Records relating to the Sunninghill parish vestry and Parish Council, the Sunninghill...

This collection brings together papers from the Sunninghill Parochial Charities and the Sunninghill Fuel Allotment Trust along with a small number of records created initially by the Sunninghill Vestry and later the Sunninghill Parish Council. Although separate bodies, for the greater part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries they were managed, broadly speaking, by the same people, the Vicar, the Churchwardens, the Vestry or Parish Council of Sunninghill, and a few other local people.

The collection records the gradual urbanisation of Sunninghill and Ascot and the impact of the Railway compulsory land purchases on the area.

Sunninghill Parochial Charities

The 1913 Charity Commission Report on Endowed Charities in Berkshire reported on the following charities for Sunninghill (p 493): National Schools (including Schutz and Dawson bequests); Lucas’s Hospital; Moody; Fuel Allotment (founded as a consequence of the Windsor Enclosure of 1813); Mission Hall; Cordes Hall; and the parochial charities (including Lane, Squire, Palmer, Dawson, Parish Trust Estate and Stables charities).

The parochial charities were brought together by a Charity Commission scheme of 2 February 1894.

In this collection the papers of the Sunninghill Parochial Charities relate to the management of the income from the bequests which were amalgamated in 1894. A deed of 1731 describes various earlier bequests of land for the use of the poor of the parish.

Sunninghill Fuel Allotment Trust

The 1894 incorporation excluded the Sunninghill Fuel Allotment charity.

In the 1913 Report on Endowed Charities the Sunninghill Fuel Allotment Trust had the highest gross income and the largest real estate of all the Sunninghill charities and this is reflected in the large proportion of records relating to the charity in this collection. The creation of the trust is recorded in the Victoria County History for Berkshire: ‘By the Windsor Forest Inclosure Act, land known as Sunninghill Bog was granted to the poor in lieu of their right or liberty to cut fuel from the common or waste lands. Portions of the land have from time to time been sold or exchanged, and the property now consists of about 111 acres of land (…). The net income is applied in the distribution of coals in quantities of one or two sacks in each case to poor persons of the labouring class.’

During the 20th century the gradual decline in the use of coal led to the trust moving towards more general financial assistance to the poor and needy. By 2019/20 the objectives of the charity, as reported to the Charity Commission, included relieving poverty, relieving age or sickness, providing and supporting facilities for recreation or other leisure-time activities, and providing and supporting educational facilities.

1 Sunninghill Vestry and Sunninghill Parish Council

Sunninghill Parochial Charities

2 Reports
3 Older papers
4 Management papers from 1876

Sunninghill Fuel Allotment Trust

5 Financial and working papers
6 Land sales and exchanges
7 Roads and other land uses
8 Drainage scheme

D/QX17: Sunninghill Parochial Charities, 1914-1967

CPC126/16/1: Deeds of the Parish Trust Estate in Sunninghill and Winkfield and in Chobham (Surrey), 1665-1831