The Old Cuckoo Public House
3, 3a and 3b Top Street, Wing, formerly and chronologically ; ‘The Red Lion Inn’, ‘The Noel Arms’ and ‘The Cuckoo Inn,’: Summary of the property transactional history.
2018 View of 3A and 3B, Top Street
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Heritage Asset Status Grade: II
Date first listed: 09-Aug-1984. This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 25/10/2012
Reasons for Designation
SK 80 SE 4/158 WING TOP STREET (South side) Nos. 3a and 3b (Formerly listed as The Cuckoo Public House)
House in two sections, the earliest probably late C17, the later, C19. Coursed rubble, now painted, thatched roof to left hand section. Welsh slate on other part. Left hand section is the earliest part; 1½ storeys and 2 unit plan with 2-light casements with chamfered timber lintels to ground floor and a single dormer above. Coped gables and brick gable end stacks.
The right hand section is C19, projecting extension of 1 bay and 2 storeys with axial stack and a single casement window. National Grid Reference: SK 89296 02962
Author’s Note:
The 1984 Listing assessment missed a date stone on the west gable of 3b, inscribed W.S.B., S.E.B., 1844. These properties have been converted and renovated in the 21st Century, 3b having been much changed and improved to form an attractive separate house, whilst 3a has also been much changed but also carefully reinstated with a quality approach to the heritage frontage of the cottage. A new cottage, 3, has been constructed at the rear where outbuildings have been demolished.
The historic photograph above must have been taken between 1890 (the approximate date of the two terraced cottages in the background) and 1910/1920 (the motor cars suggest the latter period). The aerial photograph below dates to the 1960’s.
The Cuckoo, referred to in early Parish Records as ‘The Noel Arms’, and formerly the ‘Red Lion Inn’, was the subject of an historic building assessment in December 2008, commissioned by the then owners Mr and Mrs T. Roberts and made available by the present owner, Mr Jon Roberts. The assessment which refers to only the minimal survival of earlier internal details because of commercial demands and related changes, does however provide some limited insight into historical usage and occupancy. In addition, Mr T Roberts holds a full archive of legal transactional documents going back to George III, in 1811/1812, which were also kindly made available by him. These documents are historical assets in themselves, but in addition, provide valuable insights into land holding related to the Bagley, Apps, and Barrett families and their mortgagees, together with the Earl of Gainsborough, the Sheild family and the Worralls – all the more interesting because the Manor was held by the Marquis of Exeter and in the 1873 national land census there is no record of Earl of Gainsborough holdings in Wing, albeit that the name ‘Noel’ is a family derivative. The pub began life as a “drinking club”!
Summary of Property Transactional History
The eastern building is dated to the 17th Century which is consistent with the dates of other earliest buildings within the village still extant; Townsend House, Corner House, Inglewood Cottage, Sundial House, Tom Cottage, 7 The Jetty, Westhorpe Farmhouse, Westcott, City Yard House, the middle section of The King’s Arms pub, part of The Old Forge and Wingwell Farmhouse. The dates represented cover ‘The Stuart’ period – James I and Charles I, ‘The Protectorate’ – Oliver Cromwell, ‘The Restoration’ – Charles II, and partly to William III (William of Orange) and Queen Mary II.
The western building is dated to the 19th Century, ‘The Georgian’ or ‘Hanoverian’ period.
The first recorded date within the transactional history documents provided by Tom Roberts, referred to above, is 1811/1812 – George III (1760 – 1820). It records a ‘Mortgage and Assignment’, John Morris and Joseph Woods to William Saprote who pays £80. It appears on parchment with the characteristic wavy line where the two copies of the agreement have been cut from a single piece, the fit subsequently validating their authenticity. A Maria Gregory is also recorded, and it subsequently becomes clear that John Morris let Maria Gregory, a widow, have the Cuckoo (cottages) for £50 but never collected the payment. She then left the properties to Joseph Woods in her will. He then sells them to William Saprote but first requires release of them from John Morris because of the unpaid debt on the part of Maria Gregory. John Morris receives £50 and Joseph Woods (who cannot write and simply makes his mark on the document) receives £80. Presumably Joseph Woods pays the £50 to John Morris from his £80 received from William Saprote, who then receives the property for paying £80. (Note: A Richard Gregory appears on a velum 18th Century (?) Enclosure map of Wing as a landowner and a Mrs A. Gregory appears as the owner of 19 acres of land within Wing Parish in the land owner returns to Government in 1873.)
