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The Story of 3 Stert Street, Abingdon Oxfordshire
The above photograph would have been taken around 1920/1921 when No 3 was the Golden Cross public house. To the right of No 3 stands Waite's Printing Works, built some time after 1782 and sadly demolished to make way for a bank during the Second World War.
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3 Stert Street: the site It is very likely that the building preceding the present house was one of the boarding houses for the Grammar School, which itself may have been next door to St Nicolas' Church.6 If this was so, it was probably run by one Dionysia Mundy, who paid an annual rent of 1s 6d to the Abbey.7 We do not know what this putative boarding house looked like.
The Abingdon Area Archaeological and Historical Society, during its excavation within the old part of the house in
1970,8
found
the remains of a wide 14th-century rubble wall under the cellar which turned through a right-angle and disappeared under the
next-door building [now No 5 Stert Street.] Nobody knows of what sort of building this wall was a
part. It is about 20 feet
back from the line of the front of the present house [but it might not have been the front wall]. If this rubble structure
was part of Mrs Mundy's boarding house, it is not clear what its function was. It cuts into a 13th century rubbish pit,
which suggests that somebody was living on part of the site in the 13th century, and that fits in with what we know about the Abbey building on this land
at that time. Dionysia Mundy's name appears as a tenant in the records of the Fraternity of the Holy Cross in 1430,9 so if this is the same Dionysia Mundy who was running a school boarding house on this site, it looks as though the property at one time had been sold by the Abbey to the Fraternity and then later taken back again, which is known to have happened to other properties.
Dendrochronological examination10
has dated the building of the house to between 1466 and 1471. The width of the greater part of the building conforms to that specified in the Amyce survey of
1554,11
which recorded the details of what had been the property of Abingdon Abbey before its dissolution - ie 20 feet. It looks as though the narrow southern section was at some unknown time absorbed into No 3 from the house next door, making a total present-day width of 28 feet. However, this move did not include the appropriation of the equivalent part of next door's back garden; this irregularity is reflected in the subsequent and present boundary of the site of No 3. Thus part of the back of the house looks onto the modern bank site next
door.12
In 1554 Roger Amyce, the King's surveyor, carried out a survey of all the property in Abingdon owned by the
Crown.14
According to this record
the lessee of the house was one William Kysby, and he had paid the same rent to the Abbey as Robert
Coke. Kysby came from a clerical family and was twice Mayor of Abingdon,15
so it may be that No 3 was not grand enough for him to live in himself and he sub-let
it. Interestingly, the plan, based on Amyce, in Preston's book on St Nicolas'
church16, shows 103 feet between the house frontage and the west line of the Abbey wall, exactly as it is today. In the living room the remnants of an entirely different decoration were photographed in 1969 by Ron Henderson [below left] before they were destroyed during the refurbishment. It was common in the early 17th century to decorate between timbers in a style known as arcading. This was achieved by using a simple carbon black water-based paint on lime-washed infill panels. We are advised that the style is Jacobean. Again, Liese Cattle has expertly re-created the panels [below right] using the photograph as a guide.
During the four years following 1914, Charlotte Young, daughter of William and Amy Higgs, and her husband Ernest Young were the lessees; Ernest Young was a blacksmith who later worked for MG Cars. The Youngs' daughter, Winifred, grew up in the house and lived in it with her new husband, George Lewis, a chemical engineer, until they bought their own
property. Charlotte Young continued to rent No 3 until the freehold was sold in 1969; it had ceased to be a pub in 1921. There were also sub-tenants in the cottage which abutted the house at the back, whose names we do not know; sometimes Charlotte also let the downstairs room which had once been the taproom, though Barbara Lee - who rented it in the 1940s - complained that the whole place was so cold and damp that she was very ill
(conversation with Barbara Lee). " The house had not long been vacated but was in very bad condition. It smelt of poverty and neglect. The staircase was a death trap, sanitation primitive in the extreme, and in poky small rooms wallpaper festooned the walls in layer upon layer. To restore the house it was necessary to strip it to the beams. It was exciting to view the progress as first the wallpaper and then layers of plaster were removed. Gradually the worst was revealed. One day we were summoned to see the latest discovery; the newel post, a sturdy piece of timber, hanging in the air as its foot had rotted away. The front, too, was almost floating and ready to collapse into the street at any moment. And yet the house still stood, its medieval frame basically intact."
