Upway Cottages Alan Payne January 2023
Upway Cottages on left (Photo courtesy Varian Tye)
When Upway was built, Georgian Box was a very different place. It largely consisted of properties grouped around Box Church and in The Market Place and farmsteads scattered in the hamlets serviced by mills on the By Brook. There had been families working in quarries at Quarry Hill and Kingsdown but surface quarrying had been exhausted and in the late 1600s local historian John Aubrey reported the building stone as largely worked out: The quarre at Haselbury was the most eminent for freestone in the western parts before the discovery of the Portland quarrie, which was but about 1600. It was farming that Box relied upon and the main rural area was Box Fields which covered the eastern side of the village. This had been a communal area divided into strips of land where medieval residents agreed to farm the same crops each year under the authority of the court of the lord of the manor and his representatives.
To see how rural Box was we need to look at the road structure in the medieval period. The area was part of the Bath Roads running from London to Bristol but these routes did not pass through the centre of Box. Instead they took traffic along the ancient ridgeway road from Chapel Plaister to Kingsdown Common along the southern boundary of the parish. On this road a signpost on Bowden’s 1720 map stated: For Box, turn in at the gate. Box appears to be the isolated community down in the valley bottom.
To see how rural Box was we need to look at the road structure in the medieval period. The area was part of the Bath Roads running from London to Bristol but these routes did not pass through the centre of Box. Instead they took traffic along the ancient ridgeway road from Chapel Plaister to Kingsdown Common along the southern boundary of the parish. On this road a signpost on Bowden’s 1720 map stated: For Box, turn in at the gate. Box appears to be the isolated community down in the valley bottom.
Allen’s 1630 map showing the extent of Box Fields to the east of the village (courtesy Wilts History Centre)
Changes After 1761
All of this changed dramatically in the year 1761, the same year that the first factory was built in Birmingham heralding the start of the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the Empire was being rapidly expanded into India and the Americas. As trade was flourishing, local businessmen wanted to grow markets for their products by investing in better road and travel opportunities.
A group of these men met in Pickwick, Corsham in a building called Bricker’s Barn near the Cross Keys pub to discuss building an improved route running directly from Corsham to Bath. To finance the work, they proposed a turnpike road charging a toll for traffic using the route with tollgates and a gatekeeper stopping traffic which did not pay. This system had been popular since the early 1600s and was closely controlled involving setting up a trust with distinguished locals acting as trustees and an Act of Parliament.
The cost of the new road amounted to £4,600 in 1761 (today over £1 million), required to be carved out of the hillside running down Box Hill. The road completely altered the story of Box re-directing goods, travellers and wealth to the centre of the village and making Box a significant stopping point between London and Bath. It was well advertised as The New Turnpike Road leading from Bath through Box to Chippenham, Calne and Marlborough is now completed and opened, reducing the distance by 1½ miles. The road opened up the east of the village, encouraging residential development and the expansion of Box towards Corsham. Half a century later, the maintenance of this road had become too expensive and by the 1820s there were plans to build a new road along the route which we now call the A4. The old road started to fall out of use and became known as
“Beech Road” or “Back Road”.
Residential Development at Upway
When the old turnpike road was superseded by the A4, the trustees sold off the tollhouses and parts of the land next to Back Road in 1851. One person who bought land was John Waite who was born in 1816 and lived with his family at Townsend, Box, where he worked as a stone mason in 1841. By 1851 the family had moved to Box Quarries and John was described as journeyman mason, installing stone on site often in damaged churches or grand new buildings. John bought 8 perches of land (some 132 feet) near the cottage where he lived for £2 from the trustees.
It seems likely that for John the property was an investment. It was built with care, constructed in natural limestone blocks with stone chimney stacks, stone coped gables and slate roof but not set back in its own grounds (more convenient for keeping small livestock). Instead, it was divided into two cottages (later called Upways) closely bordering the road and let to tenants, Jacob Dancey and Thomas Newman. John continued to own the property until December 1863 when he mortgaged it to Edwin Humphries, a Chippenham wheelwright, for £40. In July 1866 he borrowed more money, £100 from the Promoter Life Assurance & Annuity Company, and effectively sold the property when he appointed Samuel Rowe Noble, quarryman/stone merchant, and George Tanner Elliott, carpenter/wheelwright/builder, as trustees of his finances. But prior to that, he created a 99-year tenancy for his wife Ann and two infant sons, John James and Wallace Waite, so that they could continue to benefit from the rent. It is possible that John Waite was a Methodist because Samuel Rowe Noble was one of the founders of the Box Hill Methodist Church and involved in funding the chapel in central Box.
