Goring’s Jubilee Fire Station

The fire station opened in May 1937 and its short history makes an interesting story. 1935 had been King George V’s Silver Jubilee and it was decided to hold suitable celebrations in Goring and Streatley to mark the occasion. Villagers in the Gap have always enjoyed a right royal party, a tradition that continues to this day. Naturally a committee was set up and the King George V Jubilee Fund came into being. Fund raising was very successful and soon there was £207 in the kitty which equates to over £10,000 today. The Jubilee jollifications cost £102, leaving a considerable surplus. Meanwhile on 20 January 1936 the King had died and it was agreed to spend £70 of the left-over money on building a permanent memorial to George V which should be lasting and also of service to the community. There were several suggestions for the memorial, of which two reached the finals. The winner was a fire station, which was badly needed to house the Goring Voluntary Fire Brigade’s equipment. A bathing place with changing huts to be run by Goring Parish Council came second, which would have probably been very popular with the public but perhaps of less relevance to the late King’s memory. A Trust was set up to oversee the project, which was completed in 1937. The total cost was in the region of £500 and so a considerable amount of extra funding was required. Collections were made in the surrounding parishes which were covered by Goring Fire Brigade: Checkendon, Crowmarsh, Goring Heath, Ipsden, Mapledurham, North Stoke, South Stoke, Streatley, Whitchurch and Woodcote. The Goring Brigade members, under Section Officer George Hill, not only helped with the collections but also held dances, whist drives and organized parades to make money. Individuals also held private dances. Even the Women’s Institute pitched in and went round carol singing at Christmas. A site was needed for the new premises and this was supplied at a modest cost by the Franklin family who ran a garage on the land on the corner of Red Cross Road and the High Street. Established in 1886, it had been a livery stables in Victorian times, from which James Franklin hired out horses and traps or carriages for people arriving at the nearby railway station. With the advent of the motor car, the family adapted to the times and sold petrol as well as repairing and maintaining motor vehicles, along with hiring and selling cars. They could spare a plot of land with a 27 feet frontage to Red Cross Road. It no doubt helped that the boss, Edwin Franklin, was himself a volunteer fireman. The conveyance is dated 9 February 1937 and the plot was sold freehold for £100. Mr HG Palmer, the chairman, and Mr Geer who was manager of Goring gas works, signed on behalf of the King George V Jubilee trustees. The trustees lost no time in finding architects to design the fire station: local men Messrs Leighton and Higgs were chosen and Goring builder T. Higgs and Son erected what was described as a ‘thoroughly sound but not over elaborate building’. In true community spirit most of the other costs were met by donations in kind. Richard Wilson, the local solicitor, performed all the legal transactions and did the correspondence with the Charity Commissioners free of charge, Mr Toms provided the memorial stone; Mrs Warren gave a clock for the interior; the South Oxfordshire Water & Gas Co. made no charge for connecting and erecting the heating apparatus. Mrs Palmer, wife of the Trust’s chairman, gave a first aid kit and last but not least, Mr E. Franklin donated the door handles and the flood lamp globe which had been used outside the fire station of RMS Mauretania. How Mr Franklin obtained this object is not known, nor its present whereabouts. The Trust seems to have been a most efficient organization as the new fire station was officially opened on Saturday 15 May 1937, only three months after the site was acquired. A large number of worthies was present at the ceremony, Jubilee Fire Station, Goring, opening 1937 Photo: GGLHS Reading Standard, January 1937 Credit: British Newspaper Archive August 2023 21 all of whose names are listed in the local newspaper account of the event, with members of visiting fire brigades lined up on one side of the space in front of the building and the Goring Brigade on the other. Key individuals were seated at a table between the two lines of firemen on which stood three trophies recently won by the Goring men. The Goring and Streatley Band played until Mrs Palmer, the Trust chairman’s wife, rose to perform the opening ceremony, following her husband’s speech of thanks to all who had contributed to the project. She too made a short address before unveiling the memorial stone. Officer George Hill then gave her a silver key with which she unlocked the side door of the fire station and entered the building, followed by members of the Goring Brigade, to each of whom she then gave a key. Other presentations followed, concluding with Mrs Palmer handing over the Deed of Gift of the building from the Trust to Mr Hamilton, the chairman of the Parish Council. The band struck up the National Anthem and all present sang God Save the King. The future upkeep of the Fire Station had been carefully planned. The Parish Council charged a rent for the premises to the Pangbourne, Goring and District Fire Brigade which covered rates, insurance and maintenance and ensured that these costs were not incurred by parish ratepayers. In the event, the Fire Brigade, although it continued to operate from the building until 1970, soon came under changing management. The 1938 Fire Brigades Act made district councils the responsible fire authority and Goring became answerable to Henley Rural District Council, but soon Britain was at war and in 1941 a National Fire Service (NFS) was created by the amalgamation of the Auxiliary Fire Service and the 1600 local authority fire brigades throughout Britain. Consequently in 1942 Goring negotiated the sale of their appliances and equipment to the NFS for £1,000. The NFS existed until 1948 when fire services reverted to local authority control and Goring came under the Oxfordshire Fire Service, run by the County Council. In 1953 the Charity Commissioners authorized the sale of the Fire Station to Oxfordshire County Council for £1,150. By this time, ownership of the site seems to have reverted to the Jubilee Trust, of which Goring Parish Council was a corporate trustee, who it seems invested the money partly in the Charities Official Investment Fund and partly in stock (4% consols). In 1970 the County Council decided to discontinue the use of the building as a fire station and in 1976 a new fire station was constructed at Cleeve. In the late 1970s the Oxfordshire Regional Health Authority purchased the fire station site for £10,500 and leased it to the local medical practice. The part of the site containing the disused fire station was not required under this scheme and in 1980 it was offered to the parish council on favourable terms. The council bought the freehold for £7,500 and subsequently developed the premises as its offices, which brings us to the present day. The King George V Jubilee Trust still exists, of course, and offers small community grants from time to time. Goring Voluntary Fire Brigade, founded in 1900, which has a long and interesting history of its own, continues to operate in modern form as an on-call Fire Station as part of Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service from its premises in Cleeve. Thanks are due to John Farrow for donating the copies of documents relating to