Founded 1968 as Mayford History Society
Registered Charity number 801665
 

Newsletter articles

The following are examples of articles that have appeared in our regular Newsletter over the past few months

SHARDS (being bits and pieces amongst which readers may find something of interest) - a regular item

NEWS FROM THE MUSEUMS (from Surrey and beyond) - appears every issue

Old Woking High Street circa 1900

A History of Wheatsheaf Close
Part 3 of the work, which won the Atherstone Cup for 2005
The Close in WWII

When the war came there were changes in the Close. Several air raid shelters were built, including one at No 25 which is still in existence.
Mr Gale Brown, at No 29, built a brick wall in front of his sitting room window as a blast deterrent. At No 12 Mr Burch had an air raid shelter built in the back garden which was intended to be shared by the neighbours. His daughter, Susan, says it flooded and as she suffered from bronchitis as a child her father had a small shelter built adjacent to the house on the West side which was accessed directly from the house. As she says, a direct hit would have done for them, but the ARP would have known where to find the bodies! No 35 had a similar concrete shelter built –subsequently demolished. The current owners of No 12, the Mayne family, have the remains of the shelter which was in the garden as a rockery. Several other shelters are still in existence. That built for the de Neuville family at No 8 is now in Orchard Drive as the Davies family at Orchard End bought the relevant land from the de Neuvilles’s. Coincidentally, Mr Michael Davies lived as a young man at No 6 and his son and family now live at No 29. There were also public shelters in the area, the nearest being on the Wheatsheaf Common. The Minutes for the Fire Brigade and Air Raid Precautions Administration Committee of Woking Urban District Council, meeting on 16 October 1940 read: “Shelters – Wheatsheaf Common – it was Resolved:- That a public shelter for 100 persons be provided on Wheatsheaf Common.”

WOKING’S CINEMAS
The late Tony Rozelaar compiled this history of Woking’s Cinemas for a collection of such information being made by The Galleries.

GAUMONT
Woking's first cinema was situated in Chertsey Road close to what is now the Chinese restaurant - Peter's Palace.
It opened in 1913 as the Central Hall. In 1926 the front was rebuilt and the auditorium was enlarged to provide a capacity of 1,046 seats. The architects involved were Wilfred Travers and Frank C. Spiller. The cinema reopened, after this work, in about September of 1926. Around 1929 it was taken over by London and Southern and renamed the Plaza.
It became part of the Odeon circuit with seating reduced to 914 in about July 1937 and renamed the Gaumont as from 29 May 1950. The cinema closed on 13 June 1959 and was subse­quently demolished. I understand that for a certain period during its existence, it shared newsreels (and possibly other film material) with the Odeon in Duke Street, on the corner with the Broadway. Programmes, therefore, at both picture-­houses had to be carefully scheduled to allow a member of staff sufficient time to take the reels from one to the other!