1) Astracot cottages, Horton Road
2) The Dutch House, Horton Road
3) Leigh & Malpas Cottages, 18 - 22 London Road

by Janet Kennish

All these houses are dealt with in the same article because they share the same site and ownership history. Nothing had been known about the history of the property before about 1800 because no documents existed in the usual county collections. That was until recently, when the internet (Access to Archives) provided open access to the catalogues of record offices across the country. The Ipswich branch of Suffolk RO held a large collection of papers once belonging to John Richards of Datchet and eventually deposited there by his descendents who had taken all the legal paperwork to Suffolk with them when they left Datchet. On a visit to Ipswich these documents were found to detail a direct inheritance of houses and land traceable back to the Mathew family, substantial yeomen of Datchet in the 1500s, and a family which had already been identified as owners of Church Cottage in London Road.

The Astracot plot, which faces Horton Road, originally ran back through to the modern London Road. Its existence can now be traced back to the mid 1400s and the Astracot group dates from the early 1500s. The Dutch House next door was built in about 1815 and the London Road cottages probably at the same time.

1) Astracot Cottages, 17 - 19 Horton Road

The Nook, Lovell Cottage, Astracot

These three 'cottages' were originally one substantial house. It was, typically for its date, a communal space open to the rafters (an 'open hall') but with a cross wing forming a 'high' end to the west (now the separate Nook). This cross wing always had an upper floor which provided a private living space for the owner. Later, perhaps in the early 1600s, an upstairs floor and a central chimney stack were inserted into the original open hall house, at the middle and eastern end (Lovell & Astracot). The timber frame is complete and exposed throughout the interior, but the exterior of the west and middle sections was given a fashionable Georgian brick facade and sash windows in the late 1700s. At this time the forward projection of the original western cross wing was cut back to lie flush with the central section.

This model of a hall house in Amersham resembles the original Astracot house in its central open hall with a two-storeyed cross wing at the west (high) end. The Amersham one also has an upper floor at the other (low) end where service areas, storage and cooking would have been. Because the original east end of Astracot is so altered we don't know if it was once similar. ('High' and 'low' here refer to the social status and useage of those areas of a dwelling, not the height of the building.)

The eastern end (Astracot)  is now clearly different and may have been so historically; there is evidence that it constituted a separate dwelling (though within the same building) by 1600, either by ownership or leasehold tenancy, and until recently it has been a shop. In the early 1800s a terraced row of eight very small labourers' cottages (called Chaloner Row) was built behind it towards the north; these were demolished in about1900 as the Row had become a disease-ridden slum. The forward extension was used as a shop from about 1860 but could have been built before then. However, the ceiling beams in the projecting shop room are not original to this house; they are re-used old timbers brought in from elsewhere quite recently.
 

Timber frame of west end (Nook) cottage, built as 'high end' with upper floor
Original early 1500s timber frame, ground floor		Roof truss in modern attic, original upper floor

The 20th Century Tea Rooms

Astracot tea rooms in the 1950s (photo courtesy Ian Skelton)   In 1950 Mollie Griggs bought the whole property  called the Nook, Vine Cottage and Astracot from Kathleen Weber, as well as the goodwill of the tearoom business which had been established by 1920. It was known as Astracot at least from 1935.

Astracot is well remembered in the village as Mollie Griggs' Tea Shop, which she ran here until the 1970s. Mollie and her partner had been in the WRAF and when they found this business to buy after the war its name seemed perfect for them. They did not make it up (as has sometimes been assumed) and there is no plausible explanation for where it may have come from. The central downstairs room was used to seat tea shop customers as well as the eastern end, though when Mollie retired from the business that section was again sold separately from the eastern block. By the time Astracot became a teashop Chaloner Row had long been demolished and the land behind the house which it had occupied was restored to gardens.

The 19th Century; Vine Cottage & Chaloner Row

The Row cottages included the eastern 'Astracot' section of the house, against which they were built and which was counted by 19th century census enumerators as the first tenement of the Row. R.E.Harris bought the Row in 1901 from Chaloner Pond, son of Francis, which is presumably the source of the name. In 1849 the whole property was for sale, the Pond family buying the the east end and Samuel Coombes the middle and west sections.

From about 1860 Astracot was a shop, and it is possible that the Pond family who bought Chaloner Row were connected with the Ponds who ran the shop which is now The Bridge; if so it is possible they upgraded this tenement as a shop also, perhaps adding the front extension.

1891 back to 1841 Censuses + County Rating Surveys

Full census information is available but is here given in outline only. Two property valuation surveys were made at county level for local taxation purposes in 1857 and 1866; they give no personal details but do distinguish between owners and occupiers. In 1839 a survey at village level provides a map and numbered house plots but only gives the name of the main householder there.

1839 Parish Rating survey map
The original of this plan is in the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Aylesbury, of which this is a tracing. It can be seen how the Astracot plots (133,134, 135 & 136) originally ran northwards right through to London Road, as did the adjacent Dutch House farm site (132).

Plot 132: (farm) the Dutch House
Plot 133: west and middle of Astracot house, indicated close to their gardens
Plot 134: Chaloner Row.
Plot 135: pair of cottages, one occupied by Ambrose White, a shepherd; rebuilt in 1891 as Bridle House. 
Plot 136: group of cottages, two fronting London Road and others lying back from it.
Plot 137: grounds of Leigh House

The 18th Century

Richards, Russell & Marshall families
For information before censuses the main source is the records of property valuation for assessment of Land Tax, which exist from 1832 back to 1781. The whole house is treated as one, though parts of it may have been sub-let.

In 1849 Coombes and Pond had bought their separate parts of the house from Russell Richards and Anna Maria Steward; they were the heirs of John Richards who died in 1844. John Richards had married Eleanor Russell and it is through her family that he owned Astracot. She also brought to the marriage the Rectory House of Datchet (now Old Priory) which was leased from St George's Chapel. However, Astracot was not part of the Rectory property but had been inherited separately through the Russell, Marshall and Arnold families. Mrs Marshall is known to have spent a lot of money on building work at the Rectory and may also have been responsible for the fashionable brick facade and sash windows of Astracot.

'Whetely Londis', the Arnold and Bragg families
In 1842, when John Richard's daughter Eleanor married William Trant, a large amount of property was settled on her. The marriage settlement document provides a vital clue to the earlier history of the house in describing, 'a freehold messuage, thirteen cottages, barns and stables etc. called Whetely Londis, formerly estate of Christopher and Mary Arnold'. 'Whetely Londis' is a very old name for the property which appears to have been found by the family's lawyers as they trawled through the paperwork during long legal cases in chancery to establish ownership and inheritance; using the earliest evidence may have helped to lay a secure claim, although the name had not been used for about two hundred years. Originally, it was simply a Latinisation of 'Whetely's Lands', of which more below.

A similar settlement had been made when Eleanor Russell married John Richards in 1800, when 'a freehold messuage let to William Early' formed part of her fortune and is confirmed by the land tax. (The thirteen cottages are first mentioned in 1842, suggesting that John Richards had built the Row and the London Road cottages, perhaps in about 1815 at the same time as the Dutch House.)

The inheritance problems were caused by the will of Mary Arnold, who in 1770 left her Datchet estates to her nephews, Francis Marshall and James Russell in sequence (as indicated by the land tax), and it all eventually descended to Eleanor Russell. Christopher Arnold was a very wealthy goldsmith and partner in the banking house of the Hoare family; his widow Mary left her fortune in trust for Richard Hoare to manage. (In 1762 the Arnolds built a great house at Hampstead which still seems to exist as Heath House and is currently worth £20m.) However, they were also based at Datchet Rectory and both are buried in the church here.

Christopher Arnold had married Mary (nee Bragg) in London in 1716, and it was she who brought the Datchet estate to the marriage. No children of theirs survived and one, John Bragg Arnold, was carried from London to be buried in Datchet in 1727. Mary's parents were Ralph and Ruth Bragg of Eton.

Evidence that the eastern half of the house was a separate tenement in this period comes from several leases:

Leases 1795, 1765, 1751 from Christopher / Mary Arnold to John Simons:

A messuage, malthouse, buildings, yard & orchard, abutting on:
    a way leading to Datchet Common on the south (Horton Road)
    a highway leading to Colnbrook on the north (London Road)
    a close of land of Edmund Carter (Leigh House site) & another cottage of the Arnolds (Bridle House site) on east
    a house & orchard in possession of William Early (Astracot west and/or middle) on the west.

This description only makes sense if the eastern section of the house, yards and gardens is considered separately from the west. In about 1815 John Richards seems to have built the Row and the London Road cottages on the site of this malthouse and outbuildings.

The 17th, 16th & back to 15th Centuries

The early 1500s & 1600s timber frame of the Astracot (east end) cottage
						A wooden-mullioned window in the original front wall of the house, ie now behind front extension wing and no longer looking towards the outside. It would probably have had shutters rather than glass.       Since this window is in the upper storey it must have been inserted when the first floor was added to the original open hall, in about 1600.The east and middle cottages represent the 1500s open hall.
In bathroom & stairway looking west to middle cottage                             Newly exposed in bathroom

'Whetely Londis', the Baddams and Mathew families - and Robert Barker
At this point there is a gap in the evidence between the Bragg family's ownership of Astracot and the family of Baddams, though both are associated with Eton and a marriage between them is likely but not yet found. From the will of Thomas Mathew in 1653 the ownership line is unbroken back to the Whetley family in the late 1400s, but the suggestion is that Thomas Mathew may have been the builder of the existing house which is dated to the early 1500s. In reverse chronological order:

1656    Gilbert Baddams has bought houses & lands from Thomas & Sarah Alden; two messuages described as 'Whetelys Londis'.

