The Chapmans

Wokingham Times March 6^th.1975

They called the house Upatree. Which was certainly more descriptive than Chez Nous or Shangrila. For there it was, 10 or 12ft. Off the ground, a snug and comfortable home built on a massive branch sprouting from a pine tree on land off Barkham Ride, Finchampstead.

And in it for many years lived Mr and Mrs. Alfred J. Chapman, their daughter and several of their five sons. Rent free into the bargain.

A painter, glazier and decorator, though he could turn his hand to most things, Alfred Chapman as a young man had a shop in the then small village of Bracknell. But his horizons there were limited and a few years later he and his wife moved to Richmond.

Life at Richmond, however, was possibly harder than life at Bracknell. Certainly the dreams Alfred Chapman had of improving his business on the fringe of London failed to come true, for these were the years immediately after the First World War and life was a struggle for many families.

Hearing that land was available in the California – Finchampstead area he decided to return to Berkshire. The family moved by night the six childred piled with the furniture in three horse-drawn vans.

No one knows what Alfred Chapman thought of the land off Barkham Ride when he arrived, though having lived at Bracknell he should have had some knowledge of the area and the desolate and almost barren acres that lay south of Wokingham 50 years ago.

The land may have beeen inhospitable, the few families who lived in the area were not, and for a few days Mrs. Chapman and the younger children found a home with a Miss Wigg and a Miss Mason and her brother while Alfred and the older boys slept under a tarpaulin on the ground.

But Alfred was a practical man. With second hand timber he built a small bungalow around a tree and sank a well on the land he had bought off Barkham Ride. It was comfortable enough, but the land was liable to flood after prolonged rain and Alfred knew the bungalow around the tree could only be his family’s home until he could build more suitable accommodation.

Near this first bungalow a pine reared towards the sky with one of its branches- almost as stout as the tree itself-running parallel to the ground a few feet up. This, thought Alfred Chapman was strong enough to support the house he planned, and in the weeks that followed the area rang to the sound of his axe as he cut down the tree to within a foot or two of the branch and the noise of his saw as he shaped the wood he required.

Within weeks the place was complete with the branch of the tree as its foundation and the rest of the building supported on wooden piles driven into the ground. The timber frame was covered with weatherproof sheeting (later replaced with cladding), windows were installed and a verandah approached by steps led to the entrance door. Alfred Chapman may have known an Englishman’s home is his castle but it was the knowledge that the land was liable to flooding that led him to build a moat most of the way around his house in the tree.

Later the piles supporting the building were also covered and a door and windows installed, an improvement which kept the cold from entering the house from underneath and provided the family with a store room.

Alfred Chapman was a skilled and determined man. Years earlier he cycled regularly from London to court the girl who was to be his wife. She lived in Reading and worked for Huntley and Palmers. His skill was apparent in the warm and comfortable home he built up a tree. It had a living room complete with kitchen range, a bedroom and a bathroom and a roomy storehouse in the basement. There were pictures on the walls, a cosy fire burned in the grate and running water came from the cistern on the roof topped up by a pump on the well he dug.

Alfred and his wife and family were very much at home.

He made only one mistake in building his house up a tree, though it was quickly rectified. He had failed to take into account the force which the wind blew across these barren acres of Berkshire, and in a gale the bough supporting his home blew in the wind. It was like living in a storm tossed ship at sea and the only remedy was to saw through the branch where it protruded from the side of the house.

Comfortable though it was, warm and snug though it was, the house was obviously too small for a man, his wife and six growing children. The problem was resolved when the older boys decided to go back to London and find work, for jobs were not easy to come by locally.

The children left at home were Leonard, who now lives in Shepherd’s Bush, London, and his sister Christine, now a widow living in Barkham Road, Wokingham. As a young lady she was in service with the Heelas family in Wokingham. Leonard had a paper round for W.H.Smith at Crowthorne Station, worked for Foys, the Wokingham ironmonger and grocer, had a spell with Ashley Pick and Sons, wire rope makers in Denmark Street, Wokingham, and finally a muilk round in Finchampstead before moving to work in London when he was 16.

Leonard had a leg injury as a child and despite surgery in the 1930’s still feels its effects. In the first few months he lived in Barkham Ride he trav elled to school in a pram. Later he and his sister were transferred to the school at Arborfield with the school bus supplied by a fuel merchant from Finchampstead. The lorry was covered with a tarpaulin supported on hoops to carry the children to and from school; for the rest of the day it was used to deliver coal.

Alfred Chapman and his wife continued living in Barkham Ride and the novelty of Upatree brought them nationwide publicity, especially when Alfred disputed that he should pay rates. He argued – though unsuccessfully – that since his home had no foundations in Berkishire soil his dwelling was not rateable, an argument no rating officer came up against every day.

And Alfred? A man with skills sufficient to build a comfortable home up a tree was never short of work and returned to his job as a painter, decorator and glazier. He also became a general dealer and at one stage he and his wife drove around in a De Dion Bouton car he bought for just a few pounds locally.

Alfred and his wife, Kate, continued to live in the home they made up a tree until their deaths during the Second World War. It had stood through all weathers for 20 years, proof indeed that Alfred knew what he was doing when he first took an axe to a tree in Barkham Ride.

Alfred and Kate are buried in Finchampstead churchyard and Up0atree has disappeared under a postwar estate of bungalows.

But Upatree is not forgotten completely, nor are those for whom it was a home. Alfred and Kate are still remembered locally and on the estate of post-war bungalows is a house known as Treetops.

But it’s much more down-to-earth a place than it was ....