JOE Gleeson’s butcher’s and Dip Kumar’s King’s Ride supermarket are the only two food retail shops left in Penn and Tylers Green after the sudden closure last month of The Village Shop on the Green in School Road by the common.
The independent supermarket closed when bailiffs acting on behalf of the landlord repossessed the shop and gave business owners Navjot and Divdeep Mann a week to clear the shelves of their grocery products.
The shop seems to have been struggling for some time. Mr and Mrs Mann’s company, Penn Retail Ltd, was given notice last summer that it could be struck off the Register of Companies and dissolved but the action was suspended after the Manns appealed. Information published on the Companies House website shows that accounts have not been submitted since February 2021.
Mr and Mrs Mann took over the shop in 2010 and ran it for a while under the Londis brand. In a message on social media they said they had “great times and difficult times” over the years and thanked residents who supported them. “We have made good friends and wonderful memories over the last 15 years,” they wrote.
Joe’s Hazlemere Road shop is now the only retail shop in the Penn boundary while Dip’s supermarket is the only food retail shop within the Tylers Green boundary.
There are, of course, a number of thriving businesses offering services plus the Co-op in Rose Avenue. Hazlemere, but the number of retail shops has declined steadily in recent years, most converted into homes or offices.
While the council and Thames Water bicker, retired Tylers Green couple face a third summer without a garden
Mr and Mrs Frizoni in their wrecked garden. Picture: Bucks Free Press.
A RETIRED couple whose pride-and-joy garden in Tylers Green was devastated when raw sewage from a broken pipe destroyed virtually everything are still waiting for promised restoration two years after the first sewage leak.
Patrick and Jane Frizoni’s secluded garden at Dell Cottage in Church Road, opposite the Horse and Jockey, used to be a highlight on the village’s annual Open Gardens tour. Now a large part of it is a barren landscape of gravel and dirt.
Thames Water completed a long and complex repair last October and promised to pay for a landscape gardener to restore the garden to something like its original glory.
But the water company said the gardeners couldn’t start until Buckinghamshire Council repaired a damaged soakaway near the broken sewage pipes, which had been part of the reason for the flooding in the first place. Last October the council said the new soakaway would be scheduled with other “priority” flood and drainage schemes in the area.
The Frizonis are still waiting. “We are the little guys stuck between Buckinghamshire Council and Thames Water arguing,” Mr Frizoni told the Bucks Free Press, which has been reporting regularly on the couple’s plight.
The council told the newspaper the soakaway – a large, buried crate which allows rainwater to soak naturally into the surrounding soil – will be installed in the next few weeks. The Frizonis will believe it when they see it.
Local news
Great characters – The teachers and staff at Tylers Green Middle School got into the swing of World Book Day last month joining the children in dressing up as their favourite story book characters. Picture: Tylers Green Middle School
Company liquidated – The Griffiths Brothers gin distillery company in Penn Street has gone into liquidation with the company’s gins, vodkas and rums now being produced by the Creative Juices Brewing Company based on a farm near Rickmansworth. A planning application to convert the former distillery at Unit 8, Penn Street Works into a corporate event space has been submitted.
Dog attacks – The owners of Grange Farm in Hazlemere are blaming out-of-control dogs worrying and chasing sheep for a drop in the number of their ewes successfully lambing this spring. They said a fence they built to try and protect the sheep was cut and vandalised within 48 hours.
Local election – The election of two councillors to represent the new Penn, Tylers Green and Loudwater ward on Buckinghamshire Council will take place on 1 May. A re-designed Hazlemere ward will also elect two councillors. It’s the first local election since the new unitary council was formed four years ago followed by a re-drawing of council ward boundaries. In total 97 councillors will be elected, compared to 147 in the old regime.
School visits -Year 6 children at Tylers Green Middle School will visit Sky’s TV studios this month where, in the academy studio, they will create their own TV report and use filming and editing equipment. Year 4 children will be performing Macbeth for the school’s annual Shakespeare production. Last month Year 3 children held a violin assembly following visits from the Chiltern Music Academy.
At Manor Farm Junior School Shakespeare was also the theme for their World Books Day celebration with Year 4 children putting on a production of Shakespeare Rocks. Year 5 children visited the Tower of London while Year 6 children visited Bletchley Park. A number of the school’s children performed at the annual Energize show at Wycombe Swan.
Superb achievement – Penn and Tylers Green Football Club boys under-12 team, above, did supremely well in winning the Berks and Bucks Cup against Windsor and Eton under 12s at Ascot United’s ground last month. They won the final 5 – 1. Picture Penn and Tylers Green FC.
