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One sunny day in times gone by, a Wargrave farmer, Mr. Bear, was having a break from his daily duties, leaning against a gate watching the day go by, when the King's hunting party rode up. "Open the Gate, my good fellow," ordered the King. Mr. Bear looked up slowly.
"Open it yourself," he snapped. The King was naturally rather taken aback by this response, and his courtiers looked at each other in astonishment.
"What's your name, sir?" the King bellowed.
"My name's Bear," Mr. Bear replied, still unmoved.
"Well, by heaven, you certainly are a bear of a man for standing up to your King," retorted the Monarch, and he paused for thought before continuing, "so from this day forward you shall be known as A Bear!"

This is one of two A'Bear family legends which explain the origin of their unusual name. Romantic though it is, does anyone really take folklore like this seriously? Certainly, the early Wargrave parish registers record seventy-five percent of A'Bears with the surname of merely "Bear". However, this was no doubt due to the ignorance of the parish clerks, for elsewhere the same people are recorded under one variation or another of "Abear".

Still, this legend may actually have some basis in fact, for in Burns' "History of Henley-upon-Thames" (1861) is to be found the following passage:

"The family of A'Bear still holds a farm at Harehatch (Wargrave). It is said that when Charles II was passing near it, one of his courtiers remarked that "that family" had held it for 500 years, and that the farm had never been more or less in quantity, which gave occasion for a witty remark of the Merry Monarch."

The second legend can, unfortunately, be dismissed rather more quickly. This tells how an A'Bear ancestor was the Norman standard bearer at the Battle of Hastings, and hence became known as "A Bear(er)". This does not quite ring true, for, sadly, the words "standard bearer" come from the Anglo-Saxon and not the Norman-French language. Thus his fellows would never have called him by such a name.

It is interesting that despite the fact that most early references to the name are written as "Abear" or "Abeare", the apostrophe has persisted over the centuries and is still used by the descendants of the last of the family to leave Wargrave in the early part of the 20th century. It is indeed correct to place an apostrophe between A and B, for the earliest known documents concerning the A'Bear family, the sixteenth century wills, record the name with a definite gap at this juncture: "A Beyre" (1550), "A Beare" (1553 & 1562) and "A Bere" (1557). Wills are the most personal documents we have from this time, and the name is spelt by the individual. So if the apostrophe is correct, it must replace something, as the rules of English grammar demand. But what? For the answer, some of the earliest records concerning Wargrave must be examined.

In a grant of tenement from the parson of Wargrave, dated 23rd June 1325, some hundred and sixty years before the approximate birth date of the earliest known A'Bear, there is recorded amongst other East Berkshire witnesses of substance, one John Atte Bere! Surely a member of the same family showing the three missing letters now replaced by an apostrophe. The same man appears again in 1340 in a document known as the "Nonarum Inquisitorum" which evaluates the agricultural produce of every parish in England ready for taxation for the French Wars. Among the villagers of Wargrave reporting on their inability to pay was John Atte Bere. In Anglo-Saxon, "atte" or plain "at" means "by" or "near" as in the more common present day names of Attwood or Attwater, and "bere" means "swine pasture". So are the A'Bears of Saxon origin? Possibly not, for on 5th December 1318 one John De la Bere of Wargrave is recorded in, the Calendar of Patent Rolls, as being among fourteen residents of east Berkshire accused, by the Earl of Lancaster, of breaking into Ashridge Park, near Wokingham, and stealing the corn there. (It is unclear if these were just the ringleaders or the sole malefactors.) Twenty-three years later, in 1341, the Calendar of Close Rolls records the same man's acknowledgement that he owes twenty pounds to his daughter, Agnes, which is to be levied from his lands in Berkshire on default of payment. "De la" meaning "of the" is, of course, a straight translation of "atte" into Norman-French.

So the name was Atte Bere or De la Bere depending purely on who you were talking to at the time. Indeed, some tradition of the more commanding Norman version of the name appears to have lingered on in the A'Bear family. As late as 1778, Mary, daughter of Caleb A'Bear of Wargrave, used the surname De la Bere at her marriage to Francis Christopher Augustus Berg. No doubt she hoped it would improve her social standing. Which was originally correct within the family though - were they Saxon or Norman? Here we must look to a third legend still told in the A'Bear family: that one of their A'Bear ancestors saved the life of the Black Prince at the Battle of Crécy in 1346! For this legend is certainly not total fantasy. There is still in existence today a family by the name of De la Bere, chiefly represented by Sir Cameron De la Bere of Geneva, using the same coat of arms attributed to the A'Bears; and they tell the exact same story, this time naming the ancestor as one Sir Richard De la Bere. Surely not a coincidence.

If Sir Richard was an ancestor of the A'Bears, as seems almost certain, who then was the John De la Bere/Atte Bere who was active in Wargrave in the early fourteenth century, not long before Crécy? It seems likely that he was in fact Sir Richard's father, Sir John De la Bere of Weobley Castle in South Wales. In the 1341 Close Rolls his daughter Agnes is mentioned. Though no daughter Agnes is otherwise known for John De la Bere of Weobley, his wife was so named, and a daughter named after her seems likely. The Berkshire documents always refer to him, not as of Weobley Castle, but as John De la Bere of Wargrave because when in Berkshire, that was who he was, to the locals at least. They would have had little knowledge of his other estates, and officials would only be concerned with the estate involved in the issues under investigation. One can imagine John, in his early twenties, being packed off by his father to look after one of his minor estates deep within England. A young noble would have thought himself very important in a tiny village such as Wargrave. He might even be hot headed enough to break into a park with some of his fellows and steal all the corn!  

There is still a further issue to examine. What does the name actually mean? As demonstrated, the prefix can switch between Saxon and Norman-French and there was certainly at least one, probably unrelated, family living at Malshanger in Hampshire in the 13th century, whose suffix derived directly from the Saxon 'Barrow,' ie. a burial mound. In view of our family having lived in Wales for several generations, however, there is a possibility that the latter part is in fact of Celtic origin. "Bere" or "Bered" can mean "Cemetery"  in Celtic, and "A'Bear" or "Ab Bere" in Welsh would therefore be "son of the cemetery". It has even been suggested that the cemetery was on Bowsey Hill in Wargrave, where Bear Place stands, due to an old legend telling that this was the junction on Earth between heaven and hell. The King could have cut Mr. Bear (or Bere) down, saying "Now you will be Ab Bere, Son of the Cemetery"! A Robert ap Ber did, in fact, sign the foundation charter of Neath Abbey in South Wales. Alternatively, "Ber" means "Spear" in Celtic, so "son of the Spear" is another possibility. However, the more common meaning of 'Bere' in Welsh place-names is simply a 'hill': as seen in places like Castell-y-Bere. The word can also to extended to other 'high places' and also animals, such as the bird of prey known in English as the kite. Could these be the birds on the family coat of arms? It is certainly tempting to think that the A'Bears may have taken their name from Bear Hill (now Linden Hill) in Harehatch, living on its slopes at Bear Place before transferring the name to their new home at Hill House. A Celtic origin for Berkshire place-names is unlikely however. If the early De la Beres came over with the Conqueror, the original hill would probably have been in Brittany, and it may have been because of their Celtic language that the family were given lands in Wales. The A'Bears would therefore appear to always have been "of the Hill".