It is quite difficult to penetrate these inter-related transactions regarding the tenure, that is whether they be freehold, copyhold, or leasehold. It appears to be ‘in fee simple’ but the values seem low for freehold as compared to the values noted in an 1853 ‘Abstract’ also in the transactional bundle of papers. If it is freehold then this raises questions as to whether the subject of the transaction was only for the three cottages known to have then existed along the western boundary of the Red Lion Inn/Noel Arms, referred to elsewhere as ‘The Nook’, or ‘The Cuckoo Cottages’, on the Top Street frontage (from where the Pub subsequently took its contemporary name?) or relating to the whole piece of land which contained what was referred to in 1853 as ‘The Noel Arms Public House’, together with all of its constituent buildings, which in modern terms comprised; 3a and 3b as referred to in the Listings Citation above, the rear outbuildings shown in the 1960’s aerial photograph above (now demolished), and a building (unknown use at this date) that fronted 3b as shown on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1886, together with all their related gardens.
£80 seems much closer to the copyhold transfer values as recorded in Manor Court transactions on other properties within Wing at this date, and this 1812 ‘Mortgage Assignment’ date pre-dates Queen Victoria’s Copyhold Acts of Enfranchisement;1841,1843, 1844,1852,1853,1887, and 1894, increasing the likelihood of it being a Copyhold transaction.
Copyhold is an ancient form of tenure dating back to the Medieval period by which a free man held a property of his Manorial Lord in exchange for his labour services, usually non-military and applied on the land or property of that Manorial Lord. Later in history, part of the service owed was commuted to an annual fee payment, and later still was often totally commuted to an annual fee payment. Such holdings could be transferred by the copyholder to another person upon the payment of a fee (referred to as a “fine”) to the Manor Court and subject to Manor Court consent. As monetary payment replaced service payment, copyholds could command a value accruing to the transferor to be paid by the transferee, all in addition to the payments made to the Lord of the Manor through the Manor Court.
After the Enfranchisement legislation referred to above, the Copyholder could in effect take legal steps to convert the Copyhold to a Freehold which could greatly increase the property’s value in an open market – place. This led to property speculation in the ‘hoovering’ up of Copyholds and then applications for Enfranchisement by the new copyholder before subsequent disposal. After the Enclosure Acts’ Awards, in the mid 1700’s to the early 1800’s, copyholds that were not extinguished often related to pieces of land that were subject to complicated public rights of way, uncertain common usage rights, or were possessed of other anomalies such as being classified as ‘waste’ – access points to the myriad field strips, or urbanized alley-ways. On the 1886 OS Map of Wing two major footpaths run from Top Street along the site of the three Cuckoo Cottages, in a southerly and south-easterly direction.
In addition, this was an era of largely unregulated private mortgages and money-lending. It was also an era of gentleman-gambling together with the frequent use of property holdings to discharge gambling debts. All these factors conceivably impacted the history of this site. If the transfer of the three Cuckoo Cottages was a copyhold transaction then one might have expected to see an accompanying Manor Court Hearing transaction under the Earl of Exeter’s Steward, approving it, and there isn’t a document to that effect. But, from later documents – see below, it becomes clear that the Earl of Gainsborough owned the property in 1860. There is no explanation of how that came about but it invites surmise that all prior transactions were copyhold transactions, albeit that the Wing Manor was not in the possession of the Earl of Gainsborough who in 1873 was in possession of eleven other local Manors and owned properties in a further three, including Manors abutting Wing. All his Return listings, however, excluded Wing, which was in the possession of the Earl of Exeter, something of a puzzle.
