The baker and butcher who built Burnham Beeches swimming pool

The butcher & baker

The butcher was Stanley Littlewood and the baker William (Billy) Gladstone Beckford.

Stanley was a master butcher. He had worked for Sainsbury’s as ‘surveyor of meat and provisions’ before coming to High Wycombe in c1922 to set up a shop in Baker St in partnership with well-known local butcher Mr Stockton. This arrangement did not last long and by 1928 Stanley had established his own butcher’s shops in Gordon Road and Desborough Road.

Billy Beckford was a member of the Beckford family who had first come to High Wycombe in c.1847. They were bakers by trade, having a shop successively in Newland, then Baker St, then Westbourne St, which is where Billy was born. The Beckford baker’s shop moved to 203 Desborough Road in c 1905 and remained there for over 60 years. Many older readers will remember the shop with fondness, particularly the delicious smell which emanated from there. It was located on the southern side of the road, just east of the junction with Desborough Avenue.

Billy was ambitious and reputed to be a ‘bit of a character’. He owned one of the first motor vehicles in Wycombe, an American car, a Willys Knight. In the early 1920’s he decided to diversify his business interests and began investing in property, buying some terraced houses in Wycombe which he rented out. Seeing that the age of motoring was about to take-off, he built a block of garages on the corner of Kitchener Road and Desborough Avenue.

A partnership

In the late 1920s Billy Beckford decided to sell his half-share in the bakery business to his half-brother Frank Curtis and move into the property development business. He formed a partnership with his friend Stanley Littlewood and they bought land in Brockhurst Wood, which had been owned by a Dutch millionaire diamond-dealer who had recently died. This woodland, to the east of the main Beaconsfield to Slough road, between Farnham Common and Farnham Royal, contained two hunting Lodges. Billy and his wife lived in North Lodge in Templewood Lane, and his brother-in law lived in South Lodge. The partnership built six fine houses round the perimeter of the woodland, and three more off the main road to Slough, The Forge, Oak Timbers and one in Elm Close.

Billy Beckford was now well-ensconced into the Farnham Common/Royal community and struck up a friendship with the Wingrove family, members of which were involved in trades such as building and motor-car garages. Mrs Wingrove had established a widespread reputation in the area for her tea-garden in Hawthorn Lane, Farnham Common, on the perimeter of Burnham Beeches. Visitors came from far and wide.

The Beeches swimming pool

The Beckford/Littlewood partnership then decided to work with the Wingroves to convert the tea-garden into an early example of a leisure centre, including a swimming pool. They retained an architect, a Mr Dickson, to design the complex.

The swimming pool was large and hexagonal in shape. Close to it was a smaller pool which initially was used as boating-lake, then as a children’s paddling pool. Just beyond that was an oval cycle track. The pools only opened during good weather, between April and the end of September. To use the pool you first went to the ‘Case Room’, where there were around 300 suitcases on shelves. You would take one, which had a brass tag and pin numbered to the case. After changing, swimmers handed in the case and kept the tag.

The complex also included a cafeteria and garage known as The Barn, and a small fairground known as Lovett’s Pleasure Gardens. The surrounding grounds of over 10 acres included tennis courts, a gymnasium ‘for the energetic after a dip’, and a dance floor ‘onto which you will be enticed by a really first class band’.

The complex was managed by Billy’s son Norman Beckford.

Opening of the complex

The complex was formally opened at the end of July 1934. As the local press reported “An enthusiastic crowd of bathers and spectators was present at the official opening of the Burnham Swimming Pools on Saturday. This delightful ‘swimmers retreat’ set in the heart of leafy Bucks was the scene of unsurpassed gaiety and aquatic activities.

A brightly covered ribbon stretched from side to side of the sparkling blue water and the ceremony of cutting it to open the Pool officially was performed by Miss Betty Hamilton, the fascinating young screen star and diving ‘ace’ who made the initial splash, scissors in hand, in a perfect swallow dive from the top board.”

This was followed by another diving display, this time by the champion high diver of South Africa, Miss Oonagh Whitsitt, a member of the South African Ladies team who were over in the UK for the Empire Games. Apparently “she back-somersaulted, screw-dived and performed other hair-raising aquabatics with surprising grace and ease.” Other members of the team then demonstrated “ a bewildering array of strokes”.

The press report ended with “After a day’s work in the heat of the city, the word ‘swimming pool’ means heaven and the swimming pool at Burnham means an inviting sheet of blue water, floodlit beneath when dusk begins to fall, a flower garden to sit in when the bathe is over and an overwhelming desire to revisit the spot as you eventually drive reluctantly away into the gathering darkness.”

Anyone want to join me there!

What happened next

Eventually the tea rooms were converted into a nightclub called Henry’s. In the 1960s the complex was sold to a Jack Shilton, who appointed his sister as the manager, and the nightclub was renamed Shiltons, then the Beeches Club. Later, the swimming pool and surrounding facilities ceased to be used.

In the early hours of the morning on July 26, 1983, the nightclub was gutted by fire. Arson was suspected and Home Office scientists were called in to investigate, but no prosecutions were made. Jack Shilton eventually sold the land, eleven houses were built on the site which is now a Cul-de-Sac called Nightingale Park.