The cottage at the back and the outside lavatory, both in very poor condition, were demolished, together with the loft above the cellar;
the cellar itself was filled in. In their place a rear two-storey extension was
built. On Saturday 16th May 1970 Mrs Ginever celebrated the restoration of the house with a champagne party on the opposite pavement. She and her family then lived in the house until 1977, when it was sold to Bernard and Mauricette Mellor; Dr Bernard Mellor was a university administrator and academic who helped found the University of East
Asia. A further extension was added by them in
1981. Since 1997 the house has been owned and lived in by Michael and Gillian Harrison.
A book entitled Abingdon in 1644, a Lecture by HG Tomkins,, published May 13, 1845, has an uncaptioned illustration of a door [left] with elaborate carvings over the top. Careful examination has revealed a good match between the carvings in the drawing and those which have survived. Measurement of the overall
doorway shows an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 and measurement of the illustration's aspect ratio results in
1.64:1 Having checked other doors in the centre of the town we conclude that the illustration is that of an earlier front door of the
house.
In January 1861 Jackson's Oxford Journal tells us that one "James Pearce, late in the Abingdon Police, was charged with stealing a shovel, the property of James Collier from the Butchers Arms public
house, where some repairs were going on; remanded". [We don't know the outcome.]
By the end of the nineteenth century the name reverted to the Golden Cross, although many locals continued to refer to it as The Butchers Arms. Over the centuries other additions and alterations were made, though generally speaking we do not know when they happened and can only guess at
why. A cellar with a loft above it was added to the back of the medieval house, which was used to store beer, and a small cottage, which existed in 1854 and possibly before, was built abutting the back of the
house. An archaeologist reported that the cottage and outside lavatory were very basic and decrepit, sitting on bare earth with no foundations. At some time also the ridge roof acquired four gables; one can still see the alterations to the structure of the roof which had to be made to accommodate these gables and the place where an internal door was inserted, probably to enable the roof space to be turned into
bedrooms. Perhaps this was done to increase the number of rooms to be let - certainly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the building is listed in local directories as an
inn.
We should be pleased to hear from anyone interested in the history of this part of the town or who might know something about the
house that we don't.
The photograph (left) shows part of the north ground floor front room during the 1960s renovation. The window of the south front room can be seen towards the left. The floor appears to have been extensively dug-out, revealing what is probably a gas pipe bottom right. Arthur Preston produced this plan based on the Amyce survey of 1554. The red outlined plot shows the site of No 3 which has been checked on the basis of physical measurements between the north wall of the church and the north wall of No 3. The length of the garden of No 3 to the Abbey wall (now the west side of Abbey Close) remains in accordance with the plan. No 3 Stert Street 1970, during its last days as a public house and before the cottage and WC were pulled down. Room No 1 was for pub customers, while room No 2 was probably a bar or perhaps there was a counter there. The stairs shown in the centre of the plan provided ingress to the cellar (now filled-in), also to the top floor and possibly the loft. It is under the cellar floor that much of the excavation was carried out. The passage between the scullery and the cellar had no roof. Modern extensions now occupy the area previously occupied by the cellar, cottage and WC.
How the roof changed Drawings by Nigel Morgan
The drawing depicts the house early in its history, before the gables were installed in the late 16th or early 17th century (P S Spokes.)
