New Page 1

'The Hall House', 20 High Street,
(Margaret Partington's Elegant Hats for Hire Shop)
by Janet Kennish

This complex building has a clear traceable history back to the 1590s. Its modern name, the 'Hall House' is misleading, due to the wrong identification of a converted 17th century barn as a late medieval single-storey hall house open to the rafters. Although this was a mistake, parts of an extremely old house (built either late 1400s or early 1500s) remain at the core of the property which was substantially added to and altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. From the early 1600s the house was an alehouse or tavern, at first called the Rose and then the Duke of Northumberland's Head. By about 1750 it had become a butcher's premises, which it continued to be into the mid-1970s. The present building illustrates these various uses and the aspirations of its owners over 500 years.

This article deals firstly with the ownership history and then considers the building, its sequence and dates, suggesting likely builders for the house as it stands at present.

Originally there were plots of meadow land or paddocks around and behind the property, extending back from the High Street to Queen's Road and including the ancient 'Morrant's barn' (recorded as part of Reginald Morrant's premises in 1600). From the late 1600s this plot was known as 'Chapmans' and was treated as a separate property, although no owner or tenant called Chapman has yet been found. The ownership history of No 20 is related to the adjacent Thames Cottage, to Goodwin House next up the road and to the cottage workshops at the foot of Queen's Road.

1) No. 20 is seen about a third of the way up the High Street on the west side, the dwelling house in red and the barns in grey behind. At the rear of the plot are the workshops (now cottages) near the foot of Queen's Road. The next very small house up the High Street is Thames Cottage, then just an outhouse as it is coloured grey. Morrant's barn, also grey, is marked facing Queen's Road at the rear of the plot, once Chapmans. Goodwyn House, in faded red, is next up the road with a series of grey barns and outbuildings where the railway has since carved through.

2) In the close of meadow behind no. 20 Morrant's barn, facing Queen's Road, still survived next to the first phase of the Queensmead development. This development was built on land which was previously part of the Goodwyn House farmstead.

3) The Queensmead development now occupies the whole of the Chapmans meadow or paddock.

In 1975 the whole property was sold to the Toller family, antique dealers, who stripped out the interior cladding of the big barn and assumed they had discovered a hall house. Until then, James W. Gillett was the last of a long line of butchers to occupy the shop (fronting the road), the slaughterhouse (in the barn at the rear) and meadow (behind), so that the meat was processed from grazing to selling on the premises. Many local people remember the processes, particularly the slaughtering on site. This family's tenure goes back to about 1899 with John W Gillett, at which time they also had a shop on Datchet Common. The previous occupant, also a butcher, was James Saunders from about 1880. For fifty years before that (1870s back to before 1820) William Statham was the tenant. In 1841 and '51 the census records him there with his nephew and niece, employing four men living in as butchers' assistants as well as a cook and housemaid. At that time farming and butchery were very closely associated and from the 1860s William moved to live at Southlea Farm where he was already the tenant farmer, leaving his nephew Thomas to run the High Street end of the business for a decade or so. William died in 1876 aged 83, having never married or had children but of considerable social and business status in the village. Most of this information is gleaned from the ten-year censuses from 1841 to 1901, listing the occupiers of premises rather than the owners. Identifying actual owners is more difficult, but the the Short family seems to have bought the whole property in 1890 and did not re-sell until 1935. The seller in 1890 is not named in the sale details but was probably the last heir to the Goodwin's estate.

From 1778 John Goodwin was the owner of the butcher's shop, its meadowland and a coal merchant's shed adjacent (on its north side), plus Thames Cottage and his own Goodwyn House. At John's death in 1815 his nephew John junior inherited Goodwyn House and his other nephew Ralph Goodwin received the butcher's shop etc., renting it to the young William Statham from 1817. Ralph and Ann themselves moved from the High Street to Satis House in Horton Road, which John Goodwin had built. On Ralph's death in 1823 No.20 passed to his wife Ann until she died in 1847. In the 1850s Francis Simpson, who had married one of Ralph and Ann's daughters, was the owner, while the Statham tenancy remained unchanged. (see under Link articles on this website for more about the Goodwins)

18th century: John & Ralph Goodwin and the 'Rose or Duke of Northumberland's Head'

In the 1830s, after Ralph Goodwin's death, his copyhold property here was described in Datchet's Manor Court Rolls (see appendix) in a form that can be followed back through much earlier transactions:

All that messuage* or tenement** heretofore called The Rose and formerly known by the sign of the Duke of Northumberland's Head, in occupation of John Bennett, carpenter, afterwards of John Stevens, butcher, then of John Goodwin, since of Ralph Goodwin and now William Statham

In 1778 William & Ann Style of Colnbrook sold two copyholds to John Goodwin, of which he was already the occupier:

1) A toft**sometime called Chapmans with orchard and gardens, being one copyhold.

2) And also a messuage with buildings, barns, stables, yards, orchard, garden & appurtenances heretofore called by the name of the Rose or the Duke of Northumberland's head, then in occupation of James Bennett carpenter, since of John Stevens butcher and now of John Goodwin, being one other copyhold of the Manor, and to which premises William Styles was admitted in 1756, to the use of John Goodwin.