1654     Lease from Gilbert Baddams to Robert Crosse of Datchet: One part of a greater messuage with use of the the yard etc, late in       the tenancy of Thomas Mathew deceased. (presumably the eastern half)

1653    Will of Thomas Mathew; he bequeathed his two houses & lands to his daughter Sarah Alden. He also had a granddaughter Sarah Baddams & a note filed with a copy of the will states that Gilbert Baddams could buy the property from Sarah & Thomas Alden as long as a legacy was paid to his other daughter Ellen Mathew.

1637    Gilbert Baddams of Eton married Ellen Mathew of Datchet (the Mathews were a very prolific and confusing family who repeated names in each generation).

1622, 1604 & 1548  Surveys of the Manor of Datchet: Thomas Mathew holds a messuage etc called Whetleys, once William Kenner's (there would have been a Thomas Mathew in each of several generations)

1589 Sale of one tenement of the house from Christopher Barker to Richard Mathew:

This is the only time there was separate ownership, rather than just a lease, of half the house. Christopher Barker (father of Robert and Printer to Queen Elizabeth) was buying everything available around this date but here seems to be selling the east end back to another of the Mathew family. The building is actually described:

'... all that part and portion of a little tenement wherein Edmund Webbe now dwelleth, which part is made and framed all under one roof with another part of a tenement now in the tenure of Richard Mathew'

The division of the yard belonging to this portion is also described and measured in detail but cannot now be followed on the ground.

1515    purchase by Thomas Mathew from William Kenner, property called Whetelys Londis (= Whiteley's Lands); the current hypothesis is that Thomas Matthew built or rebuilt the existing house at about this date.

1489    land from Russell & Hunt to Thomas Whetley

1445    land from John & Alicia Hunt to Robert Whetley (this is the earliest document in the Richards family collection at Ipswich)
 

    2) The Dutch House (Rectory Grange) 15 Horton Road

Little Dutch House       The Dutch House                Astracot group

This house was built as a farm homestead in about 1812-15 by John Richards. It is in the next adjacent plot to the west of Astracot but so closely against the western end of the old house as to be partly embedded in it. In his will of 1844 John Richards stated that he had (some time ago) bought a freehold house and barn and had taken that house down to build a farm homestead, then in the occupation of John Willis Goodwin. He wrote that had been obliged to sink money in getting a proper farm building, which he needed for the tenant of his Rectory lands and which would technically be called a grange.  John Willis Goodwin was the youngest member of the powerful local Goodwin farming family. Surveys of Datchet Rectory estates in St George's Chapel archives first record this farm house as occupied by Eales in 1815, and the Court Rolls of Datchet Manor record that he bought the site to build on in 1812. As a farmstead there would have been a barn and working farmyard on its eastern side, now partly occupied by the Little Dutch House which appears in the records from the end of WW2.

Among the many letters and papers in the Richards' estate is a letter of 1867 in which legal queries about the farmhouse are answered:

'It appears that the old tenement was pulled down and Mr Grant's house (see below, the Dutch House) was erected upon the site of it by the late J.Boulter, builder, of Datchet.'

Boulter was a jobbing builder, attending to general repairs, whose son Daniel built the culvert which still carries the old watercourse beneath the village greens. On this evidence John Boulter probably also built the London Road cottages and the Row for John Richards.

Its original name, The Grange, or Rectory Grange, was continued by Mrs Addie who lived here from about 1910 to the early 1930s and it only became the Dutch House under Lieutenant Commander Anthony Vyvyan Thomas between 1939 and 1950. So far, there is no satisfactory explanation for this name.

1891 back to 1841 Censuses + County Rating Surveys

date	house name	occupants
1891 census	The Grange	Philip E Pope. colonel in army, wife, 3 servants
1881 census	Rectory Grange	Wellington Shelton, gentleman, single, 2 servants
1871 census	No 3 Road to Common	Mary Grant, widow, child, 2 servants
1866 survey	Rectory Farm	owner: Charles Steward; occupier: Montagu Grant
1861 census	Road to Common	George Gough, farmer employing 6 labourers, wife, servant
1857 survey	Rectory Farm	owner: Charles Steward; occupier: James Agar
1851 census	the Common	Thomas Tustin, farmer employing 4 men, wife, child, 1 servant
1841 census	none	John W Goodwin, farmer age 25, 2 servants
1839 survey	Farm homestead, plot 132	Goodwin (see 1839 plan under Astracot section)

