By the Grace of God Amen this seven
and twentieth day of October 1694 I William Shelton of Langar
being weak in the body but of sound and disposing mind and
memory praised to be God do make and ordain and constitute
this my last will and testament in the form following revoking
all other wills
First and chiefly thanks God
Worldly goods to my deare and loving wife Elizabeth Shelton
all my messuage and tenement in Bingham for life
And after her decease to my son John Shelton and his heirs.
Also direct sufficient moneys for subsistence of three other
children and maintaining aged father if still alive and
5/- to Rose Wilton.
Probate was granted 17 October 1697,
presumably the year of death. The wording ‘of Langar’
suggests Shelton never lived in the Bingham property but leased
it to others – maybe even to the Richmonds.
The property stayed in the possession of the Shelton family
for many years and on 14 August 1807 George Shelton, maltster,
transferred the property to his nephew George
Baxter, grocer (already of Church Street), in exchange
for an annuity of £40 payable from a bond taken out
by Baxter. Baxter seems to have had a colourful history including
a lengthy series of legal
disputes with the Rector. The description is now:
All that messuage dwelling house
with malt house workshop stable yard garden and orchard
The reference to malt house and to George
Shelton being a maltster suggests he lived on the premises.
The outbuilding that was the malthouse has a beam allegedly
dating to 1695, so George Shelton may not have been the first
maltster here. The transaction was witnessed by John Strong
and John Horsepool. Strong was the post master in Church Street
and was one of Baxter’s consortium for the development
of Market Street. There were many Horsepools in Bingham
at this time. The deeds for 19
Church Street show that Baxter occupied what is now 15
Church Street from 1795 and purchased it in 1811. That property
included a bakehouse; he is listed in directories for 1829
and 1832 as a grocer, tea dealer, draper and stamp distributor
of Church Street.
At this time Baxter was probably quite well off. But in 1810
the mortgage on the Market Street development was called in
and the consortium including Baxter had to borrow £500
to repay it. Baxter seems to have been short of money from
then onwards, as on 24 July 1817 an indenture between George
Baxter and Jane Wylde of Southwell, spinster records that
“George Baxter has occasion to borrow £500 and
had applied to and prevailed upon Jayne Wylde to advance and
lend same, at 5% interest”, on security of property
described as:
All that messuage with malt house
[White Lodge] and all that dwelling house lately occupied
as a workshop (number 9 or 11?) all in occupation
of George Baxter.
On 10 June 1819 Jane Wylde assigned
the loan to Rev John Hall Clay of Calverton and William Barratt
gentleman of Southwell. This was for the full principal of
£500, so none had been paid off so far. Clay died in
1823 and the mortgage transferred to Wylde and Bolger, bankers
of Southwell. In Pigot’s 1822 directory George Baxter
is described as an agent of the Southwell bank.
By 1823 Baxter was in serious financial difficulties and indeed
became bankrupt.
His bankers (Bolger) and chief creditor (Swann) became administrators.
On 30th October 1823 Bolger and Swann signed articles of agreement
whereby they contracted to sell the two cottages to William
Pilgrim for sum of £615:
All those two freehold messuages
and dwelling houses with coalhouse dunghill place and outbuildings
in Church Street occupied by John Greenwood [listed
in Pigot’s 1822 directory as a blacksmith of Church
Street] and (?) Cheetham. And also garden and
orchard together with yard stable dovecote pigsty and other
outbuildings [it would have been common practice to
have pigs rooting in an orchard]
The final agreement,
running to five parchment pages, to cover all his creditors,
was not drawn up until 4th and 6th March 1825. There were
8 parties to the indentures of lease and release wherein Bolger
and Swan, as administrators, agreed the sale to William Pilgrim
of the dwellings previously owned by Baxter with other buildings
etc as detailed below:
All that messuage with the malt
house barn stable yard garden and orchard situated in Bingham
(White Lodge)
All that dwelling house or tenement (lately occupied as
a workshop) as before mentioned and situated in the yard
belonging to the said messuage which premises have been
formally in occupation of said George Baxter and were more
accurately described according to their present state and
particulars thereof, that was to say
All those two freehold messuages or dwelling houses [numbers
9 and 11?] with the coach house dwelling place and outbuildings
thereto adjoining and belonging situated in or near Church
Street in Bingham and in the respective occupations of John
Greenwood and [no forename] Cheetham.
