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
Cottages Occupied by Charles Thilthorpe & John Fox
Amongst the five properties included in her claim to the Commissioners relating to the Great Ellingham Inclosures of 1799, widow Mary Barnard claimed a messuage and yard, which was occupied by Charles Hilthorpe (Thilthorpe) and J Fox (John Fox).
A Particulars & Valuation of 1800 (again relating to the Inclosures of Great Ellingham), also mentions (at No.269) two cottages, outbuildings and a piece behind comprising 27 perches which was occupied by Charles Hilthorpe (Thilthorpe) and J Fox.
The arrow on the above extract from an 1802 map of Great Ellingham shows the position of the messuage (or two cottages) which abutted the road from Great Ellingham to Hingham. Today, we know the road as Chequers Lane.
Owner Mary Barnard, later Mary Warren
Widow Mary Barnard had inherited several properties from her husband, Charles Barnard, when he died in 1796. These properties included the Chequers Public House, the land behind (numbered 268 on the above extract of the 1802 map), two houses in what we today know as Church Street (and shown numbered 273 on the same extract), and the cottages occupied by Thilthorpe and Fox.
Charles Barnard had inherited these same properties on the death of his father, John Barnard in 1782, and John Barnard had himself inherited them from his father, who had purchased the properties from William and Mary Mallows.
Widow Mary Barnard became Mary Warren on her marriage to William Warren on November 3rd, 1800 in Great Ellingham. On the death of Mary Warren in July, 1808, the ownership of all the properties and land owned by Mary Warren’s first husband, Charles Barnard, (and only held by Mary during her lifetime), passed to the three surviving children of Charles and Mary Barnard i.e. Charles William Barnard, John Robert Barnard and Ann Elizabeth (neé Barnard), the wife of Edmund Chaplin.
Owners Edmund & Ann Elizabeth Chaplin
A survey of Great Ellingham 1817-1819, shows Edmund Chaplin to own and occupy the two cottages once occupied by Thilthorpe and Fox. In 1818, Edmund and Ann Elizabeth Chaplin borrowed the sum of £860 from James Gall, a farmer of Banham, giving Gall the freehold parts of this property as well as the properties lying in the enclosure shown numbered 273 on the above extract of the 1802 map, as security. Edmund and Ann Chaplin entered into an Indenture dated 11th December, 1818 with James Gall. The Indenture also tells us the this property was also once occupied by James Ryder and Thomas Spencer.
Owners James Gall and John Gall
In 1835, Edward and Ann Chaplin sold all the freehold and copyhold parts of all the cottages they owned to James Gall for £895, of which £298 was deemed the consideration for the freehold parts, and the remainder as consideration for the copyhold parts. This deed also confirmed that James Gall held the properties in trust for Ellis Palmer, a gentleman of Caston, but limited to the lifetime of James Gall. On the death of James Gall, the ownership of the properties would pass in accordance with James Gall’s will.
James Gall died on the 10th July, 1841, without leaving a will. Perhaps his death was sudden, and he had not thought it necessary to put his affairs in order so soon. His freehold estate (including this property), passed to his eldest son, John Gall. At least some of the cottages within enclosure numbered 273 (on the extract of the 1802 map) were sold by John Gall to William Rose in 1842.
An ‘Estates and Occupations Collected’ c.1840, indicates that this property had certainly been purchased by ‘Gaul’ (Gall). The document also indicates that this property was (or had been) occupied by John Cook (I believe ‘Cook’ was mistakenly written down for ‘Hooke’). White’s Directory of 1836 lists John Hooke as a currier and shoemaker in Great Ellingham.
Sale by John Gall of Dwellinghouse occupied by John Hooke
A notice of a forthcoming auction of property in Great Ellingham by John Gall Junior of New Buckenham appeared in the Norwich Mercury on July 30th, 1842. The property included “a substantial tiled dwellinghouse lately two tenements with good sheds and garden in the occupation of John Hooke situate near to the Chequers Inn“. The property was said to be freehold and front the road to Hingham. The auction would take place at the Crown Inn in Attleburgh on the 11th August 1842.
Chequers Lane. Date unknown. Postcard courtesy Carol Ewin
It is likely that the ‘substantial tiled dwellinghouse lately two tenements’ being sold by John Gall is the same messuage which was occupied by Thilthorpe and Fox c.1799.
The above postcard shows the cottages (the subject of this blog) in the background. However, I do not know the extent of the buildings in 1800, or what additions or alterations have been made to them over the last 200 years.
The board fixed to the property may well be an advertising board for the Chequers Inn, which set back from the road (and out of sight).
Sources:
1799 Statement of Claims. Great Ellingham Inclosure. Norfolk Record Office. Catalogue Ref: MC 2213/118
1802 Russell James Colman Plans. Great Ellingham. 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
Great Ellingham Parish Registers. Norfolk Record Office. PD609. Also available at www.familysearch.org
Abstract of Title. Wymondham Town Archive. Reference 11773. John Gall Jnr. Lands in Great Ellingham sold to Wm Rose on 1/11/1842.
Norwich Mercury 30th July, 1842. White’s Directory 1836. Norfolk Record Office