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Amerden Ponds

Some notes for a possible article:

Sherry Reesman visited Taplow on 27th Aug 2005, from USA.

Brought pictures of Amerden from around 1895. Note ornate chimneys - she thinks there is a connection with Taplow Court. At this time the house had a large swimming pool in addition to the two lakes. Apparently a smaller pool was later built close to the house as the occupants were finding the walk harder as they got older.

At this time, the house (called Amerden Grove on the 1899 OS Map) was owned by the Whitlaws and leased to Sir Henry Valentine Rae Reid from the 1860s until 1903. The house was later owned by Giles Sims.

A History of the County of Buckingham published in 1925 notes: South of the hill is Amerden Grove with Barge Farm, and to the east of this is Amerden House, the residence of Mrs. Whitlaw.

Rae Reid was a wine merchant in London, trading as Rayden & Reid and as Cloymont. Premises were at 5 Pall Mall in the 1890s, later moving to 7 St Martins. Known to be still trading in 1930, having incorporated in 1922.

In 1901 there were three servants living in:

Ellen Alabasher, 25 Servant
Mary Leyton, 23 Housemaid
Emma Abes, 36 Cook

Sir Rae Reid married Lady Eulia Alberta Louisa Budd (known as Louisa), at St Martin in the Fields. At this time, she already had a son: Herbert John Budd, though the identity of his father is not known. The son lived at Amerden and went to the Palmers Boys School in Greys Thurrocks, Essex before emigrating to the USA at the age of 18. He boarded the RMS Britannia on August 1st 1892, but did not arrive in New York until November of that year. It is thus no surprise that he declared that he would never return!

The Amerden Ponds house burned down in 1998, and was replaced by a row of town houses in 2005.

Sherry Reesman is Herbert John Budd's grand-daughter, and she visited with her three daughters.

-- AndrewFindlay - 27 Aug 2005

When we first arrived in Taplow in 1968 Amerden Ponds house was owned by Joyce Simms who was a dear kind elderly lady who kept open house on lazy summer afternoons. We used to go there on hot days when the children all used to have great fun swimming and learning to swim in her lovely open air pool near the house. She always had a tray of soft drinks and refreshments out. The first to arrive would take the cover off the pool and the last ones would put it back on. It was always very sociable and fun. She grew Christmas trees in a field nearby and we would go en famille a few months before Christmas and put a ribbon with our name on the one we wanted and then near Christmas would ceremoniously go and chop it down to take home and decorate. (Eva)

12 Mar 2006 11:51:56 FredRussell:

Andrew This has promise, needs a bit of smoothing to read better but info of this type is quite useful. Looking back over past issues we have assembled a quite astonishing amount of history of the villaage, stuff that would have completely disappeared. Interesting about the chimneys. Good pics. Some pics are usable.

22 Jul 2008 13:08:42 PatriciaAndrews:

I remember this house with great happiness, and was sad to learn that it had burnt down.

My husband and myself rented the top floor flat for a couple of years in the 1970's from Mrs Joyce Sim, and in fact had our wedding reception here. It was a stunning setting, and it would have been hard to find a more beautiful place.

I remember it looking more as it did in the photo taken in early l998. I think the last time I saw it must have been only a year or so before before it burnt down, and it really did look 'rather the worse for wear' and I decided it had not been a good idea to re-visit, and it is only just recently that I learnt of its fate :-(

The old swimming pool had long been unused when I lived there, and there was a new smaller one which I constantly checked for unwary animals..