Last summer, I prepared a piece for the Marlow Museum about the 150th anniversary of Marlow Football Club, although sadly the pandemic has prevented this noteworthy date being properly celebrated by the current Directors.
My page can still be read on the Museum web-site www.marlowmuseum.uk.
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I had mentioned the Club’s various headquarters, including their short stay at Star Meadow, before moving 250 yards to what we now know as the Alfred Davis Ground.
I was asked if I had a map that showed the Star Meadow site.
I knew I had one somewhere, but it has taken me six months to find it!
Dated 1924, it is actually one of the most detailed Marlow Street Plans ever produced.
I thought you might like to see it, and I have noted a few points of special interest.
1) This was the Star Meadow Ground, very basic and with few facilities, causing the Club to be demoted in League status.
Now built upon by Herons Place, part of the Spring Gardens / Green Verges development.
2) The walled Rookery Estate, with the quaintly named Arzees Lane between it and Star Meadow, this apparently being an old dialect name for Hawthorn.
An 1830 map shows it as Lammass Lane.
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3) At this date fund raising was in place to purchase this better site for the Club.
4) The Cemetery.
5) The Club’s former ground – Crown Meadow.
Purchased from the Hotel for town use by Edward Riley, but his plans did not include football.
Gas holders at the Gas Works are marked on the other side of Crown Road.
6) The Water Works, located at
a chalk pit off the aptly named Chalkpit Lane.
Almost all Marlow homes had a piped water supply, but the mains drainage scheme (a huge undertaking) was still a couple of years away. 7) The Railway Station with side tracks into the goods yard.
8) Lock Road, largely undeveloped apart from a few houses at the north end.
9) The Mills, still just about in business, but converted to producing and storing paper at this time.
10) The Court Garden Estate: in private hands for a few years more.
11) The lake in the extensive
grounds of General Sir George Higginson’s 'Gyldernscroft' home, with the canal leading off it that he dug, passing underneath Pound Lane near Pens Place, down to the Thames opposite Bisham Church.
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The crudely filled in lake, (when Pound Lane was developed) and underground streams that lead to it, are often blamed for later localised flooding.
Contact Michael at michael@jazzfans.co or 01628 486571
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