Some large landholders were not necessarily scrupulous in their returns to government, inventing named individuals as the landholders, presumably to obscure their own involvement. Landholders making the returns were supposed to give their residential addresses, but this was often imprecise for a variety of reasons, including multiple residential addresses and multiple relationships.
The next chronological document in the bundle is an ‘Indenture’, dated 1840, between on the first part; Ruth Bagley, wife and widow of William Bagley deceased, William Bagley, eldest son and heir of William Bagley deceased, Edward Bagley, farmer, and Henry Messing, gentleman, in respect of the transfer of three cottages in fee simple and on the second part; Thomas Bagley, wheelwright, on the third part; Thomas Brown, gentleman, and on the fourth part; John Woodcock, shoemaker. This document is on parchment cut with a wavy line. This document would appear to confirm that the three ‘Cuckoo Cottages’ were a t this point, if not before, separately held from the other properties forming the site of 3a and 3b Top Street. The clear use of the term here, “in fee simple”, suggests three freeholds but there aren’t three separate documents, just the one.
Experts on historical landholding have also commented on the difficulties occasioned by there not being a clear definition of land ownership at this time. See ‘Who Owned Rutland in 1873?’ T.H. McK Clough, RLHRS Occasional Publication No 9 2010, which analyses the Rutland Entries in the Return of Owners Land 1873.
Also, in 1840, there is a ‘Lease’ executed for one year between Ruth Bagley, Edward Bagley, and Henry Messing, (the lessors) and Thomas Bagley (the lessee). This is again written on parchment with a wavy line. Again, surmise suggests that this might relate to the unidentified building in front of 3a and 3b Top Street which appeared on the 1886 OS Map? The lease for five shillings refers to a “mesonage cottage or tenement and small piece of land” – perhaps to be used as a forge? Thomas as a wheelwright needed a forge and a forge is mentioned elsewhere as being located somewhere on this site. The Lease has no plan. The other unlikely possibility is that it relates to a forge located in one of the two main buildings (3a and 3b) or their outbuildings? The Inn (3a) outbuildings are a possibility but it seems unlikely that 3b was built by this date for reasons stated below.
In 1842, there is a document on parchment (with wavy line) executed between Thomas Bagley and William Cousins whereby Thomas receives £50 upon it being secured for 500 years against a property holding and with the payment of interest, but he discharges the debt in 1848 . It isn’t clear whether the security for this loan is his cottage or another building on the site. Given the 1844 date stone on 3b, is this the funding source?
In 1851, Thomas Bagley in a parchment document (with wavy line) uses the property described as “Club Room” for security on a £50 loan from William Sheild. It isn’t clear which property this relates to on the site but Thomas Bagley states that he built it and he gives its approximate dimensions; thirty-two feet on its north/lower side, by twenty-three feet on the eastern side, and seventeen feet on its western side. there is reference elsewhere to the Noel Arms commencing life as a “Drinking Club” and of course that might have entailed a gambling den frequented by gentlemen? There is no plan.
William Sheild, who changed his name from William Gilson to William Sheild by deed poll, presumably in an attempt to resurrect the male dynastic name of a family who had been leading gentry first in Preston for over one hundred years from the mid 1600’s, and then in Wing for about the same length of time from the mid 1700’s, was at this date located as a Lawyer in Uppingham. The family; John Sheild (Gilson), William T Sheild (Gilson) and Mary Sheild (Gilson) were active in copyhold acquisitions and property speculation. (See ‘A History of Wing Village and Its Setting, 1066 – 2018, David Seviour, 29/5/18, pages 47 to 48). They were the second biggest landowners, (after the Earl of Exeter), in Wing Manor with 583 acres in 1873, but then sell up, principally to the Worrall family (see below) in the 1880’s and largely disappear from view.
