The Crown Public House with the Adjoining Cottage (on the right)
Photograph taken October 2019
Anna Maria Wilkins’ Cottage and Shop to the right of the Crown Public House
Courtesy Attleborough Heritage Group
Date Unknown
This is one of a series of blogs which look at the history of the cottage which adjoins the Crown Public House in Church Street, Great Ellingham.
Parts I, II, III and IV cover a period from around 1749, when William Bond owned the property, to 1920 when the property was purchased by Anna Maria Wilkins.
We pick up the story with Anna Maria’s purchase from her brother Bertie Wilkins, who had emigrated to Australia. We then bring the history forward to Anna Maria’s sale to William Key in 1925.
Anna Wilkins Buys Cottage & Shop
On the 28th September, 1920, Anna Maria Wilkins became the owner of the premises adjoining the Crown Public House, Great Ellingham.
Extract from the Conveyance dated 28th September 1920 between Bertie Lewis Wilkins & Ann Maria Wilkins
Courtesy Sue Simpson
The seller was her brother, Bertie Lewis Wilkins who, with his extended family, had emigrated to Australia some 7 years earlier. Anna Maria paid her brother £160 for the property. It was then occupied by Robert Dixon.
The premises comprised a cottage with a shop, together with outbuildings yard and garden.
Bertie Wilkins had owned the property since 1909. However, he likely occupied the premises much earlier. It is probable that he moved in when his father, postmaster William Wilkins, relocated to the present ‘Post Office’ in the village.
Robert Dixon
The 1921 census shows Robert Dixon with his wife and infant son living at the property. However, I believe Robert Dixon’s tenure of the cottage was fairly short.
The owner, Anna Maria Wilkins, is with her father at The Post Office, which was (and still is) at the junction of Long Street, Chequers Lane and Church Street.
The census shows that William Wilkins is a Sub-Postmaster. His daughter, 36 year old Annie Wilkins, is his housekeeper as well as working for him as a clerk.
Mortgage to Gertrude Minns
On the 22nd November, 1922, Anna Maria Wilkins (as Ann Maria Wilkins) mortgaged her premises i.e. the cottage and shop adjoining The Crown.
Anna borrowed £300 plus interest from Gertrude Edith Minns. I believe Gertrude was the wife of miller and farmer Herbert Minns of Mill House, Carbrooke.
I wondered if there was a particular reason why spinster Anna Maria Wilkins needed to raise funds in 1922.
As it happens, I think I have found the answer.
Death of William Wilkins
Great Ellingham’s postmaster William Wilkins died on the 29th July, 1922. We know that his youngest daughter, Anna Maria, lived with him at The Post Office in Great Ellingham. She also assisted her father in running the business. In fact, Anna Maria Wilkins later became the Postmistress.
William Wilkin left a will dated 21st July, 1919.
Anna Maria inherited all her father’s furniture, bedding, linen, crockery and ‘everything comprising the home‘ together with the fixtures in the Post Office.
William Wilkins’ Post Office c.1907
Everything else belonging to William Wilkins (including his house and shop) would be sold. The proceeds to be divided equally between his 10 children (including his youngest child Anna Maria). However this was subject to Anna Maria receiving two shares.
Although I have not seen specific evidence, I think it likely that Anna Maria mortgaged her premises which adjoined the Crown Inn in order to raise funds to ‘buy out’ her siblings’ interest in their late father’s property. After all, the Post Office was not only her ‘home’ but her place of work.
Gertrude Minns transfers the Mortgage Debt
Just two years after Anna Maria borrowed the £300 from Gertrude Minns, on the 1st January, 1925, Gertrude Minns transferred the mortgage debt to Selina Wood, a widow of Queens Road, Attleborough.
Anna Wilkins sells the Property
Just five months’ later, Anna Maria sold the the following property to farmer, William Key, of Attleborough:
"All that cottage or tenement with the shop outbuildings yard garden land and appurtenances thereto belonging situate lying and being in Great Ellingham aforesaid bounded on the North by the Public Road leading from Watton to Deopham and Rockland on the South by the land formerly belonging to the Executors of Jonathan Rivett deceased on the East by the messuage tenement or Inn commonly called or known by the name of “The Crown” and on the West by the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel which said hereditaments are now, or were late in the occupation of Robert Dixon …”
The wording of the description of the property had been used in consecutive Conveyance Deeds since 1868, save that the name of the occupier had changed. Nevertheless, Robert Dixon had moved out of the property a few years earlier.
The agreed purchase price was £145 – an amount some £155 short of the borrowing against the property!
However, the lender Selina Wood agreed to release the property from the mortgage on receipt of £100 of the sale price of £145.
It also appears that Selina Wood was satisfied that ‘other property’ owned by Anna Maria Wilkins was a sufficient security for the remainder of the outstanding mortgage debt. Accordingly, I think it more than possible that Anna Maria Wilkins had also mortgaged The Post Office to Selina Wood.
New Owner William Key
William Key, the new owner of the property adjoining the Crown Public House, was another owner who did not live in the property.
We take a look at the Key family’s ownership in Part VI.
Sources:
Private Deeds Collection. Sue Simpson
1921 census RG15. Registration District 231. Great Ellingham Schedules 76 & 135. Viewed via www.findmypast.co.uk
1901 census RG13/1868/48
William Wilkins. Probate 25 August 1922. Will dated 21 July 1919. Copies obtained via https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate