Travels in Hampshire and Berkshire

Bill Reed at the Lychgate into Litchfield Churchyard

On Sunday, I met an old friend, Father Frowin Reed and his father Bill, who had come over from Tennessee to stay while Frowin looked after the Roman Catholic parish of Didcot. Bill Reed and I drove down to Newbury, a town he had visited last in 1965 when he was serving in the US Army, and then on to Litchfield and Dunley.

Bill Reed examining gravestones in Litchfield Churchyard

Bill's family has ancient connections with Litchfield. He had a particular interest in one Nicholas Webber who was vicar of Litchfield and died in 1657, and had a copy of his will which contained familiar local names such as Kingsmill and Cold (now Cole) Henley. Bill searched the graveyard for signs of him and we found one gravestone marked NW, but the date - 1706, was a generation or two too early to have been his. But another ancestor by the name of Biggs who had eluded search so far, turned up in the church itself when we opened a newly presented book of Psalms and inside was the inscription 'In Memory of Lilian Biggs 1917-2007'.

Bill Reed with the present vicar, the Rev Hamilton Lloyd