In 1860, there is an Abstract of Title on paper. This indicates the transfer of the “Public House, The Noel Arms and garden” from the Honourable H.L. Noel to the Honourable Rev Baptist Wriothesley Noel. There is a ‘Reconveyance’ on paper of the same date. The sums mentioned are £2,300 and £3,200 at £4 percent per annum. This must have related to the whole property and confirms Earl of Gainsborough family estate trust ownership at that date. The purpose of the reconveyance appears to be about adjusting the relative security values related to internal loans which enabled the ‘Release’ of the Noel Arms from the internal security pledges, presumably clearing the way for its external sale.
In 1860, there is a Conveyance in respect of The Noel Arms on parchment (with wavy line) from The Honourable Henry Lewis Noel to William Apps, Gentleman. The background is set out as; in 1852 The Honourable William Nisserton(?) Noel, on the first part, The Right Honourable Charles Noel Earl Gainsborough, on the second part, and Henry Lewis Noel, on the 3 rd part, approve a transaction as falling within the family trust discretion for disposals. In 1855, Henry Lewis Noel is identified as first part in a property transaction and the Right Honourable Reverend Baptist Wriothesley as second part. This background may or may not relate to the same intra-family transactions as in the 1860 Abstract but in addition it does clear the way for freehold disposal out of the family trust to William Apps. This seems to further suggest that Thomas Bagley’s transactions on this part of the site, before this date, relate to something other than freehold. And, indeed the Conveyance states the previous occupants as being; Maria Gregory, then Joseph Woods, afterwards Samuel Bagley, and now in the tenure of Thomas Bagley.
In 1866, there is an Indenture, Transfer of Mortgage, whereby William Sheild, of Uppingham of the first part, “and another”, which further on in the document appears to be Thomas Bagley, Wheelwright, on the second part, transfer the mortgage to Elizabeth Bostock of Lincoln, Spinster, of the third part. William Sheild receives £50, and Thomas Bagley receives £50. I assume that this relates to Elizabeth Bostock discharging the Thomas Bagley loan from William Sheild of 1851, by paying Thomas Bagley £50 who in turn pays it to William Sheild and then she appears to lend Thomas Bagley a further fifty pounds. The security for the transaction relates to a tenement in Wing but there is no plan. We do know that the original loan in 1851 was secured by Thomas Bagley on the then recently constructed ‘The Club-room’.
In 1867, there is a Conveyance on parchment (with wavy line) whereby Thomas Bagley, on the first part, conveys a tenement at Wing known as ‘The Noel Arms’ to William Apps. This involves Elizabeth Bostock, Spinster of Lincoln, on the second part, William Apps, London Coal Merchant, on the third part (the actual purchaser or paymaster), and William Sheild, of Uppingham, Gentleman, on the fourth part. This might relate to a different tenement on the overall site known as ‘The Noel Arms’ whereby William Apps is attempting to buy out the other freeholds created by previous sales (The Cuckoo Cottages?) or it might relate to William Apps, having acquired the freehold site including the Noel Arms from the Gainsborough estate, now buying out a lease that Thomas Bagley held on the Noel Arms, or “The Club Room” he built, or his cottage which may have been freehold and thereby also related to William Sheild’s release, he having recovered his previous loan on same as above? It also raises questions as to where Elizabeth Bostock fits in, albeit that Thomas Bagley at this point seems indebted to her for a loan of £100 on unknown Wing tenement security?
In 1868, there is an ‘Indenture’ on paper. This is between Edward Bar nett and wife, on the first part, to Messrs Langley and Barnett. The Indenture explains that William Apps of London, leaves the property once known as The Red Lion Inn, then as The Noel Arms, and now as The Cuckoo Inn, to his sister, Sophia Bagley, now deceased, and so to her daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Barnett (formerly Bagley). So, Edward Barnett and his wife, Sarah, now confirm the leaving/gifting of this property plus its yard, blacksmith’s and wheelwright’s shops, stables and outhouses which they currently occupy (purchased from Thomas Bagley the father of Sarah by William Apps, her maternal uncle) to John Langley and Charles Barnett. There is then a ‘Deed of Settlement’ dated 1868, confirming the above.