The house as it now stands with the modified roof creating further living space. Footnotes NB:
material in italics indicates sources; underlined material indicates
freeholders, tenants and leaseholders
The present house was built by Abingdon Abbey between 1466 and 1471
(dendrochronology report by Tree-Ring Services of Orpington, ref ABSS/27/02, 2002) during the reign of Edward IV and under the aegis of Abbot John Sante. There is no known record of its occupants until the time of the dissolution of the Abbey in 1538, when the property passed into the ownership first of the Crown and then of Abingdon Corporation. 1554: the lessee was William Kysby, victualler [also recorded as a vintner and maltster] who paid 21s 4d rent. (Amyce Survey 1554, original in the Town Council borough archive; also translated by Preston, copies in the Preston archive and borough records. A slightly different version exists in the National Archive.). Kysby was twice Mayor of Abingdon and was also a public benefactor - he built the first public lavatory in Abingdon. He was a Governor and then Master of Christ's Hospital. He had two daughters, Elizabeth and Katherine, and a son, William, and died in 1588; his wife died a year later. (Mayors' Book, town council archives.) If at the time of the Amyce survey William Kysby had not yet risen to his later high status in the town he might have lived in this house himself; otherwise he might have sublet it. John Hobyns lived next door to the south. By 1557 his house was empty and the rent unpaid; a 'distress' of his goods was taken which raised 3s 4d. (Chamberlain's Accounts for 1557-8, in the borough archive). At the time of the Amyce Survey what is now No 3 Stert Street was the fourth property to the north of St Nicholas' Church - the others being (from the church northwards) the inn up against the nave of the church [the Two Brewers] occupied by John Hurst [1]; properties owned by [in order] Henry Barker [2], and John Hobyns [3]. Since the measurement given by Amyce for the width of the plot of the present No 3 (ie 20 feet) does not entirely square with the site of the present house, it is likely that at some point the owner of this [fourth] house appropriated part of the house next door to the south to make the present building, which is 28 feet wide. This could have been at the time that John Hobyns' house was empty [as above.] It has not been possible so far to establish who held the lease or lived in the house from 1557 until the middle of the next century. Records mostly refer to the granting of leases and the name of the current occupant or occupants but it is not always possible to associate names with specific buildings. Lessees can be taken not to live in the house unless otherwise specified in the lease or the borough council minutes; they usually sub-let to tenants. We know from the records the rent paid to the Corporation (which was a kind of ground rent) and in many cases the 'fine '(a one-off figure depending on how long the old lease had already run), but we do not know what rent was paid by the tenants to the lessees. (For an explanation of the way fines worked see correspondence between Gillian Harrison and Manfred Brod, in the possession of Gillian Harrison.) 1667: it is possible that Elizabeth Perryman, widow, was the leaseholder of No 3. She is recorded in the Chamberlain's Accounts as paying rent of 30s for a house in Stert Street, and 30s - which was not a common rent - was certainly the rent of No 3 from 1670 onwards. She had been married to John Perryman and had at least six children (St Nicolas' registers, 1632, 1639, 1640 et al). That she had some connection with the house can be seen from the next item.
1670: John Rice. Lessee, paying rent of 30s to the borough (borough council minutes of grant of lease, Feb 4 1670). He was married to Dorothy and had at least six children, some of whom died young
(St Nicolas' parish registers; copies in borough council archive and Abingdon
library). He undertook to 'demolish the flue' which was a common condition of lease; the lessees were usually required to replace the
demolished flue with "a sufficient chimney of stone" - probably because of the risk of fire. [In later leases there was a prohibition against thatching, presumably for the same reason.] The occupants - ie tenants - were as follows
(council minutes as above): Later in the same year John Rice assigned the rest of the lease to Richard Hackworth, who was already living in the house and thus became both the lessee and the occupant. Widow Downton was no longer mentioned. On taking over the lease Richard Hackworth explicitly agreed to Elizabeth Perryman continuing to live here. He paid the old rent of 30s (council minutes of March 1670 and Chamberlain's Accounts for 1671). 1691: Mary Jane and Elizabeth Hackworth. Lessees (council minutes of May 22nd 1691).The sitting tenant was Nicholas Hackworth, their father (council minutes May 22nd 1691). [Richard Hackworth died in this year (Abingdon St Nicholas' No 2 parish register).] It may be the Hackworths who commissioned the wall painting in the first floor north bedroom, which is extant [2009]. In 1694 an innkeeper called William Hore ran The White Lion (The innkeepers of Abingdon, ref. D/EP 3A/M/2/6 in the Berkshire Record Office). There is no evidence that The White Lion was No 3 Stert Street at this date; it only seems likely that this was so in the light of the history immediately following. 