About this site

History of this website
This website has grown from an idea conceived in 1999 to the multi-page site it is today. The initial idea was to delve into the history of the current Coley House and the original Coley Park Farm located on the Coley Park estate. My inspiration was a number of black and white photographs taken during the construction of the high rise flats by my late father, Ron Rosier.

After many years of very time-consuming research, much has been achieved. The discovery of an earlier manor house located close to the farm came as a real surprise. The three large brick and pottery kilns that existed once were most interesting. It was their owners that built the first houses on Coley Avenue.

By 2002 there was a basic one page (but very long winded) website on the Internet, titled Memories of Coley Park. As the website started to grow, the name changed slightly in 2004 to Memories of Coley Park and Beyond.

In January 2006 the site was completely revamped with a nice green theme throughout and became Coley Park and Beyond. In March 2007 a separate sub-section was introduced to provide the growing coverage of the older Coley district.

In March 2010, after four years of the green theme, we have gone blue. With this change the screen width of the website has increased, due to the now increasingly higher resolution monitors available. The web pages are now smart enough to automatically expand to any screen size over 1024 x 768 pixels. Content wise, many of the website pages have been updated, expanded or completely rewritten to provide more accurate information and sometimes better images.

I cannot emphasize enough, the appreciation I feel to those who have sent me wonderful photographs or historical information, or just their own personal memories of Coley Park. And to those who have unselfishly gone out and taken photos just to fill the blanks in this website, I am truly indebted.

Coley House 'The Mansion' built in c1805

About the Author
I was born in Tilehurst, Reading in 1956. My family first lived at a caravan park at Bridle Path in Tilehurst (long since built over with housing). We moved to Coley Park when the housing estate and myself were in their infancy (I was around 2½ years old). My parents and I moved into a new council-built house in Lesford Road in early 1958.

I went to Coley Primary School on Wolseley Street and attended Sunday School at Carey Baptist Church in Carey Street, and later at the new Coley Baptist Church. Later I joined the 58th Reading Boy Scouts located at St. Saviours Hall in Coley. I then attended Alfred Sutton Boy's School on the Wokingham Road in September 1967. I now live near Perth in Western Australia.

I think you always have a close affinity with the place you grew up in as a child. It's a time when almost everything was either challenging, interesting, new or just plain fun. A time when there seemed to be no worries in the world and the days and years definitely lasted a lot longer.

Most of my personal memories of Coley Park come from the 1960's, when I lived there. My memories are as clear and vivid as yesterday, and I suppose that is useful for a history website. I did however, return for flying visits in May 1982 and June 1991, just to see how the place was changing. Contributions to the website have enabled the site to expand and improve, which has helped to make this the best Coley Park website on the net.

Contributions
If you have any photos (historical or recent) that you would like included on this website, please send to the email address below and I will include all suitable images on the next update. Also any facts or articles that could be used to improve the website would be greatly appreciated, and of course, any lasting memories.

Regards
Kevin