In 1877, written on parchment with the wavy line, there is a ‘Conveyance’ from The Right Honourable Frederick Earl Beauchamp, William Lygon Earl Longford, Baron Silchester and The Most Honourable William Alleyne Marquis of Exeter, to Mrs Sarah Elizabeth Barnett. This conveyance sells the cottage/s adjoining the Cuckoo to Sarah after the death of her husband. It required the consents of some very powerful aristocrats because it was part of the Marquis of Exeter’s estate. It contains a plan of the property, as below.
These are the cottages subsequently auctioned by Charles Vernon Boys and James Langley in 1888.
I cannot help but surmise that the overall site of The Red Lion Inn/Noel Arms/Cuckoo public house and its cottages, outbuildings, stables and workshops, together with the interests of the Earls of Gainsborough, Exeter and Beauchamp, together with those of leading gentry like Sheild, and the known fact of its “Club” status, taken in conjunction with its seemingly chaotic transfer history, suggest that it might have been a drinking and gambling den. It may also be surmised that given the state of contemporary property record keeping, and the imprecise exchanges of property within this social context, probably gave rise to ill-defined legal tenure.
In 1888, there is a ‘Conveyance’ in the sum of £625.12s. Messrs Charles Vernon Boys, son of wealthy Wing village Rector, but now at the Kensington Museum of Science and Art, and James Langley, rich local benefactor and Oakham Auctioneer, (relative of John Langley?), act as Executors of Sarah Elizabeth Barnett, née Bagley after her death.
In dispute with other Barnett family members (presumably Charles Barnett, the son, because of the 1868 Deed of Settlement), Charles Vernon Boys and James Langley get High Court approval to sell the properties, the subject of the plan included below, at auction (in the event to the Northampton Brewing Company) in order to settle her debts with the Stamford, Spalding and Boston, Banking Company . Essentially, the property comprises the Cuckoo Inn and all its outbuildings, which it is stated as having been previously purchased from Thomas Bagley by William Apps, marked in red and a cottage, marked in blue. The latter, other documents above confirm, had been purchased by Sarah Barnett (after the death of her husband) from The Marquis of Exeter’s Estate. This cottage was formerly in the occupation of Joseph Woods and William Horsepool.
This helps to clarify some queries, confirming that there were two sets of cottages on the Cuckoo Inn site. There were two cottages referred to above and sold to the Northampton Brewing Company Limited at auction in 1888, and those referred to below, sold by Dorothy Worrall in 1948 to the Northampton Brewing Company, which had been earlier acquired by the Sheild family and then re-possessed by Edward Worrall. The latter had been part of the securitised batch of properties passing to the Worralls when they foreclosed on Sheild family loans in or about 1886, which is revealed in an Abstract produced for the 1948 Court determination – see plan immediately below and further commentary. This appears to provide an explanation of references to ‘The Nook’ and ‘The Cuckoo Cottages’.
Above is a plan of those William Sheild properties relevant to the Cuckoo Inn site that were pledged as security for loans he received from Edward Worrall (then a “Farmer of Sibbertoft in the County of Leicestershire”) in 1886, and which was subsequently attached to the paper. Abstract of title transactions produced by Dorothy Worrall in 1948, validating her right of disposal of such properties to the Northampton Brewery Company Limited. See further below. In the years 1891 and 1901, other information from Kelly’s Directory which is referred to in David Smith and Bob Hayward’s TR Projects commissioned ‘Historic Building Assessment’ of the Cuckoo, tells us that Alfred Curtis and then William Groby were Innkeepers with their respective families. The latter period also included a grocer’s shop. These two landlords of the Cuckoo presumably had only short term tenure with the Brewery.
In 1926, Frederick Hubbard leases the Cuckoo for £12 per annum.
In 1948, there is a ‘Conveyance’ on paper, whereby Dorothy Worrall, of Wing Hall, sells the freehold of properties that were described in her acquisition by an ‘Assent’ (approval by the Executors and other beneficiaries of Edward Worrall’s Will) in 1930 as; “No 14. two stone-built and thatched cottages known as ‘The Nook’ with garden ground thereto belonging situate in Top Street Wing aforesaid (near to Cuckoo Inn) in the respective occupations of G. Buckby and Mrs R. Bagley.”
