Woodbine Cottage Windlesham

By David Bridle

About myself I was born at Woodbine Cottage School Road Windlesham and lived there untill 1972 I attended Windlesham First School from 1956 - 1960 and Bagshot Secondary School from 1960 - 1965. Then moved to Poplar Avenue and then to Frimley

Woodbine Cottage also known as Bee Cottage was built about 1820 as far as I can remember being told it was built and owned by the Boyce family who also owned the fresh fish shop near Matthews Corner in School Road (shop now gone)

My grandparents Harry and Alice Kislingbury rented it before the 2nd World War. When the war started my mother moved in with her parents as my father was away in France in the army, My grandmother died in 1941 and my parents stayed at the cottage to look after my grandfather. Harry Died in 1952, after my mother died and my father remarried we moved in 1971 to Poplar Avenue. Charlie Bridle my uncle bought the cottage from Mrs Boyce who I think then lived in Cornwall and sold it a few years later.

As a child I remember we had an outside flush toilet and a tin bath no hot water just a stone sink with cold tap in the scullery. No electrical supply was installed untill 1965. In the main rooms were fitted wall mounted gas lights and bedrooms only candles. My mother cooked on an open cast iron range with oven (coal fired) also a single gas ring on a wooden box was used, later changed to a gas cooker (second hand). As there was no electricity we had a battery radio (wireless) with glass accumulators which were taken to the local garage (Owen's) next to the Windmill pub or Mrs Soan's house in Pound Lane for charging.

1950's Looking up Bee Hill from Corner Shop(now gone). Woodbine Cottage is to the right of the Hop Leaf Simonds Brewery sign in the foreground of the Bee

1970's Looking down Bee Hill from A30. Woodbine Cottage is behind The Bee sign.