Hidden Henley

Hardly “hidden”, this stone marks the Henley Tabernacle in 1878 and is right alongside the pavement on the D2 building where hundreds of people pass by. At the bottom is the name “C Clements: Builder”.

Charles Clements was both a builder and alderman who was a member of the Temperance movement who were dedicated to “eradicating the evils of intoxicating drink”. In Simon Townley’s history book of this town he quotes Clements as knowing “many cases amongst my own men where on a Saturday half-day they do not reach home till 7 or 8 or later in the evening, with very little of their wages left to go to their wives”. And this was when Henley had a population of 5,600 with 51 pubs plus 11 other alcoholic outlets!

He was responsible for building the much admired Norman Avenue houses where each one has an imaginative but different design with echoes of Friar Park. It is unsure whether there is any truth that these properties incorporated surplus building materials from the making of Friar Park. He rebuilt the junction of Greys Road and Friday Street with generous properties, road widening and rounding of the corners. He undertook the replacement of buildings in Duke Street to broaden and update this important roadway.

However, he seems to have looked after himself as well. When the Georgian Town Hall was demolished in 1898 to make way for the new one that we see today and to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, Clements purchased the old town hall for £65 and had it taken (presumably by horses and carts) to Crazies Hill – a considerable task – where it was reconstructed as his family’s home. It’s still there to this day.