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A History of Avon Terrace
It was 1841 and change was in the air. The young Victoria had just come to the throne; there were the beginnings of electoral reform; and the tithe system was being dismantled, although Brandon and Wolston still had their Lords of the Manor. The civil registration of births, marriages and deaths had recently been introduced and the first significant census in England and Wales was about to take place. And the railway had come to Brandon and Wolston, changing the face of the parish - and the course of the river.
There were shortly to be more changes in Wolston, as a local blacksmith had an acre of land to sell. On 27th February 1841 Thomas Ward, ‘formerly of Brandon but now of Woolston’, sold several parcels of land from the Close (‘a piece of Pasture or enclosed Meadow Ground’) known as the Pingle. The Close was bordered by the river Avon, the public road from Wolston to Brandon and land owned respectively by Thomas Parsons and William Wilcox. The Pingle was ‘formerly in the occupation of William Goode and late of Joseph Pearson’ but the title to the land had passed to Thomas Ward through many hands. The earliest document cited in the indentures is a conveyance on 15th November 1757 between William Hancock, tallow chandler, and Thomas Hewitt, weaver, both residents of Wolston.
The largest parcel of nearly half an acre, bordered by the river and the road, was purchased by Thomas Walton of Bubbenhall, a victualler, for £233 16s 0d. A smaller, adjacent parcel of 633 square yards went to George Jones of Wolston, a cordwainer (boot and shoemaker). Charles Lissaman of Wolston, a carpenter, purchased a parcel of 304 square yards adjacent to that of George Jones, and the next parcel went to Henry Perks. Further along the road towards Wolston village a parcel of 300 square yards was purchased by Thomas Eaglestone, also a cordwainer of Wolston, and the parcel next to him went to James Lissiman of Wolston, also a carpenter.
Although not specified in the conveyance indentures, these parcels of land were for housing and the purchasers did not waste any time. As soon as 11th March 1841 Thomas Eaglestone had obtained a mortgage for £160 on his land and ‘two messuages or dwelling houses and outhouses lately erected or being erected’. These were the two cottages subsequently known as 15 and 16 Avon Terrace (now 106 and 104 Main Street).
By 2nd July 1841, George Jones occupied a house built on his land and by 24th September 1852 he had built three more ‘messuages or tenements’. These four houses became 6 - 9 Avon Terrace (now two houses - 124 and 120 Main Street). Eight years later, by 24th April 1849, Charles Lissaman had built two houses on his land, subsequently known as 10 and 11 Avon Terrace (now converted into one house - 118 Main Street). The ‘Tithe Map of Wolston and Marston’, dated 29th September 1849, shows that Thomas Walton had built four houses on his land – these became known as Avon House and 2, 3 and 4 Avon Terrace (now 136 to 130 Main Street). The map also shows houses on James Lissamans’ land, probably 17 and 18 Avon Terrace (now 102 and 100 Main Street).
At the back of the cottages there was shared access to a number of wells and pumps. They had privies and an assortment of outhouses. Mr. Lock, the policeman, who occupied what is now 128 Main Street in the early 1900s, used the outhouses to the rear of his and the neighbouring property as police cells. They served this function until 1922.
This, then, was the beginning of what became known as Avon Terrace; a number of fairly modest, individual developments, which must, however, have required a degree of co-operation between the landowners to achieve our pleasing and coherent terrace of cottages. The first reference I have found to the name ‘Avon Terrace’ is in White’s Directory of Warwickshire (1874) where a number of residents and tradesmen give it as their address: Mrs. Susannah Morgan, who is recorded elsewhere as living in No. 1 prior to 1889; Mrs. Sarah Russell; George Richard Never, National School-master; John Fitter, bricklayer, stone-mason and general builder, who is recorded elsewhere as living at No. 4 with his wife, Elizabeth (Thomas Walton’s daughter); Richard Haynes, plumber and glazier, painter and general house decorator, who had purchased Nos. 10 and 11 in 1849.
By the time of the Ordnance Survey in 1886 (and probably much earlier), the terrace of cottages was much as it is today, apart from numbers 23 and 24 (now 90 and 88 Main Street), which were added in the late 1890s.
Most of the cottages were built to let. Apart from George Jones, who lived in the first of his four properties, and Thomas Walton, who seems to have built at least two of his four houses for himself and his children, none of the original land purchasers appear to have been owner-occupiers.
This remained the case for the next hundred years, with most of the cottages, in various permutations, passing through the hands of a succession of landlords. Maybe it was because of this that Avon Terrace reached a low ebb in the 1960s and 70s, with several cottages standing empty for up to ten years and others being in a very poor state of repair, to the point of being condemned.
In the 1960s, the firm of Bluemel Bros. Limited, which had occupied the factory at the rear of Avon Terrace since the early 1900s, took the opportunity to start purchasing the cottages, with a view to demolition in order to open up access to the factory site but resistance from some of the residents, and the establishment of a conservation area, scuppered the firm’s plans. In the 1980s, Bluemels began to sell individual or pairs of cottages, which by this time were in desperate need of renovation. This was the beginning of the process of restoration and enhancement, which has grown in pace over the past twenty years, to the point where Avon Terrace is now one of the most attractive features of the village.