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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 gat 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," 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!"

When I was small I used to love to listen to my father relate this story of how the A'BEAR family got their unusual name. It was a story well known to all the family, even though the A'BEARs are only really quite distant relatives. My father was told it by his grandmother, who was a great friend of Ada A'BEAR, her mother‑in-law's younger sister.

Many families have legends such as this. Indeed, the A'BEARs have at least three. But does anyone really take them seriously? Aren't they just fantastic romanticism?

It was, when my father began to look into the history of the A'BEARs of Wargrave that he prompted one of their descendants, Stephen LEACH, to look into whether there was any truth behind the family's folklore.

The best known published work on Wargrave, Pope's History of the Parish (1929), spends quite some time on the A'BEARs,, talking about the old family deeds and trying to ascertain the origins of the family, which he believed lay in 'Bere of Oakingham' (Wokingham). He quite rightly says that they were one of the oldest families in the parish, living there at least since 1340, although the last of them had left Wargrave in the year previous to Pope's writings.

The A'BEAR coat of arms is also displayed, and Pope tells of a second legend as to how the crest of five ostrich plumes was given to an ancestor for his services as Standard Bearer at Crécy.

This legend is, in fact, recounted incorrectly and is a sort of cross between the two other legends known to the A'BEARs of today. One is that an ancestor was the Norman Standard Bearer at the Battle of Hastings, hence the origin of the name. 'A BEAR-er'. This legend has, sadly, been dismissed, since the words 'standard bearer' derive from the early English and not the Norman‑French language. The other legend is, however, much more interesting. It relates how an A'BEAR ancestor fought at the battle of Crécy in 1347 and was rewarded with the ostrich feather crest for saving the life of the Black Prince!

There is in the possession of my cousin, John A'BEAR of Seend (the present head of the family), a very old framed painting, on parchment,, of the family coat of arms mentioned by Pope. However, there is no A'BEAR arms, with or without ostrich feathers, registered at the College of Arms. Through his researches though, Stephen has discovered that the arms are identical to that of the DE LA BERE family of Herefordshire. Not only this. but Sir Cameron DE LA BERE of Geneva (the present head of the DE LA BERE family) told him the exact same tradition as that passed down the A'BEAR family, that an ancestor, this time named as one Richard DE LA BERE, saved the Black Prince's life at Crécy and was knighted and presented with the plume crest as a reward.

It would seem likely therefore that the ABEAR and DE LA BERE families are, in fact, one and the same. Indeed, there seems to be some tradition of a connection with the DE LA BEREs still lingering on. As late as 1778, Mary the 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 raise her social standing.

There is a] so a very similar legend in the BEAUCHAMP family about an ancestor and the Black Prince at Crécy. It is recorded that at one point in the battle, the Prince was outnumbered and in danger of losing his life., On being informed, his father Edward III sent only a handful of reinforcements saying, "Let the boy win his spurs". It is therefore thought that it was here that the Prince's life was saved by perhaps several knights, DE LA BERE and BEAUCHAMP among them.

The fact that Richard gained the prize of five ostrich feathers is significant in itself, as it was at the battle of Crécy that they first became associated with the Prince of Wales, although of course in this case there were only three. It is said that as a sign of respect for the blind King of Bohemia,, who was killed in the battle, that the Black Prince took away with him the King's coronet and ostrich feathers.

But what of Richard's title? Certainly it is recorded that before the battle he was simply Mr DE LA BERE and soon afterwards he had become Sir Richard, Prince's bachelor and constable and keeper of the Prince's Castle of Emlyn (Newcastle Emlyn in Dyfed). Unfortunately though, there is no record of exactly when or why he quickly became so elevated. Sir Cameron DE LA BERE is descended from Sir Richard's son John, and the brasses of his descendants can be seen in Hereford Cathedral.

But although the legend indicates the A'BEARs are descended from Sir Richard. are they descendants of John or a brother, legitimate or otherwise? Who can say?

The first mention of an A'BEAR that can be found is of 'Thomas A BARRE', sheriff of Hereford in 1357 though that is believed  to just be short for DE LA BARRÉ. The earliest record of the name in Wargrave is a John DE LA BERE of Wargrave in 1318, which again would back up the theory that the two names are one. A year earlier, a Richard DE BERE was residing in Shiplake, just over the border in Oxfordshire, where many of the Hereford DE LA BEREs held lands. By 1325 the name was John ATTE BERE, and it is presumably from this spelling 'that A'BEAR stems.

Before I close, I must return to the wonderful, though rather fanciful, legend with which I began. The Dictionary of British Surnames tells us that A'BEAR comes from the Old English for Swine Pasture, however the DE LA BEREs' ancestry goes back to Normandy before the conquest and so would derive from Old French. It would seem that both recorded and legendary origins of the name A'BEAR are therefore nonsense. Legend should never be forgotten though, but always borne in mind. In Burns' 'History of Henley-upon-Thames' (1861) was discovered the following passage:

"The family of A'BEAR still 1 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."

Somehow this must be the basis of the Mr BEAR story.