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Cedar Chase Snippets

[ I asked everyone to send reminiscences etc. Some of them were used as box inserts in other articles. This is the complete collection. - AndrewFindlay ]


I answered an advertisement in the Sunday Times, which read:

"If you want to live in a conventional red brick house, don't come here! But if you like sunbathing in the nude on a secluded patio without a house in sight, this is the place for you..."

It was and is!!!

Also a good place for my son who spent many school holidays in complete freedom, climbing trees and making dens in the woods. Freedom, too, for mothers who could take it in turns to be around in cases of acute hunger.

The support from neighbours when needed is just wonderful. Long live community housing!


We arrived outside the house with our furniture in a rented van. The previous owners had left us some balloons, and within five minutes one of our new neighbours appeared and offered to help us carry everything in.
Work parties were a regular feature of Cedar Chase life in the early years. They are less frequent now, and far fewer people turn out to help, but we still manage to do some of the bigger tasks in the communal grounds and things like re-surfacing the gravel car parks.
Cedar Chase has 24 houses, and at one time there were almost 60 children living on the estate! They used to disappear into the communal grounds and not come back until they were hungry.
There is an annual party for residents and their friends. It really started as a kids' thing, and was so large in the early years that the only way to feed everyone was to roast a complete leg of beef. The original spit was designed and made on the estate, and over the years has evolved into the one now used for the Village Green party. In fact, the Village Green event itself derives from the Cedar Chase Ox Roast - several people moved from Cedar Chase into other Taplow houses and they missed the event so they started one for the whole village!

In recent years the number of kids living in Cedar Chase has dropped so the party has become more of an adult event, with lights and live music. The kids still have a great time, though.


This is the only place I have ever lived where I have known the name of every resident.

Background to our move to Cedar Chase

Our story starts in Milton Keynes. In an estate agent's window we spotted an advertisement for flats in a converted mansion in Gayhurst. We arranged to view and mentioned this to a builder friend. He had been involved in several similar conversions and asked if he could come with us. We liked the flat but decided that commuting from Gayhurst would be too difficult.

Later, our builder friend, who lived in Burnham, telephoned to say that if we were really interested in moving out of London, there was a house up for sale in Taplow, a quiet and attractive village not far from Burnham. We contacted the sellers and visited the property. It was love at first sight and we promptly put our flat on the market. After a while the owner of the first house we had looked at could wait no longer and we had to abandon that one. Another house was for sale in Cedar Chase and we put our name down but then the same thing happened again and we finally settled on number three.

What we had begun to think was impossible then happened. A prospective buyer of our London flat telephoned to say that he was ready to clinch the deal at the price we had asked. So here we are, 24 years later and still convinced you could not find a nicer place to live.

Bill and Marjorie Ball
3 Cedar Chase


Thoughts of a newcomer to Cedar Chase

We moved to Cedar Chase from London in 1982. Everything was unpacked and we were in our sitting room surrounded by displaced furniture and other household items, including an assortment of plants, etc., when came a knock on the door - a neighbour inviting us to join them for an ox-roast in the grounds. From that visit we had the feeling of friendship and neighbourliness that we came to find characterised this unique place and has remained with us to this day.

We look forward with pleasure to the 40 year celebration in October and hope that we may enjoy many more years in this delightful spot. Thanks to all for their friendship, which we value very much.

Marjorie Ball
3 Cedar Chase