LETTER OF THE MONTH
WALTER WILDER AND SONS
An article you published in the October 2023 , page 35, Rural Relics made me cast my mind back to 1955 when I worked for 37 years for Walter Wilder and Sons Ltd Crowmarsh, Oxon. The Wilder family extends as iron founders from 1760 burning charcoal to heat the furnace. Many descendant sons set up foundries in villages and towns in order, Ipsden village and adjacent Hailey. Crowmarsh village then in the towns Reading, Guildford, Henley, and Wallingford. One of them, Walter Wilder, set up his foundry in Crowmarsh, which he rented from the Howbery Estate farm. The old barn in the attached image (from the booklet compiled by memories from the Wilder family and archives) is where he set up his foundry in 1868.
