Western House
This is a detail from a photograph in Slough Museum’s collection. It shows Western House, a large farmhouse on the east side of Brook path which was homestead to the farmer Josiah Gregory in the early 20th Century. Josiah Gregory was the proprietor of Western Farm and the Gregory family had been involved with farming in Cippenham over a considerable period of time. Western House school was built on the site of this house in the early 60s. Western House school demolished circa 2016 to make way for a housing development.
The photograph was taken from the garden of a houses in Brook Path. It is no earlier than the late 1950s and was probably taken in the early 60s.
The image above shows exactly where Western House was. is the 1897 OS map overlaying a present day aerial photograph. Western house has been shaded in red.
Images reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Map Images Website https://maps.nls.uk/index.html
I think you may be about 10 years adrift in the dates for Western House school. It was built about 1952. I started there in 1957. The photo of the house would therefore be late forties or very early fifties.
Many thanks. It’s often difficult to accurately work out ages of photographs. Your comment is a great help.
Western House was the first school I went to, starting when I was five, and as I was born in 1945 that’d make the construction of Western House School circa 1949/50.
The White House you show bears striking similarities to the house that The Gregories had in Mercian Way, Cippenham
I think you could be right about this and the building is not Western House but in fact Cippenham House which stood where Warner Close now is.
Below is the full photograph (which has been false-coloured). The garden possibly looks a little long for the Mercian Way houses opposite where Cippenham House was.
Please tell us more of your memories of this house and the nearby area.
I went to Western House when it was new (some people wrongly say Weston House and say it was something to do with Weston Biscuits!) They got a new school down on Windsor Meadows as some kinda deal, vandals set fire to the old school so they could pull it down and build more houses! Grandad had been gardener at old house, his house and orchard backed on to it, all built on now, what a loada philistines! But then uncle Alberts demolition business pulled down granny Goddings Gardeners Cottage, bro Pete and me helped!
Hi does anyone have any pictures of the Police houses when they were 1st built on Cippenham close please?
I went to Western House age 5 in 1951 when it was new. Outside my classroom there was a mound of builders sand. There was a model/sculpture of a Disney type bird near the gate to welcome everyone. I used to jump over Brook Path stream after school to see the pigs in the farm opposite the school. There was a little bridge where we used to catch tiddlers in the stream.
Does anyone have photos of Western House School before it was demolished around 2016 and Brook Path when there was still a brook?