Doing some research on the history of our new home

 

Anyone who knows me knows how important history and archaeology are to me.  I live in the past, and always have done.  Therefore I felt it was important to learn about the history of our area, and the people in it, and of course, about our new home.  Not that it is a new-build of course, and yesterday when I went down to the Local History Society in town and did some research, I got its full age.  The earliest I had traced the property back on this site was 1785 but it went back further, and there was a baptism in 1732 to a family who owned the estate including this particular spot.  There were wider family also in the vicinity.  

    There were various "hatches, matches and despatches" and one former occupant left:

Wearing apparel               £10. 10 shillings

Horses and saddles           £10

Household furniture          £10

7 cows and calves             £70

Barren cattle                     £50

2 Draught horses               £16. 16 shillings

25 ewes and lambs            £15. 15 shillings

23 barren sheep                £11. 5 shillings

Pigs and poultry                 £10. 10 shillings

Horses' tack & implements

                    of husbandry  £15

Wheat and corn thrashed

               and in store         £25

Some of the estate owners were involved in the church as Reverends, and one daughter married a Surgeon in Builth.  One son was described as a "farmer" prior to his father's death, and then signed himself as "Gent" afterwards (e.g. a gentleman.)

    At its peak, the farm was 139 acres, but the actual old mansion house was in decline and by the 1870s was lived in by a farm labourer - the master of the house and his family having moved across the valley to another of the estate properties which had been left to him after his father's decease. (In separate earlier research I did I found out there was a huge falling out and a Court Case over who had what property and a desperate wriggling of the son NOT to inherit his father's debts by damaging the will.)

    Between the 1870s an 1880s it would appear that the estate was sold on to an incoming family of property and their first daughter was born here.  They subsequently built a grand new house nearby to live in and the "old mansion house" was described as unoccupied in the next census.  It was dropped where it stood, and meanwhile a new grand stable block had been built to serve the New House.  The old stable block and carriage house had already been  amalgamated and a dwelling house made out of the two end portions, although for a good while afterwards our current living room (the coach house) housed the family's chauffer-driven car. 

    Other extensions to the back of this house which show on the 1888 map, were subsequently knocked down and the ground level at the back of our house is up to the level of the kitchen windows.  The same applies to the side gardens, although those have a pathway between the house and the higher land.  As you can imagine, all that building rubble is not conducive to easy gardening!

    So, I had a lovely morning and now have a better understanding of the development of this site and our home.

Witches Butter fungus on a fallen branch.

One thing I didn't mention was that the field opposite used to be an orchard, at the time of the 1840 Tithe Map.  I will assume it was probably cider apples.  Anyway, I have been planting my own mixed orchard here on the little triangular paddock above the house.  Heritage apples have gone in so far, plus some small trees I grew from Heritage apple pips and which came with me from our old home, so it will be interesting to see which parent they take after.  Pears, plums to go in next.  The giant cooking apple Howgate Wonder was planted this morning (bought from Aldi no less), and four Crab Apples (twigs really!) bought from The Woodland Trust.