By 1864 the character of the road had totally altered. The new turnpike road down Box Hill (now called A4) had taken traffic away from Back Road and a tramway had been laid on the north side of the old road by the Pictor family, owners of Clift Quarry and parents-in-law of Samuel Rowe Noble. The tramway conveyed wagons filled with stone from Clift Quarry down to the bottom of Box Hill where it passed under the A4 to The Wharf sidings for weathering, shaping and transportation anywhere in Britain on the railway network. It was dangerous to walk on the north side of the road because of the speed of the heavy wagons and people would walk up the hill on the south side, called by a name for the first time “Upway”.
The Primitive Chapel
In 1886 the area underwent further change when a Primitive Methodist Chapel was built on the side of number 2 Upways.
The Primitive Methodist Connexion in Bristol had investigated the area in the 1860s and suggested that a permanent Primitive Chapel was needed on Box Hill to replace itinerant preachers and home churches, such as Ivy Cottage opened for weekly Primitive worship by Charles and Rebecca Hancock. Samuel Rowe Noble, a well-known quarry owner and a staunch Methodist bought Upways and a triangular piece of land adjoining number 2, which he agreed to sell to the Methodist Trustees for £160 to enable a new chapel to be constructed adjoining number 2. John Smith of Chippenham was commissioned to build the chapel at a cost of £170 (£20,000 in today’s value) and the building quickly developed.
The creation of the chapel opened this part of Beech Road to considerably more pedestrian traffic as the congregation assembled every Sunday and the premises were used for Sunday Schools and weekly teaching to children. For visitors, the tramway rail track on the north side of Beech Road would have already caused considerable noise and disruption, which was matched by families arriving for Sunday worship and the sound of the harmonium for hymns. It is also likely that some services spilled out of the chapel onto the road as the Primitive movement was renowned for open-air preaching.
Later Landlords and Tenants of Upway Cottages
In 1923 Robert Wilton (Bob) Tilley (1877-15 May 1952) owned both Upway Cottages. He didn’t live there but he was sufficiently wealthy to live at Rudloe House and later Rudloe Cottage from at least 1911 until the Second World War. He was an auctioneer and estate agent, well-known locally as a partner in Tilley and Culverwell who operated in Bath and ran the Chippenham Agricultural Market.[12] Upway was an investment property for him helping to provide the income which enabled his daughter Nancy to compete as an international eventer and horse carriage driver.
The land behind several Beech Road properties was owned by the Northey family, lords of the manor. The plots were let to stone workers for gardening and for keeping small animals like pigs and fowl which provided food when the stone industry was in the doldrums. At times these workers included the Tinson and Mumford families. The Tinson family were a constant in the Box Hill quarry industry, living at Boxfield Cottages in 1901 and in 1911. Thomas Henry Tinson lived at Jessamine Cottage on the A4 road with his wife and children. He had worked in the trade since the age of 14 when he called himself carter but possibly working as the boy in charge of the haulage horses. By 1911 his physique had developed sufficiently to become a stone sawyer, manually sawing blocks into uniform shapes, but later reverted back to carter. When the Northey family sought to sell their interest in the land in 1923, TH Tinson had moved to Fogleigh Cottage and was renting the garden behind the Primitive Chapel.
The Mumford family lived next door to Fogleigh Cottage, possibly at Hilden. They were newcomers to Box Hill, moving from Westwood, Bradford-on-Avon, shortly before World War I, probably coming for work as Herbert was recorded as a stone sawyer for the Bath and Portland Stone Firms. In 1923 Herbert rented the garden plot behind Upway.
In 1939 the tenants of the cottages were listed as James Hancock (24 December 1872-), a freestone quarryman (heavy worker), and his wife Ada (28 August 1870-) in number 1 Upway and Herbert Mumford (17 February 1874-), a building stone sawyer, and his wife Elizabeth Emily Wootten (28 May 1883-), together with a lodger Ernest Rice, in number 2. Too old to be called up 67-year-old James Hancock probably was involved in clearing the underground quarries and tunnels so that they could be used for military purposes at a time when the extraction of stone blocks had virtually ceased in the area. Herbert Mumford was in a different part of the quarry industry, preparing already mined stone for use in buildings. Both roles were very lowly-paid and their tenure in Upway was likely to be rental.
In 1956 Frederick Loxton lived in number 1 Upway until he was relocated to council accommodation at 27 Brunel Way. He was separated from his wife who lived in Frome but his daughters Sally Anne and Jayne Margaret were both married in the area.
