Mapping Box Street Alan Payne March 2024
Central Box in the 1840 Tithe Apportionment map (courtesy Know Your Place)
The census of 1871 lists many properties in central Box as either at Ashley and or at Box Street. Ashley still exists on maps but not Box Street. This article attempts to explain these references and how the village evolved. The 1840 Tithe maps often show the development of an area with buildings situated along roadsides, at road or river crossings, or grouped around significant buildings, like mills.
Box Church Area
All village development requires road access connecting properties to each other and local infrastructure. It is the structures which encourage road connections and the grouping of properties between isolated farmsteads which created the early Box village.
Box is fortunate in having a very early map of 1626 drawn by the Allen family for the Spekes, new lords of Box Manor. Many properties can be identified in similar locations, including The Hermitage, The Wilderness and Spring Grove. These may be the same property or earlier properties on similar locations. Several fields related to the church with areas to the west called Vicre and to the east Parsne (Parson). However, the most notable feature of the map is the amount of water coloured blue-green. Some of this came from diversions of the By Brook to deliberately bring fresh water to properties. The medieval mill at The Wilderness looks identical to that shown two centuries later in the Tithe Apportionment map.
Box Church Area
All village development requires road access connecting properties to each other and local infrastructure. It is the structures which encourage road connections and the grouping of properties between isolated farmsteads which created the early Box village.
Box is fortunate in having a very early map of 1626 drawn by the Allen family for the Spekes, new lords of Box Manor. Many properties can be identified in similar locations, including The Hermitage, The Wilderness and Spring Grove. These may be the same property or earlier properties on similar locations. Several fields related to the church with areas to the west called Vicre and to the east Parsne (Parson). However, the most notable feature of the map is the amount of water coloured blue-green. Some of this came from diversions of the By Brook to deliberately bring fresh water to properties. The medieval mill at The Wilderness looks identical to that shown two centuries later in the Tithe Apportionment map.
The Allen map of 1626 (courtesy Wiltshire History Centre)
Many of the features in the 1626 map also show in the 1840 Tithe Apportionment map. The area around St Thomas a Becket church, shows the building was flanked by roads which we now call the High Street and Church Lane. There was residential development along many of these roads. We can identify several buildings on the 1840 Tithe map: The Hermitage (Ref 198), The Bear Inn (Ref 197), Springfield House (197a), Box House (194), Spring Grove (188) and The Wilderness (180). Curiously, there was no residential development on the south side of the High Street in 1840. This is surprising as the land was so central in the village. A note on the road reads Slope (written upside down at foot of map above), indicating that the road was excavated deeply into the natural geography of the area, reputedly to accommodate the passage of stone trucks. At that time, it was not financially worthwhile to flatten the area south of the road for building purposes (and one property built later is still called Slope).
Enlarged view of Box Church area in 1840 (courtesy Know Your Place)
Whilst these features limit the southern development of the village, they do not explain the northern expansion. The church, Box House and the Bear Pub would themselves have attracted additional development for the accommodation of servants, carriages and for brewing needs. But this extension of residences does not explain why these properties were built here in the first place. Much of the area was still owned by church authorities in 1840: Box House and The Hermitage were owned by the vicar who let them out for an income; The Wilderness and Spring Grove were owned by the Mullins family, including Rev George Mullins (parish clerk and teacher at the Charity School); and Springfield House was owned by Box Parish. Incidentally, the Box Parish Office was recorded at the back of the Queens Head.
It is clear that the abundance of fresh water for drinking and household needs was a determining factor in the growth of the area around Box Church. We might also speculate that the vicars and rectors of Box Church deliberately developed the area for its rent value. Indeed, there are many historians who believe that the Box Roman Villa originated as a Celtic spring-site and that Box Church was built from the villa stone and inherited some of the villa cultural heritage.
Box Street
It is more difficult to identify properties east of Box Church in the 1626 map. This is because the orientation of the area has been distorted to show the Speke Manor House in glorious profile. Two properties are shown on either side of the road. Those on the south side are believed to be number 2 and 4, The Market Place, used as agricultural labourers’ house for workers of the Manor House. These properties are still noticeable by their seventeenth-century roof line.
It is more difficult to identify properties east of Box Church in the 1626 map. This is because the orientation of the area has been distorted to show the Speke Manor House in glorious profile. Two properties are shown on either side of the road. Those on the south side are believed to be number 2 and 4, The Market Place, used as agricultural labourers’ house for workers of the Manor House. These properties are still noticeable by their seventeenth-century roof line.
