1820 Auction
The Norfolk Chronicle & Norwich Gazette of the 15th July, 1820 included Notice of a forthcoming Auction of a ‘Valuable Estate’ in Great Ellingham. The Auction would take place at the Crown Inn in Great Ellingham on the 27th July, 1820 at four o’clock in the afternoon.
The estate comprised ‘a good farmhouse, barn, stables, cow house and other requisite outbuildings, and about forty three acres of rich arable and pasture land‘. The premises were said to be owned by Mr Reuben Heasell, who was prepared to give possession at Michaelmas next.
Where was Heasell’s Farmhouse?
The Particulars and Valuation as taken by the Commissioners in 1800 (for the purposes of the Inclosures of Great Ellingham), lists Reuben Heasell as occupying property in Great Ellingham, which was owned by Jane Heasell. This property included a House, Outbuildings, Barn, Stable, Yard, Garden and Orchard, as well as an additional orchard and various parcels of arable land. Together this amounted to just over 43 acres (i.e. 43a 2r 32p). The Valuation document referred to the ‘House, Outbuildings, Barn, Stable, Yard, Garden and Orchard’ as being numbered 218 ‘in the plan‘.
Extract from 1802 Map of Great Ellingham. Original held at Norfolk Record Office. Russell James Colman Plans.
Cat. Ref. C/Ca 1/84. With kind permission of NRO
An 1802 Map of Great Ellingham corresponds with most (if not all) of the numbering used in the Particulars and Valuation of 1800. The black dot on the extract of the 1802 Map, indicates the Heasell’s Farmhouse numbered ‘218’, just into Bow Street from the Hingham Road. Other parcels of land owned by the Heasells are also identified on the map:
- the parcel of land numbered 219 (on the corner of Hingham Road and Bow Street) is an orchard. The names of the other pieces of land are –
- 217 ‘Barn Pightle’
- 220 ‘Bed Room Pightle’
- 221 ‘Drove Way’
- 222 ‘New Close’
- 225 ‘Hodges’
- 236 ‘Upper Grass Close’
- 237’Bramble Pightle’
- 238 ‘Corris’ (Corries or Corrys)
- 240 ‘Poles’ (or Polls)
The Heasells owned other pieces of land in the village, including the allotment opposite their house – also identified on the above map ‘1st Jane Heasell 3-3-5‘ (3a 3r 5p).
John Rose’s Ownership
A comment on a later schedule of property owners and occupiers in Great Ellingham (c.1840), suggests that the house and land (or, at least, the majority of the land) owned by the Heasells, was later owned and occupied by John Rose.
I believe this house is today known as ‘Rose Farm House’, and I wonder whether the name derived from the farm perhaps being once known as ‘Rose’s Farm’?
Built in the mid seventeenth century, Rose Farm House is a timber framed Grade II Listed Building, and is one of the many Listed Buildings we are fortunate to have in the village.
The 1841 census captures 70 year old farmer John Rose living in Bow Street (at the Hingham Road end). With him is 65 year old housekeeper, Sarah Pygall.
Confirmation that John Rose did indeed purchase the Heasell’s property lies within John Rose’s Will.
John Rose died aged 76 years in the April of 1847, and was buried in the churchyard at St James on April, 29th.
When John Rose made his last Will and Testament 26 years earlier, on the 10th August, 1821, he mentioned his freehold and copyhold messuages lands tenements and hereditaments in Great Ellingham which he had ‘lately purchased of the Trustees for sale under the Will or appointment of Jane Heasell deceased‘.
Accordingly, John Rose purchased the Heasell’s property at the auction on the 27th July, 1820, or by prior agreement with the Sellers, the Heasell’s Trustees.
I wonder who next occupied Rose Farm House?
Sources:
Norfolk Chronicle & Norwich Gazette 15th July, 1820
1800 Inclosures Commissioner’s Particulars & Valuation. Great Ellingham. Norfolk Record Office. Catalogue Ref: MC2213/119
1799-1842 F W Horner, Records of the Surveyors to the Commissioners for Inclosure in the Parishes of Norfolk & Suffolk. Great Ellingham (Act 1799). Norfolk Record Office. BR 90/2
1802 Russell James Colman Plans.1802 Great Ellingham. Norfolk Record Office. Catalogue Ref: C/Ca 1/84
Great Ellingham Parish Registers. Norfolk Record Office. PD/609. Also available at FamilySearch.org https://www.familysearch.org/search/image/index?owc=4J8C-CB7%3A29627201%3Fcc%3D1416598
1841 census HO107/781/8
1847 1 May. Probate of the Will of John Rose of Great Ellingham, farmer. Norfolk Sources Website. http://www.norfolksources.norfolk.gov.uk/DserveNS/ Viewed 27.07.2020. Norfolk Record Office.
Archdeaconry of Norfolk Probate Records. Catalogue Ref: ANF will register 1845-1847 fo.377 (1847 no.54).
British Listed Buildings website. https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101076792-rose-farmhouse-great-ellingham accessed 27.07.2020