3) Cottages, 18-22 London Road

no.22, Leigh Cottage (Its higher roof line seen on right) photo Rob Gordon	From left: no. 22 Leigh Cottage; no. 20 Waterloo (formerly Malpas) Cottage; no 18    photo Rob Gordon	Cottage no.18 in 1976 before restoration photo Rod & Sue Ashworth

The two cottages 18 and 20 form a pair built at the same time, but Leigh Cottage is different in having a higher roof line and is probably later than the other two. There were several old houses or cottages lying behind these, now rebuilt as 14 and 16 London Road and reached by an alleyway. (Also see 1839 plan above)
 

Detail from 1899 OS map (the cottages are just opposite the words 'Datchet House' & Astracot is opposite 'Village Hall')

In 1800 Eleanor Russell's settlement at her marriage to John Richards only mentions the main house (Astracot group), but in 1842, when their daughter Eleanor married William Trant, the property settled on her included 'a freehold messuage, thirteen cottages, barns and stables etc. called Whetely Londis (see above for explanation). It is assumed that John Richards had the Challoner Row and London Road cottages as well as the Dutch House farmstead built in about 1812-15 by J. Boulter (see above). The nine Challoner Row tenements and the four London Road cottages (14-20) probably represent Richards' thirteen cottages in 1842.

However, one of the buildings in this plot behind Astracot was referred to as a house in the two county rate surveys, and was occupied by the Boulters who had probably built the whole group. It is not clear whether this house still exists, has been rebuilt or has disappeared.

Leigh Cottage and 1 & 2 Malpas Cottages are first recorded as house names in 1891, but not Waterloo. Curiously, Richards also owned a group of cottages along Welley Road which are referred to in his papers as being at Waterloo Place; has this name been found by someone among Richards' paperwork and assumed it must refer to these cottages instead? The name Malpas is probably explained by the Cholmondely family who owned Leigh House, since one of their titles was Viscount Malpas.

Leigh Cottage was associated with the (now demolished) Leigh House, but was actually just outside the boundary of its grounds and so is unlikely to have been built as a lodge or estate cottage. In the 1850s it had belonged to Lady Needham of Datchet House but 1866 it was owned by the Rev Hall, the wealthy vicar who was instrumental in rebuilding of St Mary's church and bought Leigh House for his own use.

In the censuses before 1891 it is almost impossible to tell which dwelling is which, but one of the three was designated as a house with workshops rather than a cottage, and the Boulters continued to occupy one or two of these which had been built by their own family. Joseph seemed to move  from one of the cottages into the house after his father Daniels's death.
 

	dwelling (house & workshops)	dwelling  (cottage)	dwelling  (cottage)
census 1841	Daniel Boulter, carpenter	Joseph Boulter, carpenter, son of Daniel Boulter	John Rollins, painter & parish clerk
census 1851	Daniel Boulter	Joseph Boulter	John Rollins
rate survey 1857	house, owner Henry Whapshott, occupier Boulter J & E (?)	cottage, owner Lady Needham  occupier Boulter Josh	cottage, owner Lady Needham  occupier Rollins J
census 1861	Daniel Boulter	Joseph Boulter	John Rollins
rate survey 1866	house, owner Henry Wapshott occupier J Boulter	cottage, owner Revd Hall occupier Thomas Bond	cottage, owner Revd Hall occupier John Rollins
census 1871	Joseph Boulter	Frances Briggs, widow	John Whitehead, bootmaker
census 1881	Joseph Boulter	Frances Briggs	Henry Church, carpenter
census 1891 Leigh & Malpas cotts	Arthur Boulter, carpenter, son of Joseph	M.A.Lane	George Barker & Joseph Howard (two households)

Listed Building information from the local authority

Windsor & Maidenhead, 40674, Lovell Cottage & Astracot, 17,17A, 19 Horton Road, Grade II, 5130, SU 9877 5/12

C18 re-face on early C16 timber frame. Two storey old tile roof, hipped ends. Walls rendered & colour washed with parapet & plain coping. Four double hung sashes with glazing bars & flush boxed frames. Central window blocked on first floor. Two C19 part glazed doors. Extension on right hand with hipped end facing road, old tile roof, square bay with modern leaded lights under tiled pent roof. Two light wooden casement above with middle glazing bar. Flank chimney on left hand. Plat band at first floor. Number 17 forms a two-bay crosswing & has rear service bay, always floored with most of original timbers remaining, including arch braces.

Sources and References

Censuses 1841-1891 (& 1901): local parishes available at Slough & Windsor reference libraries, or online
Land Tax 1781-1832: Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Aylesbury
Rating surveys & map: ditto
Rectory surveys & John Richards correspondence: St George's Chapel Archives, Windsor Castle
wills: John Richards, Francis Pond: available online at The National Archive or Family Record Centre Clerkenwell
Griggs house deeds: in private hands
Richards family papers: Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich

Researcher: janetkennish@tesco.net