Box Market Place in Allen’s 1626 map (courtesy Wiltshire History Centre)
More prominent is the road itself, which is clearly the main route through Box before the A4 was created as a by-pass. Equally significant, is the stream marked blue-green which bisects the Market Place. This spring is still evident at Coleridge House with drainage points tracing its route across the Jubilee Centre car park area. The abundance of water again appears to be significant in the development of this area, both for early residences and later for the development of the Box Steam Mill. It is the pool of water evident on the site of The Old Dairy which encouraged the use of the area for brewing purposes and particularly for the needs of the malthouse in repeatedly spraying and drying the barley and hops. To service the needs of the brewing industry, houses started to provide clothes, services and provisions and the area developed as shops in the later Victorian Market Place.
The Market Place in the 1840 Tithe Apportionment map (courtesy Know Your Place)
The most developed area of Box in 1840 was at the Market Place and Glovers Lane up to Townsend, later collectively called
Box Street. There were residences on both sides of these roads in contrast to the present A4 road, which had no residential development at that time. The owner of the Queens Head pub (Ref 187) held extensive land on both sides of the A4. Land on the south side (now called the Old Sweet Factory and Queens Square) was the pub’s stables and gardens respectively. Then came blocks of properties held by supporters of the Methodist movement. Catherine Rowe ran a shop and bakehouse at Millers (Ref 187b), and let four cottages along Chapel Lane (338) to Methodist adherents. Then original Methodist Church can be seen behind the site of the present Ebenezer Chapel.
Going down the Market Place, much of the land was owned by David Rice Pinchin who used the extensive site as a malthouse, brewery and dray yard (Ref 347). The Old Dairy (348) also belonged to him and part was let to Thomas Bath called garden behind malthouse. Private residences existed in the land to the south of the Market Place including the Jubilee Centre (Ref 343a), then used as a cooper’s shop for the Brewery and later reputedly an extension to the malthouse. A property on the site of Rose Cottage appears to have been used as a beerhouse, presumably selling the local brew.
On the south side of the Market Place, the Parade Cottages were let as private houses. Frogmore House and Cottage existed but were not marked as significant. Dalebrook and Steam Mill Cottages had not yet been built. The Market Place Cottages existed although those nearest the car park were vacant as newly-built, one called late a shop. Glovers Lane Cottages were in situ (352), let to individual families by a private owner. We might imagine that some of these properties were in a basic condition and the level of rent was sometimes negligeable or nil in 1840.
The Chequers Inn existed and in 1840 was tenanted by James Vezey, later well-known as founder of Box Cricket Club. At Vale View lived Edward Cottle, son of Edward Cottle who was a Box churchwarden and eminent grazier and butcher who had married into the Vezey family.[1] Townsend House and Cottage was divided between different tenants.
Box Street. There were residences on both sides of these roads in contrast to the present A4 road, which had no residential development at that time. The owner of the Queens Head pub (Ref 187) held extensive land on both sides of the A4. Land on the south side (now called the Old Sweet Factory and Queens Square) was the pub’s stables and gardens respectively. Then came blocks of properties held by supporters of the Methodist movement. Catherine Rowe ran a shop and bakehouse at Millers (Ref 187b), and let four cottages along Chapel Lane (338) to Methodist adherents. Then original Methodist Church can be seen behind the site of the present Ebenezer Chapel.
Going down the Market Place, much of the land was owned by David Rice Pinchin who used the extensive site as a malthouse, brewery and dray yard (Ref 347). The Old Dairy (348) also belonged to him and part was let to Thomas Bath called garden behind malthouse. Private residences existed in the land to the south of the Market Place including the Jubilee Centre (Ref 343a), then used as a cooper’s shop for the Brewery and later reputedly an extension to the malthouse. A property on the site of Rose Cottage appears to have been used as a beerhouse, presumably selling the local brew.
On the south side of the Market Place, the Parade Cottages were let as private houses. Frogmore House and Cottage existed but were not marked as significant. Dalebrook and Steam Mill Cottages had not yet been built. The Market Place Cottages existed although those nearest the car park were vacant as newly-built, one called late a shop. Glovers Lane Cottages were in situ (352), let to individual families by a private owner. We might imagine that some of these properties were in a basic condition and the level of rent was sometimes negligeable or nil in 1840.
The Chequers Inn existed and in 1840 was tenanted by James Vezey, later well-known as founder of Box Cricket Club. At Vale View lived Edward Cottle, son of Edward Cottle who was a Box churchwarden and eminent grazier and butcher who had married into the Vezey family.[1] Townsend House and Cottage was divided between different tenants.
Ashley Hamlet
The will of Hugh Speke in 1624 makes it clear that Box, Box Agard and Haselbury were separate manors and that different properties in these areas had been assembled by Hugh to make a single estate. We can't identify Box Agard and there are suggestions that it referred to properties originally relating to Box Church; or that it meant a farm by a stream; or alternatively it was a combination of the words hard and edge, meaning a quarrying area. More significantly, there appears to be no reference to Ashley.
