Brian Cullam

1950s Loosley Row recalled in Hallmark 2009 by Brian Cullam

In the 1950s the A4010 road was comparitively free of traffic. In 1950, on my Lambretta scooter I was travelling from London en route to Lacey Green. Equipped with my camera was researching the structure of windmills for my achitectural exams.

I turned right at the Rose and Crown, a plain unpretentious little public house, up Little Lane to a modest group of cottages that comprised the village of Loosley Row. Eventually I was to live in this very lane.

This hamlet comprised a few cottages known as 'The Stret'. The Stret contained 6 or 7 terraced cottages with clay tiled roofs. On the opposite side of the road were the premises of Gommes Forge (The Foundry). I regarded the front yard as a nettle bedded eyesore, littered with rusty scrap iron, agricultural machinery and general materials of his trade. Inside the gloom of his forge Mr Fred Baker (Fred & Connie Baker) conducted a thriving business producing the most desirable examples of wrought and cast iron work. For example, he had retained all his grandfather-in law's moulds and he cast me a Victrian door knocker for 10/-shillings. Other products consisted of fire backs and fire dogs, some of them replicas of those in nearby Hampden House, which he sold for £8-10shillings each.

Whilst exploring, I spied a hand written sign in Little Lane, reading "Land for Sale". On making enquiries I met Mr Lacey who owned the land. He was asking £350 but would accept £300, so I gave him £325 and the site was ours. My wife and I soon owned a modest house featuring an upstairs living space, so that we could enjoy the extensive views over the top of the apple trees towards Lodge Hill and Bledlow Ridge. It was later featured in anational magazine as 'The Upside Down House'. Fred Baker made the balcony railing and door knocker for this house, which Mr Hickman built for us.