* A messuage is a dwelling house with its associated buildings and adjoining lands.
***A toft technically means the site of a burnt down or decayed house or the place where a messuage once stood.

In 1756 William Styles junior (then aged seven) inherited the house and Chapmans, as described above, from his father of the same name, with custody to his mother Ann; The premises then in occupation of John Stevens butcher. William Style the elder of Ditton Farm, yeoman, had himself inherited under the will of William Burt in 1730, when it was occupied by James Stevens, carpenter.

In 1718 William Burt inherited from his uncle William Hale who had no surviving children of his own: a messuage etc called the Duke of Northumberland's Head now in tenure of Charles Cooke. (Chapmans was not part of this inheritance as it became later on.)

In 1713: In this year the labourer Charles Cooke, tenant at the Duke of Northumberland's Head, was fined at Bucks Quarter Sessions Court for keeping an unlicensed alehouse. In fact, this alehouse seems to have been unlicensed for most of its existence and was never as fully established as the Royal Stag or other inns and taverns in the village.

The 'Rose' was a common inn sign in Tudor times but here it was changed sometime before 1718. This fits with the life of the actual George Fitzroy, Duke of Northumberland who was an acknowledged child of Charles II and Barbara Villiers, employed in the 1680s in secret service in Venice and created Duke on his return. His local connections were as a Knight of the Garter living at Frogmore and from 1701 the Constable of Windsor Castle, while in 1712 became Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire. Presumably this alehouse's name was changed as a topical local reference and it is very likely that the Duke himself would have used Datchet Bridge; he would have passed No.20, though is less likely to have stopped to drink there.

There is now a considerable gap in the references to No.20 in the Manor Court Rolls. It seems that once the property came back to the Hale family in 1644 no further changes of owner occurred until the childless William bequeathed the house to his nephew William Burt in 1718.

Two surveys of all manorial property in 1622 and 1604 confirm the owners of No.20, but it has not been traced in the survey of 1548. Briefly:

1638: To Elizabeth Mainewood, daughter and heir of John Mainewood who has died

1622 survey: John Mainewood messuage in Thames Street formerly George Flame, once Maurice Hale

1612: Richard Flame, messuage now called the Rose in occupation of John Mainewood to use of John Mainewood.

1604 survey: George Flame holds messuage etc in Thames Street surrendered by Maurice & Agnes Hale

1596: Maurice & Agnes Hale surrender messuage in Thames Street now in tenancy of William Reade, to George Flame.

Maurice's father Richard Hale had died in 1595, so it seems that Maurice and Agnes were selling this property on very quickly, as did the subsequent owners.

(George Flame died in 1611, when a probate inventory of his goods listed the contents of the rooms in his house. It is now thought that this inventory pertains to Flame's other property (Cedar House in Horton Road) rather than to the Rose which was likely to have been leased to a tenant as an alehouse.)

Phase One and the Hale family
The remains of the first timber framed house are dated between the late 1400s and the early 1500s. Only a small section of it remains, embedded in later developments. Although the house cannot be identified in documents before 1596 it is clear that it was in existence by then and had been owned by Maurice Hale, whose family had been in Datchet and other villages nearby since before 1400. (It is not being suggested that Hales had lived at No.20 from then.) This very early structure has only survived because the property was updated piecemeal and it became absorbed into the agricultural barn area rather than the later living quarters, where it would have become too old fashioned to have continued in use.


Timber frame of earliest house on site, towards garden (S) side, with wooden mullioned windows, the earliest to left		Early house towards entrance (N) side, showing frame of end wall (W) now without infill & looking through to 17thC barn as main room

At the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum
in Sussex there is a reconstructed house (right)
which resembles the early house at No.20 quite
closely. It is also fragmentary and would have
had other main rooms attached to it.

In its present form it has been interpreted as a
kitchen, which were often separate from main
living areas in Tudor times.

This house has the same diamond-section
wooden mullioned windows as No.20, one of
them at a similar mid-wall height.

This house, known as Winkhurst Farm, has been
dated by dendrochronology to 1492-1537, a date
bracket which agrees well with the suggested age
of the house in Datchet.

The right to run the ferry business over the Thames was a perquisite of the Manor of Datchet. In 1582 the lease was renewed for 21 years to Maurice Hale, while from 1604 it was in the name of Maurice and his two sons, John and Bernard. The ferry business was conducted from land at the foot of the High Street on which, (after the bridge replaced the ferry and the land became redundant) Datchet Lodge was eventually built . This researcher's current theory is that since the grounds of No.20 are immediately adjacent to those of Datchet Lodge, with no other properties in between, this house may originally have been built as part of the ferry business and had perhaps became an alehouse before 1612 when the Rose name is first recorded. This theory is supported by the fact that from the earliest records to survive right up to John Goodwin's purchase in 1778 it seems no actual owner was living there but always a tenant who was running a business.

The present main room in the house is a three-bay agricultural barn,
typical of this area in the 1600s. It would originally have been separate from the earliest house but built close to it; there is now a narrow
section joining them. The low panelled door in the main entrance side is
of about the same date but almost certainly re-used here from elsewhere
in the house.

