Page 1002 - Reading Mercury

With immense enthusiasm for building (again, a practical man who could use
skilled hands in an emergency), he reconstructed “The Times” office and re-built the
Bear Wood house. The designs were his, bricks came from his estate, so did wood-
work. The village of Sindlesham next to the Bear Wood estate, he practically rebuilt,
making it a model of its kind.
It was his father who, two years before his death, erected St. Catherine’s Church at
Bear Wood. (Catherine Walter, only 25, died with pathetic suddenness in December
of 1844).
John Walter III, in connection with his work on the estate, the area of which he
extended considerably created the present beautiful lake below the mansion. This was
to bring tragedy. His eldest son, John, destined to succeed him with “The Times,”
after leaving Oxford travelled round the world. Returning to Bear Wood only a very
short while, he and others of the family were enjoying ice-skating on the lake on
Christmas Eve of 1870, when the ice broke. John was drowned endeavouring to
rescue his brother and a cousin. Because of this, Arthur Fraser Walter became at
length Chief Proprietor
To his father, John, is owing the public beauty-spot at Finchampstead Ridges. John
Walter in 1861-3 made a road across the Ridges and down towards Crowthorne,
lining either side of the lower part with Wellingtonias, which today have become
enormous trees. He also extended the Wokingham road to the Ridges. He died at Bear
Wood in 1894.
Arthur Fraser Walter, High Steward of Wokingham, and a Director of the London
and S,-W. Railway, a barrister who never practised, died in 1910.
A memorial service for Mr. John Walter will be held at St. Catherine’s Church, Bear
Wood, on Sunday at 11 a.m.

End of Wokingham news from the Reading Mercury, which became the Berkshire
Mercury in 1970 and was published on Thursdays. The Berkshire Mercury stopped
publishing in 1979.
During the period Aug 1968 to Aug 1971 news was taken from Wokingham Times
microfilms.
The Reading Mercury, or, Weekly Entertainer 1723-1725 continued as The Reading
Mercury and Oxford Gazette, etc. 1767-1831, and then continued as Reading
Mercury, Oxford Gazette and Berkshire County Paper, etc 1831-1839.
It carried on as Reading Mercury, Oxford Gazette, Newsbury Herald and Berks
County Paper, etc. 1839-1960, continued as Reading Mercury, etc. 1960-1970 and
finally as Berkshire Mercury 1970-1979.

Wokingham Times
1968-1970
th
Thursday 29 August 1968 is the start date of the earliest Wokingham Times
microfilm. There is also a gap between January 1972 and April 1981.

1968
th
Thur 29 Aug
Francis Staniland, missionary in Japan for many years, world traveller and founder,
editor and publisher of the Wokingham and Bracknell Gazette and County Review set
th
out his aims for the future in the first issue of his newspaper. January 24 1903.

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