All of this changed dramatically in the year 1761, the same year that the first factory was built in Birmingham heralding the start of the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the Empire was being rapidly expanded into India and the Americas. As trade was flourishing, local businessmen wanted to grow markets for their products by investing in better road and travel opportunities.
A group of these men met in Pickwick, Corsham in a building called Bricker’s Barn near the Cross Keys pub to discuss building an improved route running directly from Corsham to Bath. To finance the work, they proposed a turnpike road charging a toll for traffic using the route with tollgates and a gatekeeper stopping traffic which did not pay. This system had been popular since the early 1600s and was closely controlled involving setting up a trust with distinguished locals acting as trustees and an Act of Parliament.
The cost of the new road amounted to £4,600 in 1761 (today over £1 million), required to be carved out of the hillside running down Box Hill. The road completely altered the story of Box re-directing goods, travellers and wealth to the centre of the village and making Box a significant stopping point between London and Bath. It was well advertised as The New Turnpike Road leading from Bath through Box to Chippenham, Calne and Marlborough is now completed and opened, reducing the distance by 1½ miles. The road opened up the east of the village, encouraging residential development and the expansion of Box towards Corsham. Half a century later, the maintenance of this road had become too expensive and by the 1820s there were plans to build a new road along the route which we now call the A4. The old road started to fall out of use and became known as
“Beech Road” or “Back Road”.
Residential Development at Upway
When the old turnpike road was superseded by the A4, the trustees sold off the tollhouses and parts of the land next to Back Road in 1851. One person who bought land was John Waite who was born in 1816 and lived with his family at Townsend, Box, where he worked as a stone mason in 1841. By 1851 the family had moved to Box Quarries and John was described as journeyman mason, installing stone on site often in damaged churches or grand new buildings. John bought 8 perches of land (some 132 feet) near the cottage where he lived for £2 from the trustees.
It seems likely that for John the property was an investment. It was built with care, constructed in natural limestone blocks with stone chimney stacks, stone coped gables and slate roof but not set back in its own grounds (more convenient for keeping small livestock). Instead, it was divided into two cottages (later called Upways) closely bordering the road and let to tenants, Jacob Dancey and Thomas Newman. John continued to own the property until December 1863 when he mortgaged it to Edwin Humphries, a Chippenham wheelwright, for £40. In July 1866 he borrowed more money, £100 from the Promoter Life Assurance & Annuity Company, and effectively sold the property when he appointed Samuel Rowe Noble, quarryman/stone merchant, and George Tanner Elliott, carpenter/wheelwright/builder, as trustees of his finances. But prior to that, he created a 99-year tenancy for his wife Ann and two infant sons, John James and Wallace Waite, so that they could continue to benefit from the rent. It is possible that John Waite was a Methodist because Samuel Rowe Noble was one of the founders of the Box Hill Methodist Church and involved in funding the chapel in central Box.
By 1864 the character of the road had totally altered. The new turnpike road down Box Hill (now called A4) had taken traffic away from Back Road and a tramway had been laid on the north side of the old road by the Pictor family, owners of Clift Quarry and parents-in-law of Samuel Rowe Noble. The tramway conveyed wagons filled with stone from Clift Quarry down to the bottom of Box Hill where it passed under the A4 to The Wharf sidings for weathering, shaping and transportation anywhere in Britain on the railway network. It was dangerous to walk on the north side of the road because of the speed of the heavy wagons and people would walk up the hill on the south side, called by a name for the first time “Upway”.
The Primitive Chapel
In 1886 the area underwent further change when a Primitive Methodist Chapel was built on the side of number 2 Upways.
The Primitive Methodist Connexion in Bristol had investigated the area in the 1860s and suggested that a permanent Primitive Chapel was needed on Box Hill to replace itinerant preachers and home churches, such as Ivy Cottage opened for weekly Primitive worship by Charles and Rebecca Hancock. Samuel Rowe Noble, a well-known quarry owner and a staunch Methodist bought Upways and a triangular piece of land adjoining number 2, which he agreed to sell to the Methodist Trustees for £160 to enable a new chapel to be constructed adjoining number 2. John Smith of Chippenham was commissioned to build the chapel at a cost of £170 (£20,000 in today’s value) and the building quickly developed.
The creation of the chapel opened this part of Beech Road to considerably more pedestrian traffic as the congregation assembled every Sunday and the premises were used for Sunday Schools and weekly teaching to children. For visitors, the tramway rail track on the north side of Beech Road would have already caused considerable noise and disruption, which was matched by families arriving for Sunday worship and the sound of the harmonium for hymns. It is also likely that some services spilled out of the chapel onto the road as the Primitive movement was renowned for open-air preaching.