When the Tollers bought the property the whole structure was internally cladded with corrugated iron as it had been when used as a slaughter house. Once stripped it appeared to be a hall house because it was one space open to the rafters, but it was actually just a barn.

It is not possible to establish which owner might have built it because it
is a generic type and was for general agricultural purposes, perhaps a rebuilding of a previously existing barn.

17thC barn, misnamed Hall House

17thC door, entrance side (north)

There is no direct evidence that John Goodwin modernised the house by adding the fashionable brick wing across the High Street frontage, but it is very likely that he did. Most significantly, he acquired this property in 1778 and was married in 1779. He was already a farmer of some status and setting up a new house on marriage was traditional. In later years he added a new front wing to Goodwyn House and built Satis House as a complete new build, so the assumption that he also carried out work here seems reasonable. It is much less likely that the previous owner William Style was responsible because the house was let out to tenants.

The date is also right for the pleasing Georgian style. This wing provided fashionable living rooms quite separate from the original house with its barn which could have been used for the Goodwins' butchery business, as it was for the next two centuries.

18thC wing fronting road as Tollers' Antiques, c1980
(Bay window is a later addition )

South end of new wing,
abutting end of early house

This block further enlarged the house and provided more modern kitchen areas but almost certainly obliterated much of the original house that had survived until then. It is difficult to date and there is no obvious owner / builder, just a sequence of butcher tenants who are rather unlikely to have built such a major addition. Looking for a mid-19th century builder the best current guess is William Statham, tenant 1820s to 1870s. The family owned other property in the village and were very comfortably established. New facilities must by then have been necessary to the running of the business, beyond the original house and the added 18thC rooms.
		19thC block inserted between old house and 18thC front wing

Behind the 17th century timber framed barn a 19th century brick one runs at right angles to it. This was originally separate but is now joined by a passageway to the main room of the house and is the showroom for Margaret Partington's Elegant Hats for Hire. It may have been built at the same time as the phase four wing and probably housed cattle being processed between the grazing and the slaughterhouse areas of the business.

Recent Changes by the Tollers and Partingtons
After stripping the cladding from inside the 17thC barn, Mr and Mrs Toller integrated the remains of the early house with the much bigger space of the barn by leaving the timber frame of the end wall of the house with no infilling. Mrs Partington has since inserted a gallery into the wall between the early house and the 19thC block and added an old timber from elsewhere onto the same wall behind the gallery. In the original west wall of the early house, now enclosed by the phase four19th century entrance extension, Mrs Partington has inserted two wooden mullioned windows intended to reproduce original windows to the exterior by imitating the known early type surviving in the opposite wall.

Note on the Records of Datchet Manor
For the earlier history of this house we rely on the records of Datchet Manor. The manorial system was based on the feudal view that all land and property technically belonged to the Lord of the Manor (and through him ultimately to the Crown) and all transactions were dealt with by the Manor Court. The minutes of the court's proceedings (Court Rolls) detailed all sales and changes of ownership or tenancy, so that if a property can be identified at all, a complete record may exist from the mid 16th to the late 19th century.

1) Freehold, by which a payment was due to the Lord when a sale took place. Very little information was required or recorded at the Court session and full deeds were held by and passed on through the sequence of owners; freehold properties are thus difficult to track unless a full set of deeds are still in existence.

2) Copyhold, by which a property was held by a copy of the court proceedings, not a full deed. The system was that every time a copyhold owner died, inherited or wanted to sell, the property was formally 'surrendered' back to the Lord and then, with due ceremony, the next owner was formally 'admitted'. Each transaction of a copyhold house or land (such as this property) was accompanied by a description which seldom changed over the centuries and so can sometimes, with luck, be tracked back and forward.

(The Lords of the Manor took all the Datchet manorial paperwork with them to their main residence when their ownership ended. This was Boughton House for the Buccleuchs, who later deposited the material at their local Northampton Record Office, and Beaulieu for the Montagus.)

Censuses, 1841 to 1901: online, eg at www.ancestry.com
Land Tax records 1782-1833: Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Aylesbury
Datchet Manor Court Rolls: at Northampton Record Office 1565-1743 & Beaulieu Archives 1743 to 19thC
Surveys of Datchet Manor: Survey 1548, Public Record Office, ref: A/R 4/64
Survey 1604, Northampton Record Office, Buccleuch papers 2.6/X333
Survey 1622, Cambridge University (no ref)
Goodwin family wills: available online at The National Archives (previously PRO), John senior 1815, Ralph 1823, Mary Ann 1858
Kelly's Street Directories: late 19thC & 20thC, available at Slough & Windsor reference libraries


1) Enclosure map 1834		2) Meadow behind Hall House before infill		3) Google Earth image showing modern Queensmead

At the end of its life as a butcher's shop, Gillett's c.1975

photo National Monuments Record, not to be copied	North side, Gillett family photo


Looking from barn through frame to early house		Gallery & diagonal timber inserted on end wall


Wooden mullioned windows inserted into old framing		Gallery and inserted diagonal timber from elsewhere