Chalfont St Peter: Old burials and curious deaths

This one is taken from her book Chalfont St Peter Old Burials and Curious Deaths, which is available to buy at feedaread.com for £6.99 with all profits going to the St Peter’s Garden Project. Other DJ Kelly books are available at Amersham Museum and local books shops.

The swimming pool

There cannot be too many people still living who can recall the days when Chalfont St Peter had an open-air swimming pool. The pool, which measured over forty feet in length and around seven feet in depth at its deepest point, was opened in the summer of 1935 and was the brainchild and pet project of Chalfont St Peter Parish Council Chairman, George Henry Maycock. Mr Maycock, who lived at ‘Cantaur’ on Maltmans Lane, Chalfont St Peter, had served as parish council chairman for four years. He had actually designed the swimming pool himself and had officiated at its formal opening. Being spring-fed from the natural chalk waters of the River Misbourne, the pool proved to be a highly popular attraction with villagers of all ages.

Active member of the community

Maycock was deeply committed to a number of local projects, being a member of the Joint Fire Brigade Committee, and also chief librarian of the village’s County Library branch. He played the violin and, being possessed of a good baritone voice, would also sing solos in the ‘Pleasant Sunday Afternoon’ series of local concerts. He had been instrumental in the acquisition by the Parish Council of Mill Meadow as a recreation ground and had pushed hard for funding to site the swimming pool there. His day job, however, was as an estimating clerk for Messrs Lovell, the builders of Gerrards Cross. Maycock clearly derived a great deal of satisfaction in having achieved this welcome leisure facility for his fellow villagers.

A Misadventure

Maycock was also planning the installation of a diving board to further enhance the facility and had even marked out the spot, at the deep end, where it would be installed. By all accounts, he was really excited about the project. One afternoon towards the end of June 1937, he broke for lunch at 1pm and left his place of work to go and have another look at the pool. The pool caretaker, John C. Rutherford, had left for his own lunch break and, with safety in mind, had locked up the gates to the pool area.

This did not deter Mr Maycock, aged 46, however, as he scaled the nine-foot wire perimeter fence with ease. When Rutherford returned after his lunch, he saw a man’s bicycle leaning against the fence and, on unlocking the gate, he spotted a man’s hat floating on the surface of the water. Police Constable Trimm was summoned, and he recovered the drowned body of Mr Maycock from the seven-foot depths, right by the spot earmarked for the diving board. Maycock was fully clothed, including his shoes, raincoat and cycle clips, and it seemed obvious to all that he had fallen into the pool accidentally.

There was no evidence of foul play, and his son, Cyril George Maycock, and housekeeper, a Mrs Rhodes, both confirmed at the coroner’s inquest that, despite the fact that he had lost his wife in October 1935, he had not been in any way depressed or suicidal of late but had been fired up with his plans for the pool. He had also just been made an attractive offer of £1,450 for his house. The supposition was that he had been standing on that particular spot, perhaps making diving motions in order to decide if that were the best place to site the diving board, when he had overbalanced and fallen in. Unfortunately, despite his many other attributes, Mr Maycock was a non-swimmer. The Coroner, Mr J. Bailey Gibson, would give an open verdict.

Another tragedy

Mr Maycock was not the first person to drown in the pool. Two years earlier, just days after the pool had opened, but before it was assigned either an attendant or secure fencing, Edward Samuel Robbins, a 21-year-old epileptic resident at the epilepsy centre on Chesham Lane, had dived into the pool and suffered a fatal fit brought on by the sudden immersion in cold water.

The closure of the pool

Despite Mr Maycock’s unfortunate demise, the installation of the diving board went ahead. However, the fact that the swimming pool was fed by the fresh water springs for which the Chalfonts are named (chalfont means chalk spring) meant that, over the years, the force of the seasonal spring water, together with regular flooding, would, from time to time, break up the cement and tiled base of the pool. Eventually, it was decided not to keep fighting the force of nature and paying out for repairs, and so, to the disappointment of all, the swimming pool was filled in.

Ironically, all that remains to mark the place where this much treasured leisure facility was located, and the exact spot where the unfortunate parish council chairman died, are the now grassed-over mounts for Mr Maycock’s diving board. Nowadays, of course, the village has an indoor leisure centre with full safety procedures in place!