"Family history is the only history made or written at Chotank." Douglas Southall Freeman Parttime Professor, Columbia University, New York, Richmond Newspaper Editor with PhD from Johns Hopkins, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author of George Washington and Robert E. Lee Biographies

1863 Map from Queen Victoria's Reign Showing
"Clay Hall and Shaw Farms" in Windsor Castle Home Park

The map is page 74 in The Prince Consort's Farms: An Agricultural Memoir by John Chalmers Morton (London, 1863).
The original Clay Hall Farm, that was owned by Samuel Foote/Foot, is the Roman boot-shaped section on bottom right of map.
The open toe part of Farm's foot-shape points down out-of-view to left of scale-in-chains.
Roman burial remains in British Museum were found at Tyle Place Farm, just below Clay Hall toward Old Windsor.   
Fall 2007 GOOGLE satellite photography clearly shows the Roman boot shape of
the recently-plowed land that was once owned by Topham Foote/Foot's father.

[I first visited Clay Hall Farm in June 2002 when Dottie and I with our granddaughter, Niki Foote of Roanoke, Virginia, took the Windsor double-deck tour bus by the Windsor Farm Shop in the Home Park. The bus route had transversed a large part of the Clay Hall Farm before reaching the fork to Old Windsor where its bearing turned North toward the Park Ranger's Shop at the Royal Gardens. We then went on to Eton via Datchet. In May 2006 I returned to the vicinity of Clay Hall Farm to walk the Long Walk to the Double Gate separating the Home Park from the Great Park. I was feeling great emotions of "place" attachment to the Clay Hall Farm area only a stone's throw away from my viewing point after I had walked to the nearby fence. These feelings were greatly enhanced by my plans to meet Churchwarden Michael Harding at Windsor Parish Church within a few hours. Harding had invited me to attend a historical society meeting that night in Windsor. But, I did not know that Harding had also arranged later that afternoon for the ringing of the Church bells to thank me for my family's support of the Parish. The bells would be heard not only within the walls of the Castle but over an even greater distant by the crowds gathering at Frogmore. After checking with Crown Office security during my stroll, I took a path off the main marked walk going all the way to the boundary of the Great Park at New Meadows. I gazed over the vine-covered fence toward Clay Hall Farm for several minutes. After taking many photos of pastures across the fence I snapped more shots of the review ground that borders the Long Walk. All the while I hummed "Oh let me take you by the hand, and lead you through the streets of London. I'll show you something to make you change your mind." I had never appreciated Roger Whittaker's song that much as then. Avon Edward Foote, 6 October 2007.]

Letter to Horton Foote, author of "Dividing the Estate",
and Foote/Foot notes featuring links to Chotank family history or
Jump to St. Dunstan's in the East for Will of Richard Foote,
father of Samuel Foote/Foot and grandfather of Topham Foote/Foot

Buttons above in THORNWOOD logo are Clickable

Lori Hemingway, The Crown Estate in London, wrote Avon Edward Foote, 30 November 2005:
" . . . I can confirm that The Crown Estate owns both Tyle Place Farm and
Clay Hall Farm. We have little historic information at The Crown Estate,
but would suggest that any further enquiries should be addressed to
the Librarian at Windsor Castle."