1698: Robert Tyrrell, yeoman, the elder [his surname is variously spelt.] Lessee and occupant, said to be "of Abingdon" (council minutes of June 7th 1698 and lease of 1698, which is in the borough council archives together with others cited below). In June 1691 he had married a Mary Ackworth [sic] at South Hinksey (Brian Tyrrell [descendant of Robert Tyrrell] - letters of 2005); this may be the same person as Mary Jane Hackworth above. The record of this marriage (International Genealogical Index - IGI) according to Brian Tyrrell contains the information that Robert Tyrrell was at this time was the "victualler" [one who ran an eating house or tavern] of an establishment called The White Lyon in Abingdon. Nicholas Hackworth had died or moved out. 1716: Robert Tyrrell. Lessee and occupant (lease of 1716). [In 1722 a Richard Tyrrell, 'pretended curate of Abingdon St Helen', was arraigned for conducting a clandestine marriage. There is no evidence that he was any relation to Robert Tyrrell (Berkshire Archdeaconry records, D/A2/d2/f32, Berkshire Record Office.).] 1734: A lease of March 20th 1734 refers to the lease of 1716 and records a new lease on the "messuage and tenement with the appurtenances on the east side of Stert Street late in the occupation of the said Robert Tyrrell" to his son, also Robert Tyrrell. The rent was still 30s and the fine £6 15s. At this time the system of numbering years changed and under the new system the year would have been 1735. (Town council minutes.) 1735: Robert Tyrrell (junior). Lessee, said to be "of the City of London". He was the son of the lessee of 1698 and 1716; his father had died in 1717 (Brian Tyrrell). Tyrrell junior was a currier - one who dresses and colours leather after tanning (lease of 1735). By this time No 3 was certainly known as The White Lion (Brian Tyrrell and see below 1744). 1744: William Tyrrell. He was the apprentice to and nephew of Robert Tyrrell junior, and was bequeathed The White Lion in Robert's will of this date (Brian Tyrrell and the will, which is in the National Archives). 1751: Robert Tyrrell (junior). Lessee (lease of 1768). The rent was 30s and the fine £5 14s on the grounds of sixteen years of the old lease having passed. [In 1765 he also took on the leases of two properties in Boar Street in trust for Ann and Mary Ashley; he is described as "of St Botolph's", Aldgate, London" (council minutes, May 9th 1751)]. The tenant is William Tyrrell - possibly his son (lease of 1768). [In 1756 Mary, wife of William Tyrrell, was buried (St Nicholas register) but this may not be the same family; Tyrrell was a local name.] At some time after this Francis Stuchbury [variously spelt in all sources] took Tyrrell's place (lease of 1768). [In 1754 William Tyrrell the Younger [sic] appears as the occupant of one of the tenements in 12 Ock Street in the (lease of this date conferred on Thomas Cowslade and Harding Tomkins.) Stuchbury was a blacksmith and ironmonger who bought from the council the "freedom" to practise his trade in 1759, when he was thirty (council minutes for June 14th, 1759). He was married to Ann and they had at least seven children, two of whom at least died young (St Nicolas' registers, 1759 - 72). In the first half of the eighteenth century the Corporation only issued 50 licences per year to sell beer and for several years the names of the licence-holders appear in the council minutes. None of them is connected with No 3. 1768: Richard Clarke. Lessee. He was a brewer, and Stuchbury was the sitting tenant (lease of 1768). He could have continued to work as a blacksmith; it was common for other businesses to be carried on in properties used as pubs. The rent was 30s. In 1777 Stutchbury [sic] is recorded as having taken on the lease of another property in Stert Street, for which the rent was 30s (list of borough leases compiled by Mr MacGowan in the town council archive). 1778: Nathaniel Bayley Esquire. He already held the lease [there is no record of how and when he acquired it] and in March he assigned it to William Spindler of Abingdon, who was a victualler (council minutes for 1778). William Keates was the sitting tenant (council minutes as above). 1782: William Spindler. Lessee. He may be the William Spindler who appeared as a victualler in the Poll List for Abingdon of 16th March 1768 (A/Aep4). William Keates continued as the tenant (lease of 1782). [This lease of 1782 specifically says that Francis Stuchbury no longer lived at this address.] 1790/98: William Spindler ran the White Lion (Universal British Directory 1790/98); he may be the same man who owned the lease [see 1782 above]. There is no mention of The Golden Cross or The Butchers' Arms in the trade directory so it is probable that 3 Stert Street was still called The White Lion. [A William Keate [sic] ran The Three Pigeons elsewhere in the town at this time.] 1794: William Spindler assigned the lease to John Francis Spenlove (council minutes of 1794). Spenlove was a brewer, and was Mayor of Abingdon in the early 19th century. In 1794 and 1796-7 a William Spindler contributed 23s 4d towards the upkeep of local streets (Chamberlain's Accounts for both years). 1798: John Francis Spenlove. Lessee (council minutes of 2nd September 1798). William Spindler was the sitting tenant, having taken over from William Keates (council minutes of grant of lease 1798 as above and April 1812) though we do not know when - presumably at some time between 1790 and 1798 [see above]. 1812: John Francis Spenlove surrendered his old lease and started a new one, still paying 30s rent. William Spindler continued as the tenant (council minutes 27 April 1812). [In 1810 William Spindler buried his first wife, Hannah. In 1811 he married Martha Brister. In 1813 they had a child, Richard. William died, and in 1818 Martha married William Mart (St Nicolas' registers).] 1823/24: William Mart ran The White Lion (Pigot's trade directory 1823-4). He paid parish rates of 6s 5d (St Nicholas' churchwarden's account for 1820-22).
