Purchase
On the 23rd November, 1810, carpenter, John Robert Barnard purchased The Crown Inn (together with nearby properties and land) from Benjamin and Frances Dennis.
Barnard purchased the property with a mortgage of £500 from beer brewer, John Stephenson Cann of Wymondham.
A survey of of Great Ellingham dated 1817-1819, shows ‘John Robert Barnard (son of Charles Barnard)’ as the owner of The Crown Public House, a cottage, yard and pightle.
Barnard occupied The Crown, and his tenants were the widow Clarke and James Webster.
Former owner Richard Leath
Frances Dennis’s father, Richard Leath, had previously owned The Crown and adjoining properties.
Frances, with her sisters Elizabeth and Hannah, may well have benefited by the properties being part of a trust fund set up in 1785 on the death of their father (Richard Leath). Their mother Alice (Jessup formerly Leath) and her second husband William Jessup, were former licensees of The Crown in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Sources:
Abstract of Title to the Crown Public House, Great Ellingham. Original held at Wymondham Town Archive, Council Offices, Ketts Park, Harts Farm Road, Wymondham, Norfolk, NR18 0UT. ID. 33827, Pomeroy Collection, Box 116/99. Bundle 8. 23/11/1810
1802 Russell James Colman Plans. Great Ellingham. Norfolk Record Office. Catalogue Ref. C/Ca 1/84.
1799-1842 F W Horner, Records of the Surveyors to Commissioners for Inclosure in Parishes in Norfolk and Suffolk. Great Ellingham (Act 1799). Norfolk Record Office. Catalogue Ref: NRO, BR 90/2
1800 Inclosure Commissioner’s Particulars and Valuation, Great Ellingham. Norfolk Record Office. Catalogue Ref: NRO, MC 2213/119
1799 Statement of Claims. Great Ellingham Inclosure. Norfolk Record Office. Catalogue Ref: MC 2213/118