The Common 2 – History of Downley

The Common

Included in this section are the Houses and other locations that lie on the Common, and where no road is cited in their postal address.

The building in the background is the Le De Spencers Arms. The location of the pond is shown arrowed on the map below (reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland).

**c1900**
*Taken from the Common at the end of Plomer Green Lane*

**c1900-02**
*Well Cottage (foreground) with Vale Cottage behind*

On the extreme left is Frederick R Lacey who lived and worked at Hunts Hill Farm in Naphill, just a short walk. The bearded gentleman on the extreme right is Peter of Peter’s Cottage, Littleworth Road.

**1912**
*Mrs Mary Morris standing at the garden fence of Paradise Cottage.*

Built in the late 1700s and renamed Eramis House in the early 1900s by Butler William Morris, who took the last two letters of his three names ‘er,am,is’.

**1912**
*Mrs Mary Morris feeding the chickens in the orchard of Eramis House.*

**pre 1926**
*Vale Cottage (behind the chimneys of Well Cottage), Woodview not yet constructed.*

**1927**
*Well Cottage (foreground) with Vale Cottage (midground), with construction of Woodview (background) recently completed.*

**c1930**
*Well Cottage (foreground) with Vale Cottage (midground), with construction adjacent to Woodview of other houses (background) recently completed.*

**1950**
*Le De Spencer Arms – landlord Stan Brown.*

**1960**
*The rear of Prospect House showing the rain-water storage tank. Mains water was not connected until the mid 1960s*

**1998**
*Well Cottage lying derelict, being uninhabited for 22 years.*

Click here to return to ‘Roads’