1826: John Francis Spenlove. Lessee as before
(lease of 1826 and council minutes of May 3rd 1826). 1831: [The census gives a William Hazell, "milkman"[see below], as living at the other end of Stert Street, and a William Mart as a "hatter" in East St Helen Street, but neither of these may be relevant.] 1840: John Francis Spenlove as before (council minutes of grant of lease, Feb 5 1840). The rent continued at 30s. Richard Bishop was the sitting tenant. 1841: William Hazel [sic] with his wife, Sarah, and his family lived at No 3 (census for Abingdon, St Nicholas 2: James Beckenham (sic) was a "publican" at the last building, which was the Two Brewers; then came Nathaniel Dean, who was an 'ironfounder' then William Hazell). 1842: William Hazell (also spelt Hazel) was at The Golden Cross, Stert Street (Pigot's trade directory 1842). This the first reference to The Golden Cross as the name of No 3. 1843: In November a new lease was granted and put in trust for Mary Spenlove, John's daughter [John having died] by John Moses Carter, Edward Tull, George Bowes Morland and others (council minutes of November 29, 1843). 1847: William Hazell ran The Golden Cross (Post Office trade directory 1847). 1851: By the time of the 1851 census John Lindars and his family were at The Two Brewers with Nathaniel Dean next door to them and William Beckingham, "publican" next door to him - ie at No 3 [this is not the same person as James Beckenham or Beckingham, late of The Two Brewers, who had by this time moved to The Plough]. [By this time William Hazell had moved to sell beer at The Bear in Stert Street (Billings directory 1854); he died eight years later (St Nicolas' register).] 1854: John Moses Carter Esq, who lived at Northcourt House (Post Ofice and Billings, 1854), et al as above. Lessees in trust as above (council minutes for May 2nd 1854). William Able (also spelt Abel in trade directories) was the tenant of No 3 (council minutes May 2nd 1854) and the property was called The Golden Cross, though it does not appear in the trade directory under 'hotels, taverns and inns' which probably means it only offered beer to take away (Post Office directory 1854). He had an interest in the Stag and Oak public house in the Pig Market [where he is recorded as a separate person in the trade directories], and in this year he moved his hairdressing business from the Pig Market location to The Golden Cross (Billings and Post Office directories). 1857: Frederick and Elizabeth Wiblin were at No 3; they had previously been general servants at Caldecott House (1841 census for Sutton Wick) and had a son, Frederick. Their daughter Elizabeth was born in this year; her father was recorded as "a publican" (St Nicolas' register). The property was called The Butchers Arms - Frederick came from a family of butchers but there is no evidence that he himself was a butcher (information from Susan Matthews, his descendant). 1861-2: A lease was issued in trust to John Moses Carter, Edward Tull and George Bowes Morland for 21years at a rent of £1 10s [ie 30 shillings] for The Golden Cross in Stert Street. (Abingdon Corporation Report and valuation in the town council archive). This seems to be the beginning of the alternation of name between The Golden Cross and The Butchers Arms. 1863: Frederick Wiblin appeared in the trade directory as a "beer retailer"in Stert Street (Dutton, Allen trade directory for 1863). [William Able [sic] had moved to his other property, in the Pig Market, where he continued as a "hair cutter" (Dutton, Allen trade directory).] 1865: The freehold of the property was sold by Abingdon Corporation to John Moses Carter and George Bowes Morland on May 11th, for £107 8s 1d. (Chamberlain's Accounts Vol 8). It was given the reference number 167, and under this number it had also appeared on the Abingdon Corporation Report and Valuation List, 1861-2. (See Abingdon town council archives for both volumes.) [This was the time when a great deal of borough property was sold off - re Abingdon archivist.] Frederick and Elizabeth Wiblin continued as tenants. In the census of 1871 Frederick was aged 51 and his wife 50; their daughter Elizabeth also lived with them (see above). 