Place Name
Majorie Ashfield (born 1919) was the only child of Lionel Warde of Petersham House who owned the land on which this road was built. Her mother died during childbirth. The road was named in 1968 a decade after she wed Captain Richard Ashfield. The marriage was not a happy one, he was 51 at the time and she was desperate for a child of her own. As a court case heard in 1988 was to reveal the pair had met at a Conservative party function, he was married with two children. At first she tried to repair his marriage but realising she was falling in love with him she broke off their friendship. They reunited and married once his divorce was completed. Ashfield was a director of the Canning Town glassworks and to this she bought him membership of Lloyds and a City Livery Company. She was later to say that physical contact with Ashfield gave her no pleasure. The Times reported: “He insisted on a house of his own, a boat, a steamroller and a miniature railway. She bought these, but he became increasingly unpleasant.” His fellow directors resigned and he was eventually forced out of his own company. In 1962 the couple had a child named John. But parenthood did nothing to repair the relationship. “My father died after a three-month illness and he was just about able to make his mark on documents to avoid death duties,” she said. “My husband was furious if I went to see him and it became obvious he had married me for my money. He did not speak to me for 12 years, apart from giving orders.” He instead cavorted with the family’s Swiss au pair. The couple separated in 1978. A few years earlier she began to form a friendship with her son’s maths tutor, Andrew Witham. Perhaps desperate for company and a friendly voice, she fell for his charms. He quickly gave up his job to run a game farm on her estate, as their platonic relationship grew she gave him increasingly more expensive gifts. They formed a company together buying and selling property in Chelsea. She sold Petersham House and used the furniture to furnish her Norfolk property Geldeston Hall which she have to Witham after writing her own son out of her will when he told her he had no interest in farming. She later accused Witham of threatening her and claimed that her generosity was the result of being under “undue influence” and she later claimed she had done so to avoid death duties. But by the mid-1980s she had a change of heart having been estranged from him for four years, the pair met and he informed her he was engaged and she decided to try to win back the estate for him. She only dropped the case after several days of cross examination in the witness box. Witham later said: “I am delighted with the result. I retain all my land and properties. I feel absolutely vindicated . The whole truth has not been stated because the case has stopped while she was still giving evidence and I have not told my side of the story. But the allegations of undue influence were nonsense. It took a year to draw up these deeds of gifts. If there had been any undue influence that would have been speeded up.”
