm not really sure when he purchased 44 as Len and Maud Telling carried on renting it off of my father. When they did move out it was rented out until my brother Geoffrey Hughes moved in after he was married in 1970. This was transferred to Geoffrey Hughes and sometime in the next year or so the house was knocked down and the present house was built.
My father obtained permission to build a bungalow on the land (No 46). Charlesworth argued that we didn't have a right of way to get to the land and stood in front of diggers trying to get there to do the ground work, it ended up going to the courts in London which found in our favour. My father owner built the bungalow sub contracting the labour. I bought the home in 1968 when I married. The alleyway has never been owned by No 46 as I stated early it was part of 10 Buckhurst Grove, but there was the right of way over the land in front of No 46 for residents of Buckhurst Grove who used the alleyway.
About 1976 Richard Hughes sub-divided 10 Buckhurst Grove into 2 titles and built the house down by the lake, 70 Waterloo Road.
I knew the Tapsells very well, they were wonderful neighbours. I still have photos of George with my boys but unfortunately I don't have any of No 42 or No 44 before they were demolished.
Sylvia Smith (May 2018)AND: for something completely different ... here is my history of pubs and breweries in Wokingham.