1876: Frederick Wiblin was still at The Butchers Arms (Harrod's directory). By 1878 George Alfred Lay, butcher, lived at The Butchers Arms, having moved from the Market Place where he sold beer (Post Office directory 1877, Luker's trade directory and Kelly's 1887). Lay and Wiblin may have been in business together. 1881: Frederick Wiblin was at The Butchers Arms, described as a publican (census). His wife had predeceased him. In October of this year the pub licence was only renewed by magistrates on condition that, in view of complaints, the landlord "be careful as to the way [the] house....[was] conducted in future" (Abingdon and Reading Herald, October 1, 1881). 1883: Frederick Wiblin died. George Alfred Lay lived here and ran the pub (Kelly's trade directory and Luker's; his name also appears as the licensee over the door in the photograph of 1885). He was still here in 1887 (Kelly's). 1888: The property was sold to representatives of Morland, the Abingdon brewery. (List of hereditaments and premises conveyed to the Company by Indenture date 18th February 1888, town council archive). 1891: Albert Thomas Phipps was living at The Butchers Arms (Kelly's 1891). He had previously run the Star Tavern, which was on the south corner of the opposite side of Stert Street (Luker's trade directory 1878), and the New Wheat Sheaf in West St Helen Street (Kelly's). 1894: Elizabeth Phipps ran The Butchers Arms (Vale of White Horse directory) William and Amy Higgs lived at No 3. William Higgs was a carpenter (conversation with Winifred Lewis, nee Young, his grand-daughter). and by 1895 was also a "beer retailer" at No 3 Stert Street (Kelly's). 1899: Amy Higgs was running The Golden Cross public house at No 3 Stert Street and is recorded as doing so until 1912 (trade directories of 1899, 1903, 1907 and 1912). In October 1900 the Valuation List for the Parish of Abingdon (assessment No 1612) states that Morland and Co owned the property, including the cottage, and it was tenanted by Amy Higgs. The rent was 15s and the rateable value 12s. (Berkshire Record Office). 1901: In the census of this year Amy Higgs (referred to as a widow and head of the household) is recorded as a licensed victualler, so she was still running the pub. Her age is given -it seems to be 61. Also in the house are her daughter, Charlotte, and her underage sons Harry and Tom. William Oakley and Thomas, his son, were boarders. At an address recorded on the census as Old Grammar School Yard [which seems to have a connection with No 3] there lived Annie Higgs, a widow of 53 with her daughter Annie, son Henry and Charles Stayte, a border who was a drapers's assistant Annie is described as "living on own means." 1910: Charlotte Higgs, the Higgs' daughter, married George Ernest Young, a blacksmith who later worked for MG Cars as an engineer (Winifred Lewis, his grand-daughter). By 1915 they had taken over the licence and the tenancy (Winifred Lewis and Kelly's trade directory for 1915).
1914-18: The following names are among those which appear in the Abingdon Roll of Honour for the First World War [none of them died during the War]:
1920: The bottom of the garden of No 5 Stert Street was bought to add it to the existing garden of No 3. (Jill Ginever's conveyance and a letter from Elizabeth Agulnik, a later owner of No 5.) 1921: The property ceased to be a public house and continued to be tenanted by the Youngs as a private house. 1928: George Young and his family lived in the house, together with Percy James Dyke (Abingdon street directory). Perhaps Percy Dyke lived in the cottage.
