Merrily to Swakeleys

Having lived in Ickenham for for more than 30 years I felt that it was necessary just to say something about this interesting place. But what?We don't go back as far as the beginnings of the Tower of London, but we don't do so badly either for a small village. We have a twelfth century church and a manor house started around the same time. But what about the interest? Not perhaps as nation shattering or momentous as the things going on in the Tower of London, but curiosity - yes. Plenty of excitement - Swakeleys House, St. Giles church and Gospel Oak. Indeed plenty of interest and mysteries too - the tea caddy to be found in the church, the disappearance of the plaster cast of the Earl of Essex from Swakeleys House, and why wasn't the black boy, talked about by diarist Samuel Pepys when he visited the House in 1665, in the cupboard under the stairs when they opened it in 1923?