The Manor Sale of 1916

Sale catalogues can be very interesting items and this one, complete with well reproduced photographs certainly is.

Manor sale catalogue – 1916

The bulk of the estate had been sold off following the death of Charles Awdry. James Welch, the father of the man whose war diaries and letters can be seen here acquired and kept the auction catalogue for the remainder of the estate. This was sold off in 33 lots on July 28^th 1916.

Buildings in the sale included

Bouverie Lodge, now happily rebuilt after the awful fire there.

The Fishing Cottage which also still exists.

The cricket pavilion which stood where the houses of Pavilion Gardens have been built.

The manor house itself.

Let’s take a look at a description of lot 23 which included the pavilion.

It sounds delightful.

James Welch, we guess, was at the sale and recorded price and buyer.

So we think the ground and pavilion were purchased by Mr Holloway for £535 (or maybe £555).

Lavington School now occupies part of the former cricket field.

Pond Farm for sale

Today we look at an extract from the Bath Evening Chronicle for Monday June 11^th 1877.

Masthead of Bath Evening Chronicle – 1877 style

Little details are always of interest. This paper, it says, was produced every afternoon at five o’clock and sold for the princely sum of one halfpenny. For those who don’t remember our pre-decimal currency, if you had a pound you could have bought 480 copies of the paper.

But it is one of the adverts that adds to the interest, big time, here.

Pond Farm – for sale by auction

This was a sale by auction of an Easterton property. This was the farm known as Pond Farm which once stood up on Salisbury Plain.

We have photos of the farm, but a written statement adds extra information.

Lot 1 – Comprising a comfortable well-arranged farm residence containing sitting room, kitchen, back kitchen, dairy, wash house, wood house, four bedrooms, attics and WC and having good yards, barn, stabling for nine horses cow house to tie eight cows, calf house, piggeries, waggon house &c together with about 52 acres of valuable rich arable, orchard and garden land now in the occupation of the Messrs Hampton

Lot 2 – Three well erected freehold cottages and gardens in the occupation of respectable tenants and at present let at a rental of £11 12s (£11.60) per annum.

This was all being offered for auction by Messrs Marsh and Dawes with the sale to be at The Green Dragon in Market Lavington on Tuesday 26^th June 1877 at three for four o’clock in the afternoon precisely.

So here we get information about the rooms in the house and the farm out buildings and cottages. One of the cottages was in the possession of a member of the Burnett family and another member added ‘Gran’s Home’, in hand writing.

It all makes for a fascinating document.

All in the Deeds

This blog is not to do with any ‘doing’ of deeds. It’s about the transfer of land and property from one person to another and the rather beautiful documents that can go with it. It is also a tale of a rather chance find and a journey which has ended at Market Lavington Museum.

Let’s start with the deed or indenture..

1865 indenture or conveyance – recently given to Market Lavington Museum

Here we have one of those large legal documents. It is on that classy legal vellum type paper and beautifully written. It tells of the sale of land between the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford and the Right Honourable Edward Pleydell Bouverie MP. It concerns the transfer of land – being the glebe lands of the Rectory of Lavington and is dated 12^th May 1865.

The document concerns Market Lavington glebe lands

In 1865, Edward Pleydell Bouverie was establishing himself as Lord of Market Lavington Manor. 1865 is the date upon Edward’s brand new Manor House. No doubt for a man with aspirations it seemed appropriate to pay some £2800 for parts of ‘his’ parish. That’s the equivalent of anything up to 4 million pounds today. Altogether Edward purchased a little over 77 acres including a cottage and buildings, orchards and meadows.

The seal set on this document is just gorgeous.

It is a fascinating and lovely document but its arrival at the museum is a wonderful story.

The final gift, just the other day came from the Rector in Market Lavington. He had held the document since 2010 when it arrived, quite unsolicited, with this letter.

Letter received by the Market Lavington rector

So the document arrived in Market Lavington from Northampton where a lady had given it to the sender, to send it to the church concerned. The lady’s late husband had bought it in a car boot sale – we do not know where that was but assume it was in the Northampton area.

But how did it arrive in a boot sale? That maybe something we’ll never know. But we are so pleased that by its roundabout route it has arrived back home

Our museum building is still owned by the Pleydell Bouverie family.

Buying presents in 1905

The commercialisation of Christmas is nothing new. Way back in 1905 a trader was able to hire the Workman’s Hall in Market Lavington to display his wares. He sent a letter to locals advising them of his sales.

Circular letter from George T Smith of Devizes advertising his sale days in Market Lavington

So George T Smith, auctioneer of Devizes, was bringing a collection of goodies to Market Lavington to sell, in time for Christmas 1905.

He was selling items made of what we might term china. Whether you wanted a five feet tall ‘jardenierre’ or almost any kind of tea or dinner service – Mr Smith had them. If you wanted nut bowls, fruit bowls or lunch trays all you had to do was turn up at the Workmen’s Hall at 3 pm or 7pm on 27^th to 29^th November and then bid.

We are sure that this provided a good social occasion as well as an opportunity to get vital items for the festive season.

Halstead Farm, Easterton

As we approach opening day for the new season, it is time to remember that Easterton was once a part of the parish of Market Lavington and is very much included at Market Lavington Museum. Recent acquisitions have included artefacts and photos connected with the jam factory. A recording – part of our oral history project has been made about work in and around the jam factory as well.

Halstead Farm, for sale by auction in 1936 – a poster at Market Lavington Museum

But for our reminder today we are looking at one of the High Street farms – Halstead Farm which is sited near the junction with Kings Road. In particular, we have an advert for the sale of the property in  1936.

At this time Halstead was very much a working farm. These days it would have been regarded as very small with its 34 acres 1 rood and 11 poles. An acre was 4840square yards and a rood was a quarter of an acre. A pole was the very odd size of 30¼ square yards. It all adds up, in modern units to less than 14 hectares.

The farm may have been bought by members of the Spencer family, for according to the 1939 electoral roll Arthur, Henry and Lawrence Spencer were electors who lived at Halstead Farm. A 1954/55 directory records H Spencer as a farmer and haulier of Halstead Farm. In a similar 1966 directory F C Spencer was at Halstead Farm.

The Farmhouse is now just a house. New buildings have been built on the old rick yard but it remains an attractive 18^th century dwelling.

Halstead Farm in 2009