Later Landlords and Tenants of Upway Cottages
In 1923 Robert Wilton (Bob) Tilley (1877-15 May 1952) owned both Upway Cottages. He didn’t live there but he was sufficiently wealthy to live at Rudloe House and later Rudloe Cottage from at least 1911 until the Second World War. He was an auctioneer and estate agent, well-known locally as a partner in Tilley and Culverwell who operated in Bath and ran the Chippenham Agricultural Market.[12] Upway was an investment property for him helping to provide the income which enabled his daughter Nancy to compete as an international eventer and horse carriage driver.
The land behind several Beech Road properties was owned by the Northey family, lords of the manor. The plots were let to stone workers for gardening and for keeping small animals like pigs and fowl which provided food when the stone industry was in the doldrums. At times these workers included the Tinson and Mumford families. The Tinson family were a constant in the Box Hill quarry industry, living at Boxfield Cottages in 1901 and in 1911. Thomas Henry Tinson lived at Jessamine Cottage on the A4 road with his wife and children. He had worked in the trade since the age of 14 when he called himself carter but possibly working as the boy in charge of the haulage horses. By 1911 his physique had developed sufficiently to become a stone sawyer, manually sawing blocks into uniform shapes, but later reverted back to carter. When the Northey family sought to sell their interest in the land in 1923, TH Tinson had moved to Fogleigh Cottage and was renting the garden behind the Primitive Chapel.
The Mumford family lived next door to Fogleigh Cottage, possibly at Hilden. They were newcomers to Box Hill, moving from Westwood, Bradford-on-Avon, shortly before World War I, probably coming for work as Herbert was recorded as a stone sawyer for the Bath and Portland Stone Firms. In 1923 Herbert rented the garden plot behind Upway.
In 1939 the tenants of the cottages were listed as James Hancock (24 December 1872-), a freestone quarryman (heavy worker), and his wife Ada (28 August 1870-) in number 1 Upway and Herbert Mumford (17 February 1874-), a building stone sawyer, and his wife Elizabeth Emily Wootten (28 May 1883-), together with a lodger Ernest Rice, in number 2. Too old to be called up 67-year-old James Hancock probably was involved in clearing the underground quarries and tunnels so that they could be used for military purposes at a time when the extraction of stone blocks had virtually ceased in the area. Herbert Mumford was in a different part of the quarry industry, preparing already mined stone for use in buildings. Both roles were very lowly-paid and their tenure in Upway was likely to be rental.
In 1956 Frederick Loxton lived in number 1 Upway until he was relocated to council accommodation at 27 Brunel Way. He was separated from his wife who lived in Frome but his daughters Sally Anne and Jayne Margaret were both married in the area.
Byfields shop on the corner of Chapel Lane was demolished in the 1970s (courtesy John Harris)
In 1970 Leonard Byfield owned number 1 Upway. He was a grocer whose family came from Bradford-on-Avon. Leonard (1914-2004) had trained as a grocer working for the Co-operative Society and after the Second World War he married Gwendoline Turtell. They moved to Box and ran the grocers on the corner of Chapel Lane which they bought after the death of William Ponting who had operated it after 1928. The shop was demolished in the 1970s to make way for redevelopment of the area
in 1975.
in 1975.
Modern Upways
For much of its history the cottages were owned by a landlord and rented out to tenants. Because of the small size of the premises, the tenants tended to be young married couples or elderly people whose families had moved away from home.
Both of these groups had limited funds to pay rent and the buildings were allowed to run down.
The situation of the cottages altered after the Thatcher years in the 1980s which introduced the right-to-buy council houses and growing private ownership of rented properties. In 2006 Elaine Savage put on a sculpture exhibition at Upways, including one work which had previously been shown in the Royal Academy of Arts. In recent years the interiors have been marvellously modernized whilst retaining the exterior to demonstrate their heritage significance.
For much of its history the cottages were owned by a landlord and rented out to tenants. Because of the small size of the premises, the tenants tended to be young married couples or elderly people whose families had moved away from home.
Both of these groups had limited funds to pay rent and the buildings were allowed to run down.
The situation of the cottages altered after the Thatcher years in the 1980s which introduced the right-to-buy council houses and growing private ownership of rented properties. In 2006 Elaine Savage put on a sculpture exhibition at Upways, including one work which had previously been shown in the Royal Academy of Arts. In recent years the interiors have been marvellously modernized whilst retaining the exterior to demonstrate their heritage significance.