Also all those two malt houses
and offices situated in or near Church Street in Bingham
and then in the occupation of William Whitworth and John
Welch
And also that orchard and garden
together with yard stable dovecote and pigstye and outbuildings
adjoining situated in Church Street and then in occupation
of George Baxter.
Whitworth kept the Kings Arms (now the
Crown) on the Market Place and so would have had a good use
for the malt houses, although one would assume that as landlord
of the Chesterfield Arms opposite William Pilgrim would previously
have had his own use for them! John Welch was a plumber and
glazier living in Long Acre, in partnership with his brother-in-law
William Bass. Maybe they rented storage here. We do not know
if these were additional malthouses or a reference back to
that attached to White Lodge.
The description accords with the present
layout of White Lodge and the adjacent terrace of cottages
to the east across the yard. Later documents confirm that
all these were in the same ownership for a while. Various
buildings seem to have been let by the administrators. The
malt houses are represented today by the outbuildings at the
north end of the property, and in which some very old beams
are to be found, at least one of which has allegedly been
dated to around 1650.
The deed bundle also contains a sworn
statement dated 15 November 1827 by John Strong schoolmaster
(as well as postmaster) of Bingham, confirming Baxter's ownership.
John Strong maketh this oath and
saith that he was present and did see George Shelton, of
Bingham, maltster (since deceased) seal and deliver
a certain deed of enfeoffment dated 14 August 1807 and made
between George Shelton and George Baxter, grocer of Bingham
and nephew of the late George Shelton and William Green
of Newark, gentleman, [presumably his lawyer] on
behalf of G Baxter.
And that the said George Shelton did deliver unto George
Baxter full and peaceable possession of the messuage house
or tenement mentioned. Evidenced that John Strong and John
Horsepool had endorsed the back of the deed,
Sworn at Bingham 15 November 1827 before [unreadable
signature]
Quite what was the purpose of this statement
at this time is not clear since no other documents bear a
similar date, unless Pilgrim needed it to help prove title
for some reason - perhaps the original documents were not
available.
The trade directory of 1832 lists William Holroyd Smith as
a surgeon living and practising in Church Street. Although
there is no evidence it is tempting to suppose he was the
first of a long line of medical men to occupy these premises.
 |
In the early nineteenth
century plans were not usually attached to title documents,
so the earliest graphical representations we have for
White Lodge are from Sanderson’s Nottinghamshire
map of 1835 and the Bingham tithe award map of 1841. White
Lodge is shown circled on the 1835 map and hatched on
the 1841. Note the rear outbuildings appear to have come
after 1835. We can recognise the 1841 configuration as
very close to today’s layout. The small scale of
Sanderson’s map makes it difficult to identify the
spaces between buildings and to deduce whether much had
changed in the intervening six years. |
|
Bingham Local History Society was able
to match some 1841 census information to the parcel numbers
of the 1841 tithe map. These suggested that a Thomas Widdowson
aged 50, a joiner occupied the building (cross hatched), in
what is now the west garden of White Lodge. This seems not
to have been there in 1835 and is not there now. Betsy Baxter,
now aged 70, (George's widow) was back at the shop he started
out with in 1795 (the present number 15) and is described
a grocer.
We know from his will that Pilgrim lived in the cottage now
number 9 – he left this to his niece. He:
gave and devised all that dwelling
house wherein he then resided situated and being in Bingham
aforesaid with garden orchard and premises then occupied
therewith unto his niece Sarah Walker during the term of
her natural life
The trustees were to sell all his other
properties ‘as soon as is convenient’. He also
set up trusts to include this property on her demise for the
benefit of other nieces and nephews along with remainders
of estate, messuages (freehold copyhold and leasehold). Also
household goods and furniture, stock in trade, plate, linen,
books, book debts, money ands securities for money, farming
stock and other personal effects were to be disposed of as
soon as convenient. The proceeds were to be used to pay funeral
expenses, just debts and to pay ‘unto my sister Sarah
Green, of Aslockton, widow, £400 in consideration of
her being my housekeeper’. The remainder was divided
equally between nieces and nephews (except Sarah Walker).
He appointed as trustees for the nephews
and nieces John Foster, farmer of Saxondale and Richard Brewster
farmer of Bingham. The document was witnessed by John Bailey
and William Huckerby Jnr; the latter was a lawyer and Superintendent
Registrar. His name appears in one capacity or another on
many deeds we have seen.