1946: Winifred Young, their daughter, married George Lewis [both pictured left in 1998 at the door of the house] who had been a prisoner of war and was a chemical engineer with Esso, in 1945. George Ernest Young continued to hold the tenancy with Charlotte
(Abingdon Who's Who) and Winifred and George (Lewis) 1950: George Ernest Young. Charlotte Young and Trevor P. Price lived at No 3 [Trevor Price may have lived in the cottage] (The Abingdon Directory, Abbey Press, in Abingdon public library.) From 1951 to 1952 John and Audrey Naylor rented the front bedroom at the top of the house and the ground floor living room. Mr Naylor remembered that there were mice in the living room; he also confirmed that at that time the joists in the ceiling of the living room were exposed. [John Naylor told us that in his youth he had seen the testing of the atomic bomb at Christmas Island.] (Conversation with John Naylor.) 1951: The house was listed Grade II under the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 (letter to G E Young dated 20th April). George E Young died; Charlotte, his widow, continued to be the tenant. 1967: No 3 was apparently empty (street directory and letter of this year's date from the Vale of White Horse District Council about the rating of empty properties). At this time Charlotte had moved out to live with her daughter and son-in-law [Winifred and George Lewis] but continued to pay the rent and returned for a few hours from time to time (conversation with Winifred Lewis). The Lewises wanted to buy the house but were refused 1969-1970: By this time the house was derelict and had been 'condemned', despite the fact that Charlotte Young was still technically a tenant. In February 1969 the Abingdon Herald carried a story headlined: Attempt to Save Late Medieval House, in which the Friends of Abingdon, Borough & Berkshire County Councils and Morlands expressed concern but with no hint of action. Eventually Morland's sold it for £1,000 to Jill Ginever, who had worked in various branches of the theatre prior to becoming an interior designer. She rescued it from dilapidation with the aid of a grant from the Joint Environmental Trust and her own money. Windows had been shattered by vandals and the house was on the point of collapse. F. Barrett and Sons moved in. They took five weeks to clear the debris and a further three weeks to restore of the house. Once the work was completed Mrs Ginever celebrated by throwing a champagne party on the opposite pavement [picture below.] A contract between Mrs Ginever and the Diocese of Oxford allowed her access to the rear of the property across what was then Church land. Mrs Ginever married Harold Wilson, a barrister who later became Resident Judge and Recorder of Oxford, and they lived in the house with their family. During the restoration [which included the demolition of the Victorian cottage and outside lavatory at the rear of the site] an opening was found on the front (west) wall of the south front ground floor room [dining room], giving into the Stert stream which runs under the pavement immediately outside. It was thought that this had been used as a sluice by the butchers who pursued their trade in the building so that they could tip their refuse directly into the stream (Jill Ginever Wilson). It is known that elsewhere arrangements were made for inhabitants to dispose of their rubbish into local streams (Manfred Brod). Between January and March 1970 a considerable archaeological excavation was carried out under the leadership of Ron Henderson. The excavation concentrated on the cellar and parts of the garden during which a 12 foot deep well was discovered (Council for British Archaeology local report). A considerable number of artefacts photographed by Ron Henderson, [below] was unearthed including keys and a boat hook found at the bottom of the well, 17thC clay pipes, Medieval ridge tiles, Roman grey ware, Roman Oxfordshire ware, Roman roof tiles and an Iron Age piece. Many of these items are held in the County Museum Store at Standlake. 1977: The Wilsons sold the house, complete with a new rear extension, to Bernard and Mauricette Mellor. Dr Bernard Mellor was the Administrator and Registrar, University of Hong Kong, and Planning Director, University of East Asia, Macao. 1997: The Mellors sold the house, complete with a further rear extension, to Michael and Gillian Harrison, who came to Abingdon on their retirement. They had both worked in television programme production and later as government press officers. During the 1998 construction of a soakaway in the garden the Harrisons unearthed a further large quantity of artefacts ranging from a 1920s ceramic doll to 18thC stoneware and earthenware, medieval coping tiles and Roman roof tiles. 2011: There is still much research to do; we as yet have no record of the occupiers from the time the house was first built until 1538, and there is still a gap between 1554 and 1667. We would also very much like to know something about the earlier properties on this site - something for future historians perhaps. ************************************************************ A late additional
item No
3 was on the verge of collapse in 1969 Michael
Lewis and his sister Kay Hammond remember We
recorded (1946) Winifred and George Lewis living in No 3 while staying with
Winifred’s parents. We have met their son and daughter Michael
and Kay, who knew the house, while they were very young, during its
headlong decline. They often traveled from their parents’ house in
Abingdon’s Thesiger Street to see their grandmother Charlotte Young, who
was then renting
No 3 from Morlands.
Michael’s
story
Michael
told us that upstairs there was no running water,
no toilets nor electricity.