They are sold for £50 to The Northampton Brewery Company Limited and are identified on a plan (see below). They are stated as now being empty and scheduled for demolition under a demolition order. These properties are also stated as previously being in the ownership of Philip Worrall, Francis James Scott, and Stephen Henry Worrall. These last three are all nephews and Executors of Edward Worrall’s will. Dorothy Worrall was Edward Worrall’s daughter and married her cousin, Philip Worrall.
The dark area on the above plan explains a number of issues; firstly, on page ten above, the delineation on the 1888 auction map of land, west of the Cuckoo holding, being marked with the name Mr Ja.s Worrall and hence Dorothy Worrall’s inheritance, secondly, the significance of item [2] on the ‘Historic Assessment’ plan, set out below, which was not identified in that Assessment as the site of former cottages, and thirdly, that ‘The Cuckoo Cottages’ were located on the Top Street frontage, with ‘The Nook’ cottages located behind, the intervening building of what is now 3b being the later insertion. This information, then in turn suggests that 3b is the likely location of ‘The Club’ as referred to in the 1851 document and below.
The 1948 Abstract focusing on events from 1886, which is on paper and in a legal shorthand, reveals amongst many other things that the High Court had ordered Robert Sheild on behalf of Mary Sheild and himself in 1885 to pay James Worrall £23,924.15.2 by 12 noon on the 27th October in the Chapel of Rolls, in Rolls Yard, Chancery Lane London. The property transfers from the Sheild’s to the Worrall’s were subsequently agreed as a basis of debt settlement in 1885/1886.
In 1960, Frederick Hubbard, a post-office worker and sitting Landlord, buys the pub from the Phipps Northampton Brewery Company limited for £400. The plan attached to the conveyance, see below, indicates that although the sites related to the Cuckoo Inn, the Club, the Nook Cottages and the Cuckoo Cottages, had by this date been consolidated, the Nook and Cuckoo Cottages had been demolished. The Abstract of Title for this transaction reveals that the Phipps Northampton Brewery Company Limited had acquired the whole property from the Northampton Brewery Company Limited in 1959. The latter had issued share capital of £491,168 of which the whole was in the beneficial ownership of the former and there is a hand certified note endorsing that this transaction had been adjudicated as not being liable for Stamp Duty. So this1959 transfer was likely an intra-company transaction.
In 1962, Frederick Hubbard dies and leaves the pub to his wife. Angela Marie Hubbard sells it to James Howard Southwell in 1962 subject to the covenants included in her husband’s original purchase. James Howard Southwell sells it to Melbourne Brewery Ltd., in 1972 for £8,250.00.
In 1989, Melbourne Brewery Ltd., whose Registered Office was at Greenbank Offices, Lion Brewery, Hartlepool, sells the whole site to Charles Henry Jenkins and Molly Isabel Jenkins for £136,200.
By 1997 K.T. Investments appear to own ‘The Cuckoo’ and they lease it to John A. Coates and Barbara Coates for six years with effect from December 1997, for £16,830.00 per annum.
There were no further documents in the bundle after this date other than a change of use Planning Approval in 2007 from a public house to residential usage.
After the production of the summary of this transactional history on the 1st January 2019, Mr Tom Roberts located three more documents from his own archive material which he made available to me in April 2020. These comprised an Abstract of Title for the 1960 purchase, the related 1960 Conveyance, and the Land Registry Registration dated 1989 in respect of the Melbourne Brewery / C.H. Jenkins/M.I. Jenkins transaction referred to above. Accordingly, a few additions and amendments have been made and this ‘Summary’ constitutes a second edition, dated 29 th April 2020.
Below on page 16 is an extract from; ‘An Historic Building Assessment of The Grade II Listed Building Known As “The Cuckoo”, Wing, Rutland’ compiled by David Smith & Rob Hayward on behalf of James Richardson, Architects, December 2008, as commissioned by Mr & Mrs T. Roberts of TR Projects.