Defending champs – Penn and Tylers Green Cricket Club’s men’s first team begin their season on 10 May away to Knotty Green first team. The 2nd XI play Knotty Green 2nd XI at home on the same day. The 1st team ended last season champions of the Berkshire, Chilterns and Mid-Bucks League.
Cemetery improvements – Work is to be undertaken at the Penn Road cemetery to make it more accessible for people visiting in wheelchairs.
New website – Tylers Green First School launched a new website last month to help improve communication with parents and the local community. You can view it on https://www.tylersgreenfirst.co.uk
Spuds in – There’s a new competition for young gardeners at this year’s Village Show in September – the heaviest weight of potatoes grown in a container. The organisers point out that April is a good time to start growing. Full details of this year’s show on https://www.pennandtylersgreenvillageshow.com
Scouts legacy – It’s 25 years since the village’s cubs and scouts planted 2000 daffodil bulbs around the village as a millennium project, including by the entry sign in Cock Lane (above) and down the side of the common. What a worthwhile investment that was. The scouts hold their annual spring jumble sale in the village hall on Saturday 26 April between 12.30 and 2.30pm. Helpers always welcome: call Paul Wicks on 07376 071686.
Rayners Penn: Out with the ‘new’. In with the old.
THE FIRST phase of the £93million plan to convert the former Penn School in Church Road into a luxury boutique hotel has begun with the demolition of the 1960s classroom block and other outbuildings.
Experts are removing asbestos from the site and protecting Victorian structures that are being retained from any accidental damage.
The 33 bedroom hotel with spa facilities, two restaurants and a cookery school should be completed by late 2027. It will be known as Rayners Penn.
In a letter to people living near the site chief executive Duncan Ball said care will be taken to ensure disruption is kept to an absolute minimum with special measures to limit the escape of dust.
Meanwhile, a specialist conservation team is conducting a survey of the buildings and fabrics that are to be saved and restored. They are keeping a photographic record of each structure, some listed, in the 180 year old country home originally called Rayners.
“The record covers both interiors and exteriors and will serve as an important historical record and valuable tool to inform the design team and restoration work,” said Mr. Ball.
Manor Farm Junior School has its strong points but needs to improve says Ofsted
MANOR Farm Junior School has been praised by Ofsted for making its pupils’ personal developments “a strength of the school”.
But overall, it says in an inspection report published last month, the quality of education, leadership and management “requires improvement”.
The academy school in Rose Avenue has been part of the Greater Learners Trust, an education charity which runs 11 primary schools in Buckinghamshire, since 2022 and this was its first inspection by Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education) since then.
Lead inspector Matthew Haynes praised the school’s ambitions for its pupils.
The children “understand important social, moral and cultural aspects of life in modern Britain; learn how to keep themselves safe online and how to form healthy relationships,” he said.
“However, although pupils’ results in reading, writing and mathematics…were average overall, pupils’ achievement varies,” he said.
Pupils don’t achieve as well as they should because they are not fully engaged, he added, and children with special education needs should be better supported. He also criticised the trust for not having an effective system to review the school’s progress.
The inspection was carried out in January and you can read the full report on this link: https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50270434
None of your business! Council blocks public comments from public view
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Council is refusing to say why it is blocking the viewing of public comments on planning applications even though other councils are happy to do so.
The move has infuriated activists. The Penn and Tylers Green Residents’ Society said the council was “sidelining public voices during a critical time when national government pressures are mounting for mass housing development.” The Beaconsfield Society said it was “madness” and “deeply concerning.”
Opposition councillors on the Conservative-controlled local authority tried to get the ban reversed claiming it was unconstitutional but their move was rebuffed.
Censored: Following the council’s arbitrary ban, newspapers and news blogs like this one will no longer be able to report on the views of members of the public on controversial planning issues.
Cllr Peter Strachan, who’s in charge of planning matters, told the council cabinet last month that the council was obliged to change the rules due to changes to what’s called the General Data Protection Regulations ( GDPR), a set of nationally agreed rules governing privacy.
However the council later admitted there had been no changes to the GDPR.
“Buckinghamshire Council has reviewed its approach to protecting the personal information of individuals under GDPR rules,” said a spokesman.
“Personal data consists of more than a person’s name or contact details: comments can themselves contain information about identifiable individuals within the body of the text.”
The council though is not saying what prompted the move or why it was felt necessary.