It was pretty awful going upstairs.; he was scared, he said. By the time
the house was given up in 1969 by his grandmother when Michael was aged 19,
he would not have wanted any his friends to go there; it would not have
been seen as quaint, just old and grotty. He and Kay used to go to there on
a Monday and eat left-over roast beef and gravy. Charlotte had a dog called
Sally that Michael used to play with in the back yard. The shed at the back of
the property was full of spiders—he didn’t like that much. Kay’s
(Kathryn's) story She has told us that the south room at the front of the house was Charlotte’s lounge. It was a very dark room, lit by low wattage bulbs. It had two chairs close to the fireplace and a harpsichord (though never played) stood against the wall; a settee and the gramophone were on the other side of the room; an aspidistra complemented the window. The north room at the front was the lodger’s living room. Esme was her name and her kitchen was where the present kitchen is sited. The garden was furnished with plants in pots and up steps there were vegetables and fruit trees. For a child in that house going upstairs was creepy. Kay said that the stairs squeaked like mad and in the dark she would carry a night-light on a saucer. The walls were canvas-like, she said, - very yellowy lath and plaster—brown paint everywhere. The most unpleasant aspect of the house was that, come winter or rain, so often one had to move outside; it wasn’t a pleasant experience. She briefly mentioned the cellar. She said it had about five stone steps down to it; it was very dark but she thought it had a window at ground level. Charlotte’s kitchen was housed in the cottage at the rear of No 3, she said.
Immediately behind the cottage was the wash-house comprising a WC
and a sink. There was a tin bath hanging on the wall.
Kay told us that she begged her father to buy the house—he could have
bought it for £1000 but her mother was against the purchase and in 1969
Morlands sold the house to Jill Ginever for the same sum; by then
Charlotte had moved to Thesiger Street to live with her daughter Winifred and
son-in-law George. ********************************************************** |
Within
the pit a 13th century deer-bone whistle [left], now held by the Ashmolean Museum, was discovered by the archaeologists.
It is believed to have been used for morris dancing in which the player played a three-hole whistle in one hand while beating a drum with the other.
decorated with painted
strapwork;18 this was later plastered over but enough survives on the timber braces to tell us what the wall was once
like.19 During the renovation of the house the painting was observed to be 17 feet in width,
"coloured blue, red and beige."20 The quality of this decoration indicates that
the people who commissioned it would have been prosperous rather than wealthy, and of the merchant or farmer
class.21 The faint remains of this early decoration were recently studied by local artist Liese Cattle who has re-created on paper [left] both the colours as they once were and the basic design, which had originally been repeated over the whole wall.
The original box frame, two-bay house had its street entrance at the southern end of the 20 foot wide plot, rather than off- centre as it is today. The widening to the south
resulted in
the construction of a two-unit plan, which was common at the time. We do not yet know when this widening took place. The change resulted in a cross-passage running through the building from the front door to the back, and a large room heated by a big fireplace to one side of it, with a bedroom above, and a [probably unheated] smaller room to the other side of it with a bedroom above
that. This cross-passage was flagged and led through the building to a yard at the
back. We have been told that horses were led along the passage from the front door and out into the stable in the back yard. [This practice went on until the end of the nineteenth
century. Straw would be laid on the flagstones to muffle the sound of the hooves when somebody in the house was
ill.] Water came from a well in the garden.
The first floor was originally jettied out over the ground floor. In early twentieth century photographs there is no jetty visible - the ground floor frontage is virtually flush with the first
floor. We do not know when this change happened or who did it or why. It is unlikely to have been possible before the Stert river was culverted in 1794, so our guess is that it was done soon after the culverting in order to enlarge the downstairs
rooms. Once the building started to be used as a pub, in the late seventeenth century, the larger downstairs room became the public room and the smaller the parlour for the family; the later enlargement would have made this arrangement more
comfortable. Customers could continue to bring their horses through the house and stable them in the back
yard. This pattern of use suited the two-unit plan and continued until it ceased to be a pub after the First World
War.The concealed jetty was not discovered until 1969, when it was restored and the ground floor front wall underneath it was rebuilt in its original position.
ived with them until they bought their own house. George Lewis installed the first electricity in the house - on the ground floor only. Charlotte frequently let the cottage.
which then abutted the house at the back. She even let the larger downstairs
front room (which had been the taproom to, among others, Barbara Lee
; Mrs Lee remembers the whole house as intolerably cold, so that she eventually
became ill and had to move out. (Conversation with Barabara Lee.) From 1959 to about 1963
Roy Stone and his wife rented the big bedroom on the top floor (conversation with Roy Stone in
2003); like Mrs Lee, the Stones found the house notably cold. During the period of the
Stones' tenancy Winifred did the accounts for a grocers shop called Backhus in Lombard Street.