TALES FROM THE HILLS

(Ashmansworth and Crux Easton)

The Three Legged Cross at Crux Easton was an old drovers’ inn on the ancient Ox Drove, where it crosses the Newbury to Andover turnpike. The inn itself was owned by the brewery, but even before the First World War it was being run by Fred and Jessie Greenaway.

In those days they drew the beer for you straight from the barrel – no bar, no pumps and certainly no refrigeration.

The Greenaways also did a little farming on their own account. Their son Jack went to the village school, and seventy years later he could still show you his Sunday School attendance certificate, signed by the then rector, Charles de Havilland.

After the First World War, Jack’s skill with livestock saw him on board ships sailing to Japan, carrying horses for export. The horses were housed in loose boxes on the ships’ open decks. After falling about during the first storm of the voyage, they never stumbled again, but knew to brace themselves against the biggest rollers.

When Jack’s father died, he and his wife Clara, with Jessie, continued running both the inn and the farm, until Courages sold the inn in 1954, with a covenant barring any future owner from selling beer!

The Greenaways then built a house behind the inn, Charters, big enough for their growing family, and for Jessie. Jack ran the farm and supplied us with milk; he was also a parish councillor, and he frequently joined us in the Plough at Ashmansworth.

He tried to retire once, in the 1970s, but, although the farm sold at auction, the owner of the private water supply refused to supply the new owner, and the sale fell through. Thus, although the Greenaways had to stay, the rest of us had the benefit of their continued residence in the parish.

Jack was always a pleasure to meet. Shortly before his death, he and Clara said they had lived very happily in Crux Easton and, though the farm made little money, they had no regrets. Clara died only eight months after Jack, aged 94. They are buried together in the churchyard:- “parted only briefly.”

Their sons had long since moved away and, when Clara died, the farm was sold out of the family.

Agricola, July 2022