Even when public comments on planning applications were published on the council’s website, personal details and contact numbers were redacted. Most other planning authorities continue to publish people’s views, albeit with names and addresses often redacted.
The council said public observations on planning applications will still be considered in the decision-making process even though those views will not be seen by the public at large.
As a certain president might say… ‘Build, baby, build’
THE LAST few weeks has seen increased pressure to build thousands of new homes within a few miles of Penn and Tylers Green.
- In Chalfont St Peter a plan to build 975 new homes plus a primary school and shops in the Green Belt grounds of the National Epilepsy Centre will now be decided at a Government planning inquiry in August after the developers said Buckinghamshire Council was moving too slowly on the issue. Hundreds of residents are said to have written in protest saying such a scheme would swamp the village, but their views are not publicly available.
- In Beaconsfield outline plans have been submitted to build 330 homes plus elderly living accommodation on Green Belt off Minerva Way, just over the road from where 350 homes are being developed on the former Wilton Park military base. It’s thought hundreds of residents have objected but Buckinghamshire Council’s ban on publishing the public’s letters means the reasons for their protests are unknown.
- In Wycombe Marsh, Berkeley Homes has submitted final planning details for a 246 home estate in Abbey Barn Road plus an outline application for a further 50 houses alongside a recently completed 550 home estate further up the same road.
- In Hazlemere Bellway Homes has been given permission to alter some aspects of the planning permission they received to build 259 homes between Tralee and Orchard End farms, off Amersham Road. Further along the Amersham Road on the former Terriers Farm site, groundwork is underway in preparation for Persimmon Homes and Redrow Homes to build 370 houses.
Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes negotiations between Taylor Wimpey and Buckinghamshire Council continue to try and find a way round the planning inspector’s concerns after he rejected plans to build 544 homes in the Gomm Valley, between Hammersley Lane and Cock Lane, Tylers Green. He said if the scheme was approved it would bring gridlock to the A40 London Road, but didn’t object to the scale or design of the proposed development,
If walls could talk: Penn house with a 400 year old history on the market
Picture: Bovingdons
A HOUSE in Penn with a fascinating history is on the market for just under £2million.
French Meadow in Elm Road, opposite the common, was originally built in the 1600s and a few years ago metal detectorists discovered Elizabethan coins in the garden.
Local historian Miles Green, in his book Mansions and Mud Houses, thinks it may have been built as the farmhouse to the adjacent Tylers Green House, a mansion that was for years the biggest property in the village.
The mansion was used as a school for the sons of French gentry who escaped the French Revolution in the 1790s – hence the name of the current house and Penn and Tylers Green Football Club’s ground, which was also part of the estate.
Originally French Meadow was called The Gables and when the mansion was demolished in 1820 the open space that was left formed a yard in front of it which became a hive of industry in the village, hosting a blacksmith, a wheelwright and a carpenter.
In the 1980s it was given a Grade 2 listing as a house with special architectural and historic interest.
What a treat: An Easter outing in the charabanc 100 years ago
YOU can almost feel the excitement as these young ladies from St Margaret’s Church Sunday School in Tylers Green got ready for an Easter coach outing 100 years ago.
Coaches – or charabancs (pronounced sharabang) as they were called – were pretty basic bone-shakers with their lack of suspension, so the journey probably wasn’t too far. But these were the Roaring Twenties and this was modern technology, so no-one cared.
The chap in the trilby by the way was the vicar, Gerald Hayward, there to keep a fatherly eye on things. Picture from the late Cissie Ginn’s family album.
On the verge of victory but the strain was beginning to show…
Wartime recycling: Girl guides collecting waste paper for the war effort from a maid at a house in New Road, Tylers Green. Picture: SWOP (Saving Wycombe’s Old Photos).
TWENTY years further on from the fun and frolics of the 1920s the mood was grimmer. In April 1945 everyone knew that the end of the war in Europe was just weeks or even days away. But the rejoicing would have to wait: in Penn and Tylers Green there was plenty to moan about.
“The common is a disgrace,” wrote Fred Bates to his local paper. “Commemorative trees are pulled down and broken. Old iron and lumber litter the paths and bushes. The council’s pig bins (people were encouraged to put any waste food and veg peelings into bins, collected for the local pig farms) are slumped into a shapeless mess, while broken bottles and glass lie about everywhere.”
He railed against local tradesmen who drove their vans across the common to save time and petrol and decried the state of King’s Wood as “utterly neglected and a veritable jungle.”
