Introduction to Exhibition

For this year’s Library Lecture Dr Richard Johnston will tell the story of The Haven, a home for unmarried mothers run by the Baptists from 1945 till 1969.   Almost 1,800 babies were born there, and increasing numbers of people are contacting the Yateley Society’s website for information about The Haven.

But the story of The Haven did not start in 1945.  Kerala, the house which the Baptists renamed The Haven, was Yateley’s last mansion house, built over several years before WW1.  The photographs on Board 1 of this exhibition are of the pre-WW2 Macrae family home taken by an estate agent in 1935, and came to us from New Zealand.

Boards 2 & 3 of this exhibition will tell the story of The Haven from its inception, at the end of WW2, until its closure at the end of the ‘swinging sixties’.  The story will be illustrated with photographs taken from a film strip shown in Baptist churches in the 1950s. 

Board 4  will show how the houses in Greenhaven, the modern estate which replaced the house, relate to the siting of the original country house and its grounds.  Dr Johnston  will use maps and contempary photographs to relate the modern houses of Greenhaven with the location of the The Haven, and the still-existing structure of Kerala’s gardens and estate.

2005 is the 60th anniversary of the opening of The Haven.  Its story lies within living memory, yet is only accessible now in documents, photographs and very personal recollections.  Part of the role of  the Yateley Society is to recover such local history for future generations, and make it available today.

Back to 2005 Exhibition