Whiteleaf village where GIRLS OF
THE HAMLET CLUB opens. It really
does exist and even today much of it is
as it was in the days when Elsie visited it.

The Whiteleaf Cross only changed during the
war - it was covered to make it less noticeable
from the air. The black & white photo was taken
in 1845, the coloured ones in the early nineties. The cross is being restored..

Princes Risborough market place - just the
same as when Cicely and Miriam passed
on their way to catch the train to school, early in
GIRLS OF THE HAMLET CLUB.

Crendon Street, High Wycombe (the station is half
way up this hill) - visitors to the Abbey would
come down the hill and turn to the right, or if
going to school, to the left.

West Wycombe Village where Joy always
tidied herself after walking over the hills from
the Abbey on her way to school.

A view from the edge of the Chiltern Hills,
as Jen would have seen it on her first visit to
the Abbey on Joy's bike.

In the hills around High Wycombe are many
woods, all much smaller today than in the Abbey
girls time. These pictures are of Totteridge
Woods near Margia Lane's home.

Margia Lane took Cecily to see the bodgers (chair makers) in the woods in
GIRLS OF THE HAMLET CLUB.  Here is the description from the book:

Thin blue smoke rose from camp-fires, and a number of men and boys were working round the huts, their cycles propped against the trees. 'What are they doing?' Cicely asked curiously. 'I saw a tent like those yesterday, but there was no one about, Are they gipsies? Do they live here?' 'Oh no! The huts are only for working in. They live in the villages- Little Hampden, Green Hailey, and others.' 'But what can they do out here? It's so far from everywhere. Oh, are they making things out of wood, from the cut-down trees ?' 'Exactly. And here are the 'things' they make;' and Margia led Cicely towards the workers. Near the huts stood stacks of rounded bars of white wood, placed neatly in piles, four laid crosswise as for 'noughts and crosses,' then others laid upon them till the erection was three feet high.

The little white stacks stood dotted about among the huts; as they watched, a boy came out carrying an armful, which he proceeded to pile neatly in orthodox fashion. 'But what are they for? What lots of bars of wood! But how are they used?' asked Cicely, in much curiosity. Margia laughed. 'Don't you recognise them? They're chair-legs, waiting to be carted to Wycombe and put together and provided with seats . 'Chair-legs! Oh, but how funny! So they are!' as closer inspection showed lines of beading round the bars, three rings near one end, two at the other. ' Is that how chairs are made? Out here in the woods? I thought they came from factories and workshops.' 'This is a chair factory. Those huts are the work shops. See, these are cross-bars quite plain; and those are for baby-chairs, evidently, by their size. 'And may we see how they're made? Don't they need machinery to smooth them like this? They look almost polished .'They aren't polished, except by friction.

Yes, Come and look into the huts. You'll have to crawl .'Won't they mind? 'The men? No. They'll only be rather amused.' They crouched on the creamy shavings, and peered through a three-foot-high opening in the hut. A boy was hard at work with a kind of lathe, which he worked with his foot. A cord from this treadle joined a long arm above his head, which projected through the open end of the hut. The cord was then wound with a single turn round a fresh bar, roughly hewn from a block of beech. This was fixed at both ends into a frame, and as the treadle was worked the vibration of the cord set the bar spinning. The boy held a knife, with which he skilfully chipped at the whirling bar, and the shavings flew in all directions, lay in heaps on the floor, and added to the piles about the walls of the hut. Cicely watched in fascination as the spinning bar grew smooth and round and polished under the quivering cord and clever knife. Now it looked finished but for the beading. The boy dropped his knife and caught up another, and touched the bar as it flew round. Just a touch, a momentary pressure, and the line appeared another touch, and the second was finished.

Cicely turned to Margia in round-eyed amazement. 'How awfully clever! Just a touch, and it's done. Why, the whole thing only takes a minute,' as the boy tossed aside the bar and caught up another.

Elsie's description of the bodgers turning legs and stretchers
(the cross pieces between the legs) in huts in the woods is so
realistic, that she must have actually seen them. If she didn't
 I think she may have visited High Wycombe Chair Museum
.You can do this, too. It is a fascinating museum. As
beechwoods abound in the Chiltern Hills and the wood could
be worked unseasoned. The work was done in the woods
where the trees were cut.
They worked in huts like these. Note the pile of
stretchers  on the left of the picture.

Mechanisation gradually replaced the old craftsmen. By 1938
only 9 Chiltern bodgers were left and by my childhood in the
late 1950s there were none. The modern chairs have lost a lot
of the character of the earlier ones, as machined symmetry
replaced the individuality and grained strength.

Windsor chairs once considered suitable only
for cottages and servants quarters are now
valuable antiques.

 
The bodgers Pole- Lathe.

The original Hamlet girls lived in hamlets like
these. Cicely and Joy and the rambling club
would have visited them.

Bobbin lace making.

It was probably of a type called BUCKS POINTas it was very popular (originally exclusive to this area).Here is a picture (I have put green paper behind it to show up the pattern) of some given to me by my great Aunt. It was made for her by an old lady in 1920.

Left - daffodils, below - bluebells
and right -  primroses in the woods

Two interior photos of the ancient church at Little Missenden 

Cottages at Little Missenden 

Trains are featured in most Abbey books and
anyone coming to High Wycombe from London
then would have caught the train from either
Marylebone (left) or Paddington (right).
Now, most if not all the trains leave from
Marylebone .

Chinnor station

Wendover

A Chiltern village church

Lacey Green

Red Lion - Whiteleaf where Cicely stayed with
father on her first visit
If you would like to stay there too check out their
website

Princes Risborough Station where the Abbey
girls caught the train many times

The Vale of Aylesbury from Coombe Hill

West Wycombe Village

View from Bledlow Ridge

Lacey Green from Bledlow Ridge

Penn bookshop

Penn Church

View from the cross
to Bledlow Ridge

Cicely's cottage in Whiteleaf

Doesn't look any more like a cross close up than it did in Cicely's day

Little Missenden Church

Hampden Church

Hampden House

Radnage church