The Bracknell 1851 census, on microfilm, was quite difficult for me to read and I made out (incorrectly as it turned out) that both Henry and Mary Ann came from Mickleham in Surrey.
The next visit was to the Guildhall library in Guildford. There you could look at the parish records of Surrey on microfilm. I spent many hours looking at the parish records of Mickleham with no luck whatever. I was about to give up when a fellow researcher looked at my copy of the census record for Bracknell and said that what I thought was Mickleham looked more like Windlesham to him.
When I looked into the Windlesham parish records my research was rewarded with HAMMONDs on many of the pages. Henry HAMMOND’s baptism was easy to find. March 18th 1821 Henry, parents John HAMMOND and Martha COTTERELL, abode Windlesham, trade of father Cordwainer (shoemaker).
Working backwards through the parish records of baptisms, marriages and burials I collected hundreds of references to HAMMOND. There were many families back to where the surviving records started in 1689. There are no parish records before this date as they are assumed to have been destroyed after the church was burnt down when it was struck by lightning.
Did Henry HAMMOND work on The Grape Vine at Hampton Court.
I now know that Henry HAMMOND started working as a gardener at Bagshot Park, owned by the Crown, Henry worked there until at least 1841, from the 1841 census of Windlesham. In 1844 he was married to Mary Ann WICKENS at Thames Ditton which is very near to Hampton Court. There are no HAMMONDs in the Hampton Court records of 1843 and there are no records for Hampton Court in 1844. Their first child was born in 1846 in West Ilsley, Berkshire. I know that by 1851 Henry is working as a gardener in Bracknell with his wife and family. Henry then moved his family to Reading, were he left my ancester Alfred to work at Huntley Palmers. By 1881 Henry had again moved , this time to Hampton Wick, is this the time when he worked at Hampton Court. The royal arcives are very poor and mention very few house servants, gamekeepers or gardeners. The evidence I now have does not conflict with the story that was passed down to me.
My Ancestors in Windlesham.
I found Henry HAMMONDs parents marriage in the Windlesham parish records. Page 11 John HAMMOND bachelor of this parish and Martha COTTERELL of this parish were married 22nd October 1816. John HAMMOND’s burial is also in the parish records in 1864. John HAMMOND aged 67 on November 20th. knowing his age and when he died made his baptism in the parish records and will at Somerset House easy to find. John’s will runs to one-and-a-half pages and strangely does not mention Henry. It does mention his wife Martha and his children Charles, Thomas and Sarah PINCHES, everything else fits perfectly. Could this mean I have the wrong John? I do not think so. Martha, John’s wife, ran a sweet shop in Windlesham in her later years and out lived him by ten years, she died and was buried at Windlesham in 1874.
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