The will of Hugh Speke in 1624 makes it clear that Box, Box Agard and Haselbury were separate manors and that different properties in these areas had been assembled by Hugh to make a single estate. We can't identify Box Agard and there are suggestions that it referred to properties originally relating to Box Church; or that it meant a farm by a stream; or alternatively it was a combination of the words hard and edge, meaning a quarrying area. More significantly, there appears to be no reference to Ashley.
Ashley shown in the 1626 Allen map (courtesy Wilts History Centre)
The Allen map of 1626 clearly shows that Ashley was owned separately from the Speke lands. Ashley Manor is shown as a significant house on a par with Box Manor House. It had been owned since the mid 1500s by the Long family who acquired land there from the Mountford-Butler estates. Henry Long held the land in 1626. The Bonham family of Hazelbury appear to have had designs on acquiring land in Ashley in the late 1500s but the manor escaped their control.[2] The Ashley lands drifted closer to Box when the Rev John Coren (vicar from 1601 to 1644), married Edith Long, daughter of Anthony and Alice Long.
The Northey family acquired their estate in the Box area in a piecemeal fashion and at some time between 1726 and 1780 they purchased the manor of Ashley.[3] But the 1840B Tithe Apportionment records show that the land was not owned personally by the family but was controlled by the family trust established on the death of Wicked Billy Northey. By the time of the Sales of Northey Land in 1912, the family headed their sales brochure as The Ashley Manor Estate and described the manor as the seat of the Northey family for many years.
The Northey family acquired their estate in the Box area in a piecemeal fashion and at some time between 1726 and 1780 they purchased the manor of Ashley.[3] But the 1840B Tithe Apportionment records show that the land was not owned personally by the family but was controlled by the family trust established on the death of Wicked Billy Northey. By the time of the Sales of Northey Land in 1912, the family headed their sales brochure as The Ashley Manor Estate and described the manor as the seat of the Northey family for many years.
The wonderful Andrews & Drury map of 1773 shows clearly that Ashley Lane is predominantly a continuation of the main road through Box and down the Market Place. The centralisation of Box village was partly due to the steep inclines surrounding the Box Brook Valley, limiting development to the north and east of the area. The valley encouraged development along the brook, offering an abundance of fresh water with several spring tributaries running into it. In turn, the water led to industrial technology in the valley bottom and three mills are clearly seen on the map: Cuttings, Pinchins (Box Mill) and Mills Platt (Drewetts).
Andrews & Dury map of 1773 E Crittall (ed) (1952) Andrews’ and Dury’s Map of Wiltshire, 1773: A Reduced Facsimile (Wiltshire Record Society, Devizes)
We have seen how the ownership of Ashley was separate from that of Box. Residential development in both areas was patchy with significant gaps in the density of houses, not in-filled until the 19th and 20th centuries. These gaps were originally farmland; such as Fairmead Farm (also called Manor Farm in the centre of the village), the ancient Box Fields (now Bargates) and Spencer’s Farm and Manor Farm in Ashley. These fields restricted continuous development and show that the village of Box was of settlement in pockets of land.
Conclusion
So, how did Box become a unified village? For this, we need to look elsewhere to ownership of land. Lacking a church burial ground at Ashley, Rudloe, Box Hill and the southern hamlets, Box Church was a centralising factor in respect of marriages, baptisms, the recording of wills, burials, and education facilities throughout the extended area of Box. Some of these later became the inheritance of the civil Box Parish Council with defined boundary borders. It is also true that the expansion of the stone quarrying industry increased centralisation, despite the diversity of outcrop locations (at Box Hill, Kingsdown, and Wadswick). Central village shopkeepers had the opportunity to service workers from different areas at cheap prices through volume of trade.
Conclusion
So, how did Box become a unified village? For this, we need to look elsewhere to ownership of land. Lacking a church burial ground at Ashley, Rudloe, Box Hill and the southern hamlets, Box Church was a centralising factor in respect of marriages, baptisms, the recording of wills, burials, and education facilities throughout the extended area of Box. Some of these later became the inheritance of the civil Box Parish Council with defined boundary borders. It is also true that the expansion of the stone quarrying industry increased centralisation, despite the diversity of outcrop locations (at Box Hill, Kingsdown, and Wadswick). Central village shopkeepers had the opportunity to service workers from different areas at cheap prices through volume of trade.
Reference
[1] Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 21 February 1776
[2] GF Laurence, Ashley Manor, Box, 1994, Wiltshire History Centre
[3] See Northey Family Early Family - Box People and Places
[1] Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 21 February 1776
[2] GF Laurence, Ashley Manor, Box, 1994, Wiltshire History Centre
[3] See Northey Family Early Family - Box People and Places