Box People and Places
Latest Issue 48 Summer 2025 
  • This Issue
    • Augustus Perren
    • Church Photos
    • Box Village Photos
    • Bath Photos
    • Pictor Photos
    • Celebration Photos
    • Perren Family Photos
    • Unknown Photos
    • Box People Photos
    • VE Day Full Story
    • Memories of VE Day 1945
    • VE Daty 2025 Anniversary
    • Oral History
  • Previous
    • Issue 46 - Box Hill
    • Issue 45 - Moleyns Lordship
    • Issue 44 - Viking Hazelbury
    • Issue 43 - Late Medieval
    • Issue 42 - Beautiful Box
    • Issue 41 - Becket Plays
    • Issue 40 - Selwyn Hall
    • Issues 30-39 >
      • Issue 39 - Modern Box
      • Issue 38 - Railway Workers
      • Issue 37 - Mill Lane Halt
      • Issue 36 - Box Rec
      • Issue 35 - Inter war
      • Issue 34 - Fogleigh House
      • Issue 33 - KIngsdown Post Office
      • Issue 32 - Chapel Lane
      • Issue 31 - Saxon Box
      • Issue 30 - Georgian Rudloe
    • Issues 20-29 >
      • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
      • Issue 28 - VE Day
      • Issue 27 - Northey
      • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
    • Issues 10-19 >
      • Issue 19 - Outbreak WW2
      • Issue 18 - Building Bargates
      • Issue 17 - Railway Changes
      • Issue 16 - Quarries
      • Issue 15 - Rail & Quarry
      • Issue 14 - Civil War
      • Issue 13: Box Revels
      • Issue 12 - Where You Live
      • Issue 11 - Tudor & Stuart
      • Issue 10 - End of Era 1912
    • Issues 1-9 >
      • Issue 9 - Health & Leisure
      • Issue 8 - Farming & Rural
      • Issue 7 - Manufacturing
      • Issue 6 - Celebrations
      • Issue 5 - Victorian Centre
      • Issue 4 - Slump after WW1
      • Issue 3 - Great War 1914-18
      • Issue 2 - 1950s & 1960s
      • Issue 1 - 1920s
    • Index By Author
    • Partner Sites & Book Reviews
    • Currency Converter
  • People
  • Places
  • General
  • FULL Series
  • Contact
    • Blog
    • Q&A
More About Shockerwick House
Ainslie Goulstone
March 2016

Shockerwick isn't in the modern Box parish but we make no excuse for including Ainslie's details because that was not always the case. The Speke family in the early 1600s regarded it as part of their estate and, indeed, the boundary line between Box and Bathford runs beside the house. The siting of this boundary down a small brook is one of the great mysteries about who shaped the area in the early days and why.

Right: Illustration by SH Grimm dated 1790 showing Shockerwick House on left (courtesy British Library).
Picture
Ainslie wrote
In issue 11 you have a fascinating picture of an older Shockerwick House which I had always wondered about. My mother-in-law, Mrs Larky Goulstone, told me that the present north west wing, which faces our farm and has Cotswold stone tiles unlike the rest of the house, is the only remaining part of an earlier house, called Hussey's Court, which burned down. She said it was the stable block of that house.

It's such a wonderful, occupation site with sun all day (when there is any !) that encouraged a succession of houses on the spot.
I seem to remember from an early map that a track or drive went across the field we now know as the Big Mead from Bussam Bridge to the house site. Perhaps the stable / farm access was from the present drive. We tend to forget that lane access was from Ashley mainly until the railway went through.

Picture
Above: The modern Shockerwick House with the oldest part seen on the left of the picture.
Below: the ancient boundary marked by a running brook is a fascinating insight into how ancient people marked out their territory.
All pictures courtesy Carol Payne

Shockerwick House once played a part in Britain's political story. William Pitt the Younger, British Prime Minister, visited Shockerwick in 1805, where he learned of the French victory at Austerlitz. The so-called Battle of the Three Emperors was perhaps Napoleon's greatest victory when he defeated the armies of Tsar Alexander I of Russia and the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II of Austria. The result opened up the whole of Europe to control by the French Emperor. Pitt is reported to have said of the result, Roll up that map (of Europe); it will not be wanted for ten years. Pitt died 2 months later, a broken man.[1]

Picture
Picture
Now, any views about why it was once called Hussey's Court? Help please.
References
[1] Margaret Wilson, The Limpley Stoke Valley, 1994, Ex Libris Press, p.111
Back to Issue 12