Pilgrim died on 30 August 1847 and on
the 6th July 1852, Mssrs Foster Brewster and Foster, executors
for William Pilgrim, sold White Lodge to Luke
Dowel Smyth MD for £450, with John Pilgrim making
a mark not a signature. The property is delineated in a plan
drawn in the margin of the indenture of sale of 6th July 1852.
The building (now number 13 Church Street) with outside steps
and arrowed was probably the barn used as a theatre operated
in 1785 by an amateur group and referred to in Miss Wortley’s
History of Bingham (page 33). The property is described thus:
“All that messuage or dwelling
house with the coach house stable and other outbuildings
gardens at the back thereof fronting onto and adjoining
Church Street heretofore in the occupation of Richard Hubbard.
but now and for some time past in the occupation of Luke
Dowell Smyth and also malt kiln and offices heretofore occupied
as two situate in or near Church Street being near said
messuage heretofore in the occupation of William Whitworth
and John Welch and now unoccupied together with the rights
easements and appurtenances granted to Luke Dowell Smith”.
In the census of 1841 Richard Hubbard
was aged 50, of independent means and living in Church Street
with two female servants. We have found no other references
to him, although he may have been related to John Hubbard,
also aged 50, a tailor for many years in Fisher Lane.
In the 1841 census Smyth was listed as
a surgeon (aged 29 and unmarried) living in Union Street.
Luke was listed in directories as a doctor in Church Street
as early as 1844 and so must have rented White Lodge from
Pilgrim. In the 1851 census Luke was living in Church Street
with his wife and two small children. The 1851 census also
shows the family to have had a groom living in. The old stable
and coach house are still present; the doctor would have needed
a pony and trap to visit patients further afield than Bingham.
The surgery window was a lattice casement overlooking the
yard.
On 7th July 1852, the day following the conveyance, Smyth
took out a mortgage with William Huckerby the younger (the
same who had witnessed William Pilgrim’s will) for £400
plus interest. The mortgage document establishes that Pilgrim
had built, or possibly rebuilt, the house:
Messuage fronting Church Street
some years since erected by Wm Pilgrim on the site of an
ancient messuage with dwelling house and premises theretofore
in the occupation of George Greenwood (Listed in 1832
directory as a farmer of Church Street)
And also that malt kiln and offices hereto occupied on two
situate in or near Church Street adjoining or lying near
the said dwelling house theretofore in the occupation of
William Whitworth and John Welch and now unoccupied
The usual foreclosure clauses in event
of default are included. On the reverse of the mortgage deed
is an indenture confirming repayment on 4th January 1859.
 |
Pilgrim’s
niece Sarah Walker died on May 20 1871, aged 71years.
On 26 June 1873 John Foster, surviving trustee of William
Pilgrim, sold the cottage on the east of the yard to
Joseph Richmond, farmer of Tideswell Derbyshire - all
that tenement formally occupied by Sarah Walker
- for £187-0-0. This was in accordance with William
Pilgrim’s will giving Sarah lifelong interest,
and presumably the proceeds were then distributed to
the ‘other nieces etc’. A plan is attached
to this and clearly predates the Victorian front extension
to this building (now number 11 Church Street).
Smyth is not mentioned in the directory for 1871 so
presumably had ceased to practise. In 1872 Henry Wootton
appears in the directory as a surgeon of Church Street.
The 1881 census lists him as aged 41, his wife Sarah
as 42, three children aged 13, 12 and 10, a governess,
a servant and a groom. White Lodge is the only house
they could have occupied with that household! Wootton
was still in Church Street in the 1889 directory but
those for 1891, 1893 and 1896 show him as a surgeon
in Porchester Villas.
One can only wonder why he moved. In 1891 Wootton would
only be 51 and interestingly the census for 1891 does
not show him living in Porchester Villas, and indeed
he is not listed in the Bingham census at all. His daughter
Martha, a 22 year old schoolmistress, is shown as visiting
John and Ann Gilman in Porchester Villas. Curious!
|
On 17th June 1881 Luke D Smyth arranged
a mortgage against the Bingham house with Samuel Dutton Walker,
architect of Nottingham, for £500. Possibly the mortgage
was to fund a house purchase in London for his retirement.
The property is now described as:
Formerly in occupation of Richard
Hubbard for many years the mortgager (Smyth) and now of
Henry Wootton.
