was part of the promotion that the properties would front roadways that would be brought up to specification for adoption by the highway authorities.

These three roads were in the process of being brought up to specification in 1931 for adoption by Eton Rural District Council and caught in that process, they seem not to have been part of the assets in the control of the Official Receiver.

Langstone 12 Syke Cluan

So, when land nearby was sold off to Boyer Sand and Gravel in 1938, the land occupied by these roads was specifically excluded. Mr Leno of Farr

Bedford (Agents for Boyers) when approached by the Richings Park Residents' Association about the matter in 1982 was able to provide a copy plan of the 1938 conveyance to Boyers to show that the land on which these roads stand was specifically not conveyed to Boyers. Thus they became ownerless. When the accommodation bridge was built to take the lane over the M4 and a deviation of its line was necessary, great efforts were made to persuade the Department of Transport to incorporate the remaining 550 yards back to Old Slade Farm but to no avail.

The station track.

When the Estate was built there remained a wide track running from the top of Wellesley Avenue to Thorney Lane South, behind the then Plaza cinema and the houses fronting Bathurst Walk. This track appeared on old maps and pre-dated the Estate and possibly the railway. It ran

alongside, but was separate from, the station path which is on railway land. It seems possible that for some unknown reason, the Sykes brothers retained ownership of this track, along with other parcels of land, when they set up their private company in 1926. Mr Roberts and others recollect that this was one of the parcels of land offered for auction after the company went into receivership. It is thought that no buyer was found.

From the 1930s onwards it remained a badly rutted, potholed gravel track used to access the station from Thorney Lane South and for parking cars for commuters using the station. After the war the Plaza was sold to a Mr Norrish who sold it in 1959 and Wellesley Court was subsequently built on the site. The sale included no part of the station track and old photographs show the wall between the two still much the same then as now.