From my reading and analysis of the historic bundle of documents I believe [1] to have been the cottage/s acquired by Sarah Barnett from the Exeter estate in 1877 and sold by her Executors at auction in 1888, such cottage/s being referred to as ‘The Cuckoo Cottages’. This property was auctioned separately as freehold (evidenced by the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Auction Notice contained in the documentary bundle) and was likely acquired by the Northampton Brewery Company Limited along with the ‘Cuckoo Inn’. They were occupied at the time of disposal by Joseph Woods and William Horsepool, names that feature elsewhere in Wing’s history.
Interestingly, the documents related to the Dorothy Worrall disposal of ‘The Nook Cottages’, clearly [2] indicate that the vacant property was previously occupied by Mrs R Bagley and G Buckby. Dorothy Buckby, the oldest and longest Wing resident, at 100 years, now living in a Listed Building in the Jetty, told me during a conversation we had in the late summer of 2018 that her mother, who escaped poor health and the Zeppelins, to come and live in Wing during the Great War, working in service in Preston village, lived in one of the Cuckoo Cottages where she met and then married her father. Four Bagley young men and two Buckby young men feature in the Roll of Honour for Wing in 1914 –18 War.
I further believe that [1] must be the three cottages referred to in the 1840 ‘Indenture’ whereby three cottages, known as ‘Cuckoo Cottages’ were conveyed to Thomas Bagley Wheelwright, Thomas Brown Gentleman, and John Woodcock, Shoemaker. How these cottages found their way into Exeter estate family ownership before being acquired by Sarah Barnett is unknown, unless they were indeed originally Copyhold transfers in 1840 .
[3] Is likely an outside privy and water pump serving the cottages at [2].
The more difficult question is the likely location of “The Club” . It seems to me that the most likely candidate for “The Club Room”, as mentioned above, is in fact 3b Top Street, the right hand, 19th Century addition, which once sat between the older, 17th Century part of the ‘Red Lion Inn’, the older three cottages known as ‘Cuckoo Cottages’, originally located at its immediate frontage, and the non-commercial yard, gardens and two ‘Nook Cottages’, located at its immediate rear. That would mark its construction to 1844 coinciding with the 1842 and 1851 mortgages, the latter £50 being that borrowed by Thomas Bagley from William Sheild, secured on “a Club.” This same Mortgage has the location described by Thomas Bagley and states that he built it himself, but it appears to be on, according to the wording, a piece of William Sheild’s land, part of the former cottage gardens. This also then makes sense in terms of a former straight line boundary which is best viewed/envisaged by looking at the 1886 O.S. map of Wing -see extract immediately below:
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The above plan, blown up from the 1886 OS map, is as it was described in the 2008 ‘Historic Building Assessment’ but it probably didn’t enjoy the benefit of a detailed review of the historic transfer documents. One unresolved issue are the Club date-stone initials of 1844; S.E.B. either refers to Thomas Bagley’s wife, Sophia Bagley (middle name unknown) or to his daughter Sarah Elizabeth Bagley (married name Barnett), but W.S.B.? Thomas’ son, father or grandfather? The names William and Samuel Bagley occur in the records.
David Seviour, 29/4/2020
Acknowledgments, Sources and Copyright
All the historical and legal documents used in the analysis and construction of this transactional history were provided by Tom Roberts.
Archive photographic material and photographed plan extracts were sourced from access to the above documents and Parish records.
The historical visual and graphic material was digitised and edited by David Seviour.
Current photography was undertaken by Alison Seviour.
With the exception of the Statutory Listed Buildings Citation, David Seviour, as author, asserts copyright for the whole and any constituent part of this document.
Licences to copy this document for their own personal purposes have been granted to Tom Roberts, Jon Roberts, and Lynda Katzen, as the current owner-occupiers of the three separate landholdings and hereditaments comprising the site.
Any further requests or queries should be directed to:
davidseviour33@gmail.com
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