Ascot Heath, Berkshire Beggars Bush 1713

Beggars Bush is north west of the junction of the A329 and B383 at Sunninghill, formerly known as the Cannon Crossroads (also Silwood Crossways or Cannon Corner), home of The Cannon pub (currently the Piazza Italian restaurant). It is now beneath the Science Park on the eastern edge of the Silwood Park campus of Imperial College, London. Silwood is the same name as Selwood Forest, at the bounds of which were several Beggars Bush sites in Somerset. The location is consistent with the derogatory explanation for the name.

The English Place-Name Society volume for Berkshire, Pt.1, p. 89, gives Beggars Bush, Beggars Bush Heath and Beggars Bush Common from 1796 to 1812. The name is recorded in 1713 as the site of William Slann’s timber and carpentry business.

It was originally on the eastern side of the ancient trackway from Bagshot to Windsor which ran directly along the eastern front of the old Silwood Manor. When the road was moved after 1807 to the current line of the B383 Buckhurst Road, as part of the building by James Sibbald of a new mansion, Silwood Park, the “heathery waste” of Beggar’s Bush (also known as Bugbush) was enclosed within Silwood Park. Bugbush seems likely to have been a corruption of Beggars Bush.

Also “in Mill Lane on the border of Beggar’s Bush Heath” was Harewood Lodge built in 1713, and later the home of John Robinson a Royal Surveyor famous for the fact that he had more than 11 million acorns planted in Windsor Great Park during the period 1790-1801. During World War II the area was a parade ground, before Imperial College acquired the site.

The Langham (Cottesbrooke) Collection, includes  a letter from “Henry Algernon Langham at Beggars Bush BKS [Berkshire] to Augusta Langham” dated 1874 from Silwood Park. (Northamptonshire RO, ref. L(C) 607)

The Milestones Society records a Grade II listed milestone on the A329 (BE/123) at Beggars Barn, Silwood (SU 9842 6838) 23 miles to London.

OS Grid

SU948680

Sources

Crawley, Michael J., Silwood Park and its History
An Outline of the History of the Lands now Imperial College Field Station
Compiled by Sir Richard Southwood FRS and J.S. Porter from Hughes History of Windsor Forest, from S A Rickwood’s Manuscript on the Silwood archives and from maps, plans, Bills of Sale and Indentures in the Silwood archives

Posted: May 8th, 2011 | Filed under: Places | Tags: Ascot Heath, Berkshire | No Comments »