Patrick Comerford
We were in Seer Green for the first of two funerals this week, the first in the village in the Chilterns and the second Lingwood in Norfolk. It was my second visit to Seer Green, and as well as Holy Trinity Church, we also visited the Jolly Cricketers, the village pub known widely for its collection of cricket memorabilia, and heard more about the associations of Seer Green with cherry picking in the past and its links with TS Eliot.
Seer Green is in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, about 3 km from both Beaconsfield and Chalfont St Giles, and has a population of about 2,400.
This was my second visit to Seer Green, and I was amused by some of the street signs and road names, including Longbottom and Bottom Lane. The welcome sign describes it as ‘Seer Green the Cherry Pie Village’, and until the early 20th century it known for its cherry orchards and its cherries sent by train to the market in Covent Garden.
In reality, though, the former orchards were a minor part of Seer Green’s landscape and even at their maximum extent it is estimated they covered about 8 ha (about 20 acres). But the remnants of some of these orchards and some individual cherry trees can still be seen, the local school holds a ‘Cherry Pie Fair’ each summer, and some house names and street names also reflect this part of Seer Green’s past.
The Seer part of the name may be Norman French or Middle English, meaning a dry place, although local legend likes to say says Seer refers to a visit by King Arthur’s court to the area when local people consulted his ‘seer’ Merlin. During the reign of Henry III in the 13th century it was called La Sere and similar names have since been used, including La Cere, Le Shere, La Zere, Sera and Sere. The present name has been in use since the end of the 18th century.
In pre-conquest days, the land belonged to Princess Godgifu. By the time the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, Seer Green was a part of Farnham Royal, governed by Bertram I de Verdun. Hall Place, a Grade II listed building, is the oldest building in Seer Green.
The land later passed from the Verdun family by descent and marriage through the Furnival, Neville and Talbot families. Francis Talbot (1500-1560), 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, exchanged Seer Green and the rest of the manor of Farnham with Henry VIII in 1541 and it became a royal holding. Sere Green belonged to Francis Godolphin in 1753, when the village had about 16 houses. The old Manor Farm is the site of Manor Farm Estate.
Holy Trinity Church, which was built on the village green in 1846, is a brick and flint building with lancet windows. However, Seer Green remained part of the parish of Farnham Royal until it became a separate parish in 1866.
But an earlier and continuous church presence in Seer Green has been provided by the Baptists, who first met in private homes and called their gatherings ‘Cottage Meetings’. When they formed a church in 1843, they moved into a building first used for a lacemaking school in 1829. The Baptists bought the building in 1857 and added a gallery for the choir and musicians. Meanwhile, the Methodists started services in Seer Green in 1840
At the Golden Jubilee of the founding of their church, the Baptists launched a fund to build a new church. The foundation stone was laid on 15 August 1899, and one of the stones was laid by Halford Mills, father of the circus proprietor Bertram Mills. The new chapel opened on Easter Monday 1900.
Seer Green and Jordans railway station on the Chiltern Main Line between Beaconsfield and Gerrards Cross was originally called Beaconsfield Golf Club. The new railway cut through the estate and golf course of Colonel William du Pre of Wilton House, who negotiated for a railway station and a new golf clubhouse to be built at Seer Green. The stop was originally designed to serve the golf club, not Seer Green villagers, and initially there were two trains a day. The station name was later changed to reflect its place between Seer Green and Jordans.
Seer Green House in Longbottom, which has since been demolished, became a convalescent home for soldiers World War II. After the war, it was transformed into a finishing school for debutantes, including Princess Margarethe of Sweden.
The demolition of the Old Manor Farm and the building of new housing estates brought many changes that transformed the village. With these changes, the Baptists decided to build a new church at the heart of the housing estate – with a distinctive glass spire. The old chapel building, built in 1829, was transferred to Holy Trinity Church in 1982 and became the parish hall.
Seer Green has two pubs, the Jolly Cricketers and the Three Horseshoe. A third pub at the Yew Tree in Orchard Road, closed in 1909.
The wisteria-clad Jolly Cricketers describes itself as a ‘Quintessential English Pub’ and has been a central part of life in Seer Green since 1831. Before Holy Trinity Church was built, it faced onto the village green, and its name indicates cricket was originally played on the Green, although it appears to have been too small for a full-sized cricket pitch.
The Jolly Cricketers was built as the Cricketers and was run by the Cyster family for about 160 years. Since 2008, it has been run by villagers Chris and Amanda Lillitou.
Today, the Jolly Cricketers is famous for its extensive collection of cricket memorabilia, adorning the walls and ceiling, including signed bats, photographs, books and other souvenirs from professional and local players.
Seer Green’s residents in the past have included the author Frederick Forsyth and the weather presenter Ian McCaskill. The poet Sir Herbert Read (1893-1968) built Broom House at the corner of Longbottom and Bottom Lane, where regular visitors included the composers Benjamin Britten and Francis Poulenc, the sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, and the poet TS Eliot.
Read founded the journal Arts & Letters with Frank Rutter, one of the first literary periodicals to publish work by Eliot, and it was through Read’s influence that the Morley family moved to Seer Green. Frank Morley (1899-1980) was a director at Faber & Faber and his colleague and friend TS Eliot visited Read at Broom House and the Morley family in Seer Green.
Eliot was the godfather of Frank Morley’s daughter, Susanna Morley. In his preface to Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Eliot dedicated the collection to her to a number of supportive friends.
As Susanna Smithson, she became a key figure in uncovering lost Eliot poems for BBC documentaries. She shared memories and intimate details of Eliot’s life and work, including his joy in his second marriage with Valerie Fletcher, and provided unique insights and personal materials, including photographs and letters, that offered more insights into the background of writing Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
As part of the BBC Two programme Arena: TS Eliot in the BBC Poetry Season in 2009, Susanna Smithson shared an unpublished 34-line poem ‘Cows’, showing Eliot’s hidden distaste for cows, their vacant gaze and aggressive curiosity. And Skimbleshanks in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is apparently based on a Seer Green station cat.