Thus Smyth had probably sold the practice,
but not the house, to Wootton during 1871. The parish magazine
records that Dr Wotton (sic) had replaced Smyth as Secretary
of the coal club
committee by 1873. The mortgage deed notes that the malt kiln
is now occupied but the does not say by whom. A right of way
was granted across the yard for occupants of premises to east
of the dwelling house formerly belonging to Wm Pilgrim then
to Sarah Walker and now to (no forename) Richmond. This is
across the yard between the present numbers 9-11-13 and numbers
15 – 15c.
Samuel Dutton Walker died 15th June 1885 and appointed his
wife Rebecca as executor (with Arthur Williams). Luke Smyth
died on 21st December 1885 leaving everything to his wife.
He still owed £500 principal plus interest and the papers
note that ‘Emma Smyth is desirous of paying off the
loan’. On the reverse of the mortgage deed there is
an indenture of 4 August 1891 between Elizabeth Rebecca Walker
and Emma Elizabeth Smyth of Tonbridge Wells, widow recording
the repayment.
Wootton had gone by the time of the census of 1891, which
lists Samuel Kirkby as a medical practitioner in Church Street
In 1891 Samuel Kirby was aged 37, his wife 47 and they had
only two daughters aged 16 and 11 a servant and a groom. The
presence of the groom in the household suggests one can safely
assume he was now at White Lodge.
The wives of Dr Wootton and Dr Kirby
were aged about 40 and with fewer children than average for
those times. Respectively the youngest child was 10 and 11.
Perhaps lack of additional younger children indicates a serious
health problem such as tuberculosis and one is tempted to
suppose it if this were the case then either Mrs Wootton or
Mrs Kirkby might have been the tuberculosis sufferer for whom
the unusual window on the west wall was constructed to admit
air but not rain to the bedroom.
Kirkby is listed in the 1893 directory
but has disappeared by 1896 to be replaced in Church Street
by Dr. Henry Westwood. They seem to have practised in Bingham
at the same time for a while. The 1891 census lists Dr Henry
Westwood in Church Street, presumably at number 17 as the
deeds for number 19
name him as an occupier of number 17 prior to 1895. The directory
for 1891 lists his practice at The Limes, in the Market Place
which is a bit confusing as the 1891 census for here lists
the large family of George Brown of Hardstaff and Brown the
grocers. They rented the house from William Clifton, who by
then lived in Notingham, so perhaps Westwood rented space
for a surgery.
The 1892 electoral register has Westwood practising in Church
Street, so the arrangement was short-lived. In the 1901 census
Westwood is the only doctor listed in the census as living
in Church Street so can safely be assumed to be at White Lodge.
Although he was in Church Street in the 1905 register he was
gone by 1908; the last entry for him in electoral register
was 1907. Adelaide Wortley’s History of Bingham records
that Dr Cope came in 1912 and that he served in the First
World War. No records are available for the period 1909 -
1914 and the electoral register for 1915 and successive years
has him in Bingham. Whether he was actually here we cannot
say!
Emma Smyth died on 4 November 1912; she had appointed her
sons Arthur and Randolph as executors. The Smyth family still
owned White Lodge and in documents dated 30 August 1913 Arthur
Weatherby Smyth of Nova Scotia and Randolph Marriott Smyth
of Dulwich agreed to exchange two small pieces of property
with J Richmond next door, at number 9. The Smyths transferred,
for £10, the site of a dung heap in the yard and now
surrounded by land owned by Richmond and he transferred to
them, for £30, the coal place embedded in the east wall
of the outbuildings to White Lodge but always owned by the
other house!
On 6 April 1914 the Earl of Carnarvon sold a piece of adjoining
land to the Smyths for £150 – what is now the
garden adjoining the school wall. The sisters’
memoir of some 40 years earlier mentions that ‘a
new garden had evidently been taken in on the other side of
the house, where there was a small lawn outside the dining-room
window’. At that time Smyth must have leased it from
the Earl; presumably the cottage occupied in 1841 by the joiner
Thomas Widdowson had become empty. The plan from 1852 shows
the land to the west was owned by the Earl of Chesterfield
and also what we think was Widdowson's cottage on that land
fronting onto Church Street. It is not there now and neither
is there any sign of patching in the present garden wall which
seems very old, being built of narrow brick. Close inspection
of the tithe map suggests there may have been an alleyway
between the two buildings. The garden wall may well once have
formed the wall of the missing building, but there is no sign
in the brickwork of where the alley would have been.