His letter sparked an angry debate. Some blamed children “running wild on the common” while the parish council said that “a number of nomadic people” had been living and sleeping in King’s Wood and they were responsible for the damage.
Others said it was unfair to blame the children. In follow-up letters some parents said the common was the only place where children could play unrestricted while others called on the church and/or the schools to organise youth activities.
Meanwhile, as virtually every builder in the area had been called to London to repair bomb damage it meant local building work ceased. All the local building firms put out a notice asking local people to be patient, a request somewhat grudgingly accepted.
In reality, of course, nearly six years of war and anxiety and deprivation had worn people down and tempers were short. But this was the last Easter of the war. Within weeks the gloom would lift and the wingeing would stop. The end of the war in Europe on 8 May lifted the mood into one of spontaneous, unrestricted joy – a story to be featured next month.
A helping hand
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE is hosting 2,100 Ukranian refugees – the highest of any local authority area in Britain – and moves are afoot to maintain strong links when they have returned home.
Officials in Ukraine have asked Buckinghamshire council leaders if they would be interested in strengthening cultural, commercial and educational ties with the Kyiv region once the war is over. The council said it would be delighted to do so.
The move comes after the Ukranians here expressed their gratitude for the warmth of their welcome. Nearly all who arrived here after Russia’s invasion have found work and their children – 433 of them – are said to have settled in well at school.
Meanwhile, 31 Afghan families – many of whose members assisted British military in the Afghanistan war – are said to have settled “exceptionally well” in Buckinghamshire.
Council leader Martin Tett said most were now in steady employment and able to afford to rent their own properties. Many of their children too, he said, were “demonstrating their resilience and are performing well at school, showing their ability to pick up a new language and flourish.”
Regional news
Eagle eye – One of Britain’s rarest birds has been photographed at the Spade Oak nature reserve in Bourne End. Wildlife photographer Neil Richards, from Marlow, normally travels to the north of Scotland to film white tailed eagles so was astonished to discover one on his doorstep. It’s believed it may have flown in from the south coast where they are beginning to establish nesting sites. Picture: Neil Richards.
Vaping snoop – An undercover officer whose sole job is to detect illegal sales of tobacco and vapes to children has been employed by trading standards and health officials in Buckinghamshire following a surge in cases of under-age selling. So far this year three shops have been forced to close for up to three months after selling tobacco and vapes illegally.
All aboard – Latest figures show the number of people using buses in Buckinghamshire jumped by 14 per cent last year – twice the increase nationally.
For sale – Buckinghamshire Council is planning to sell off the council offices in Queen Victoria Road in the centre of High Wycombe as part of a money-raising campaign. The building was the former Wycombe District Council headquarters for over 90 years.
Relieving pressure – The National Trust has outlined plans to build two new visitor centres on its Ashridge Estate in the Chilterns in an attempt to relieve visitor pressure on the existing visitor centre at the Bridgewater Monument.
Yobs sought – Police are searching for thieves who stole this new sports car and then wrecked it and burnt it out in woods in Seer Green. Picture: Thames Valley Police.
History-making – For the first time in its 650 year history, St George’s Hall in Windsor Castle hosted a Muslim event last month when it welcomed 350 guests for Iftar, the fast-breaking evening meal held during Ramadan.
Poignant farewell – A special ceremony to mark the end of the RAF’s use of Puma helicopters after 54 years was held at RAF Benson last month. The helicopters landed in formation before the pilots disembarked, shook hands with the engineers and ceremoniously laid their life jackets and helmets on the ground.
Remembering EMI– A music festival celebrating the musical heritage of Hayes was held last month at the building that housed EMI Records for years. Now called the Old Vinyl Factory, the complex is home to flats, businesses and a cinema.
Non human resources – Artificial intelligence voice assistants will deal with callers to Hillingdon Council under a two year deal signed with an AI provider. The council says it will enable staff to deal with more complex issues.
A genius at work – Sir Stanley Spencer’s last unfinished picture is the centrepiece of the summer exhibition at the Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham this year. The giant painting, Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta, was just over halfway complete when the artist died in 1959 at the Canadian Red Cross Hospital on the Cliveden estate aged 68. But it gives a rare insight into his working methods and how his paintings were planned. Other Spencer paintings have been loaned to the museum to further explain his methods. The exhibition opens this month and runs until 2 November. Picture:Stanley Spencer Gallery.
You can contact this blog at peter@pennandtylersgreen.com. It will be updated as necessary but the next full update will be on 1 May.