Following yesterday’s article  on Joan Rice, we now feature none other than Robin Hood himself, namely Richard Todd – very popular film actor of the fifties, both here in Britain and the USA, where he had scored such a hit with The Hasty Heart.

However Walt Disney was to change the style of things when in 1951 he cast him as Robin Hood – a film made here in England at Denham Film Studios – and later in The Sword and The Rose and then Rob Roy The Highland Rogue.

This picture must have been taken during the filming of Rob Roy as Richard was sporting a beard for the part, so that would date the picture to the spring or early summer of 1953 I reckon.  The caption says that the picture was taken in the garden of his home in Maidenhead – in fact he lived at Pinkneys Green – just outside the town at the time.    His son  Peter was born on 30 th June 1952,  the year of the release on The Story of Robin Hood and Rob Roy was filmed early spring of 1953, so Peter would be just under a year old here. This garden was at Wayside House, Pinkneys Green and the dog is ‘Baron’

Richard Todd takes us on a filmed tour of Wayside House in 1957, and from what he says in the newsreel,  later that day he was going to see the local Vicar to organise his daughter, Fiona’s Christening.   In the film we see his son Peter speed past in a toy car.

He does say also though that they are selling Wayside House and would be moving to Haileywood House, Shiplake where he would become a Dairy Farmer of some repute. His film career at this time was it it’s peak.

Christening. See Below :

Richard Todd and his Wife Catherine, had purchased Wayside House in Pinkneys Green,  and moved in at the end of September 1950. I have included the pictures below, which I did include in an earlier article.