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Mr & Mrs Richard Hill

 

 

 

 


My connection to Charles Scowen began in 1939 when my family decided to leave London to a requisitioned cottage belonging to Scowen.

lt only had one bedroom with a small landing (used as a bedroom), living room and a lean-to kitchen. No running water, electricity or sanitation (W.C. at the bottom of garden) and a 50 foot deep well for all our water.

l really don’t know how my poor Mother coped with 3 young children and my father still running his business in London and only coming home at weekends until his business got bombed and he join the RAF.

This left my Mother with the children, me being a 1 year old baby, to manage alone in a cottage which was more like camping. Having come from a very comfortable life in London how did she manage, but we were together and safe from the bombing.



There was also another family in the same position as us, also with three children. Charles Scowen must have felt sorry for the
children and took us under his wing like a kindly Grandfather (he had never had children of his own).
He let us have the run of the large garden and meadow with a sand pit in the middle of it. A World War 1 Nissan Hut at the bottom of the meadow was used for our den.
He also built a large seesaw that went round and round as well as up and down and a swing in the apple tree — great fun.

l remember being rounded up by Scowen’s handyman and gardener and taken to the Workshop and lined up with the other children where we watched Scowen carry out his various experiments e.g. electric current jump from point to point which he called lighting and also working on his forge creating various items for the house and garden.
lt was all very exciting for young children. Sadly he died in 1948 aged 96, l was 10 years old at the time but have great memories of my surrogate Grandfather.
ln 1964 my wife and l had the opportunity to buy the house and all its contents from Charles Scowen’s Housekeeper and niece of his wife who had inherited the house on Scowen’s death.
We lived there from 1964 — 1969.

Richard Hill
September 2018

When my wife and I purchased Hill View in September 1964 it was still known by that name. We sold the property 1968/69 under the same name.
The gentleman we sold to we don't think lived there, maybe he bought as an investment!
Who he sold it to we have no idea.

Richard Hill
September 2019