T
he leaves are appearing on the oak trees that live in and around Ockham, Surrey’s “oak hamlet”, a unique little village and a tranquil oasis barely 35 miles from the centre of London. The village is listed in William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book (1086) as “a habitation with a Manor House and a Church and a plentiful supply of Oak Trees”. Today the population is not a great deal bigger than it has been over the centuries, with around 400 inhabitants. Once it boasted shops and a post office, sadly, now long gone. However, All Saints Church remains, its list of rectors going back to 1160 although the present building dates from about 1220: a truly beautiful church, famous for its mediaeval seven lancet east window located above the altar, one of only two in the country. It depicts the Risen Lord with saints and children. Visitors come from far and wide to see it, together with the glorious King Chapel memorial by Rysbrach.
landlady, refused to accommodate Viscountess Harberton, President of the Western Rational Dress Society, in the coffee room. The viscountess was “guilty” of wearing the infamous zouave, or knickerbockers, costume. Lady Harberton took her to court but lost her case in 1899 and skirts reigned supreme at the Hautboy inn! Sadly the Hautboy is no longer an inn. It has long been traditional for English cricket grounds to adjoin an inn and it is unlikely that the Ockham cricket ground has ever moved far from its present location next to the Hautboy. The earliest records of the cricket club are dated at around 1888 though the exact date of the first game on Hautboy Meadow is not known. Little is known of their achievements at that time, or even their names. In his book, The Oak Hamlet, published in 1900, Mr. Hick Bashall refers to the Ockham Cricket Club saying: “The club knows how to render a good account of itself and the members consider themselves quite as good as their neighbours.” The late Len Elliott, an original Ockham resident, recalled playing cricket at Ockham in the 1920s: “There was no such thing as a pavilion to change in, we had to pitch a tent and before the
Ockham among the Oaks
MICHAEL STONE
Many are surprised to learn that William of Occam, one of the greatest mediaeval philosophers and theologians, was born in the village in 1285. Ockham’s favourite son, William was a Franciscan friar and Oxford lecturer who was at the centre of many major intellectual and religious controversies during the 14th century. Following his disagreements with the Pope he was tried in Avignon for heresy and subsequently excommunicated. His most noted philosophy is known as “Occam’s Razor”, meaning “don’t adopt a more complicated explanation if a simpler one will do”. His teaching subsequently inspired Martin Luther, the father of the Reformation. In more modern times, another attraction which brought visitors to Ockham was the Hautboy inn, built in 1864 by the first Earl of Lovelace with the famous Ockham bricks baked in the local brickyards off Long Reach. It was a popular stopping place for cyclists and became notorious in 1898 when Mrs. Martha Sprague, the
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THIS ENGLAND, Autumn, 2013
POV - Ockham.indd 22
30/07/2013 14:05