Mrs Crake of The Lawns: a Victorian family network & its houses

The east end of The Lawns, 18th & mid-nineteenth century

The Lawns on Horton Road is one of Datchet's grand houses although it is now divided up into flats, securely gated and almost invisible from the road. It is approached by a narrow entrance way to the west of Linchfield Road and opposite the recreation ground. A complex series of houses, cottages and plots of agricultural land existed on this site, as far to the west as Lawn Close, by the 1500s but nothing of such an early period survives; the present house dates from about 1850 as a remodelling of an 18th century building. The Lawns was one of the first houses in Datchet to be redeveloped after the arrival of the railway in 1848, and the Crakes were closely linked to other high status families who were also attracted to living here.

Mary Ann Todd had inherited the ramshackle old estate from her wealthy father whose family had owned it from about1780. She married a young London architect called John Crake in 1847 and they took the house in hand to bring it up to date and improve its value. Many of the old buildings and added wings were demolished in about 1850 to create garden grounds around the house, extending north to London Road and including the site of Lawn Close. The house itself had a modern block added to its north while new interior plasterwork decorations made the original grand rooms highly fashionable for the time. In the mid 1850s John Crake was a leading light in the plans to rebuild St Mary's parish church and the fund raising involved, though not professionally as an architect. He died tragically young in 1859, when Mary commissioned what may have been the first of the church's stained glass windows in his memory, the Resurrection in the north aisle.

In the late 1860s another old estate was bought and redeveloped, this time by William Good, a barrister and Inspector of Charities and the first of many of the legal profession who moved out here and commuted to London by train. He built the house called Churchmead within the remnants of an ancient plantation known as Matthew's Park (from its owners in the 1500s). In the 1950s this house was demolished and Churchmead School built in its grounds. Unfortunately no photos of the Victorian house seem to exist apart from that glimpse which was published in the last edition of The Link.

At about the same time Baron James Prior de Paravicini bought an old house at the foot of Queen's Road which became Riverside; it is assumed that he had it rebuilt as it now stands. His wife Valentina Antonetta Sampeyo Morice had a nephew, George Knox Morice. George was a member of Lloyds and made the first link between this group of families by his marriage in 1878 to Annie Alice Crake. Their daughter Grace Marianne Morice duly married William Good's only son Arthur in 1908. James Prior and Valentina's son Percy John de Paravicini also made a marriage within the village's social circle, to Lady Marcia Cholmondeley of Leigh House, another old and grand but now demolished village house.

This complex inter-marrying within a circle of wealthy upper class society in the village involves four high status houses which they rebuilt on old village centre sites during the mid 19th century: the Lawns, Churchmead, Riverside and Leigh. The very high social and professional status of these first new arrivals in the village set the scene for the next wave of London commuters. Before the 1870s no new building land had yet been released but by the 1880s housing development boomed due to the sale of agricultural land along the river and railway. The Slough and Eton roads, plus the new Avenue, Montagu and Buccleuch roads, were lined with desirable residences which were bought or rented primarily by those in the legal, financial and foreign trading professions.

Meanwhile, the first few families remained at the top of the village's social tree. Mary Ann Crake lived until 1900 as one of the grand and ancient ladies of the parish, alongside Lady Needham of Datchet House and the Dowager Duchess of Buccleuch at Ditton Park. Mary Ann used her wealth for the benefit of the village, providing the jubilee cross and the cemetery chapel from her own resources. The ladies Paravicini and Cholmondely with the Misses Good (William's five daughters) took a more personal and active role in village life, running philanthropic societies for village mothers and girls and organising fundraising concerts in the Working Men's Club, the first village hall. On the male side, Percy John and James Prior de Paravicini were fixtures on the committees of the Club and the Barker Bridge House Trust as well as pillars of the church.

All were represented into the 20th century: after Mary Ann's death Annie Alice's son Bernard George Crake Morice lived at the Lawn, still unmarried at his death in 1911; William Good died in 1903 and the family only left Datchet when Arthur Good married Annie Alice Morice in 1908; the Cholmondeleys left Leigh House for Windsor in the early years of the century but the last of Lady Marcia's sisters did not die until 1954, while Percy John de Paravicini remained here until just before his death in 1921. And recently we have been contacted by a family researcher visiting the village who can trace three of her great grandfathers to Datchet and its houses: John Crake of the Lawn, James Farquar Morice (father of George Knox Morice) of Riverside and William Good of Churchmead. What a very unusual and striking link back into the village's Victorian past.

Janet Kennish 01273 204330 janetkennish@tesco.net

Datchet Village Society: Helen Jenkins 01753 542957