On the 14th January 1921 the Smyths sold White Lodge for £800
to Ethel Amy Cope. Ethel was the wife of Dr Ricardo Cope,
and one wonders why he did not buy in his own name. They first
appear in the electoral register for 1915, so must have rented
from the Smyths for a period. On 15th January Randolph Marriott
Smyth loaned Mrs Cope £400 towards the cost of purchase
and she and Ricardo jointly covenanted to repay the loan.
We have seen several instances in other deeds of a seller
loaning money to a purchaser.
On 1 February 1923 Mr J Richmond sold the cottage once occupied
by Sarah Walker to Mrs Cope for £450. This included
the large orchard to the rear and reunited the two properties
into the ownership of one family. This J Richmond is presumably
son of the first one and the papers for White Lodge include
a death certificate for Ann Richmond (his mother?) aged 90
years on 28 March 1825. The death certificate is signed by
several well-known Bingham names – James Baldock (poor
law overseer) (see 9 School
Lane), J W Eaton, MD of 2 Long Acre (his surgery was at
what is now 2a) (see 4 Long Acre)
and James Warriner Mason, superintendent registrar.
A cash book for the years 1923 to 1927 survives showing payments
by Doctor Cope’s patients and for his work for the Board
of Guardians (vaccinations, certificates of lunacy, etc),
Nottinghamshire Constabulary and the Ministry of Pensions.
Several well known Bingham families seem to have been on his
list, including Cockayne, Walker, Hitchcock (1
Market Place.), Doncaster, Castledine, Downing, Kendrick
and Cadge (the chemist) (see 8
Cherry Street). The cash book may give a clue to what
was happening at this time. 1926 was the last full year of
entries. 1927 shows a reducing workload with only a few entries
per month, and 1928 has only two entries – March 3rd
and June 16th. It would seem Cope was indeed winding down!
His income over the period covered by the cash book had been:
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928 |
£1382
£1503
£1564
£1204
£ 126
£
0-10s |
However, Wortley records that Dr Cope
died on 2 September 1926 aged only 50 (page 133). On closer
inspection one can detect changes in handwriting in the cash
book from the beginning of September 1926, perhaps indicating
a locum was at work. Cope is last mentioned in directories
in 1925 and neither Cope nor Crofts is recorded in 1928. Miss
Wortley records that Dr Cope had served in World War One and
had spent time in Africa before that. His coffin was draped
in the Union Jack and a memorial fund collected £186-4-7
which endowed a bed at the General Hospital in Nottingham.
A memorial book was presented to Mrs Cope and Canon Hutt wrote
a fulsome tribute to the doctor in the Parish Magazine.
The earliest directory in which
we have been able to find Dr Crofts is 1932, which being the
earliest entry in the electoral register also rather confirms
the date he came to Bingham! Mrs Cope still owned the house
so Crofts had presumably bought the practice but not the house,
but there is no record of when this happened. Dr Crofts named
the house Wingfield, and took the name plate with him when
he moved to practise at 2 Long Acre in 1946. The Wades re-named
the house ‘White Lodge’.
On 16th October 1957 Ricardo Charles Cope (son of the doctor),
a commercial clerk of Burton Joyce, signed an assent to take
over the property following his mother’s death. Dr Wade
was already in possession, renting from Mrs Cope. Mrs Wade
confirmed to us that Mrs Cope had lived in the cottage (number
9) and rented White Lodge to the Wades. On 1st September 1963
R C Cope sold the main house and the cottage to Dr Oswald
Tetley Wade for £4500.
On 30th July 1982 the Wades sold the cottage (by now in need
of restoration) and some of the orchard. Dr Oswald Wade died
on 6th October 1995. On 24th April 1997 Mrs Wade sold land
formerly the orchard for building a bungalow and on 15 May
1998 she sold the connecting piece between the cottage and
garden. Mrs Wade’s booklet ‘Forget-me-not –
Memories of a Country Life’ contains many interesting
anecdotes of life in the Wade household at White Lodge. It
is available from the Bingham Tape Scheme. The present owners
purchased the house from Mrs Wade in 2002; one is a doctor
thus continuing the tradition of it being a medical family’s
house for over 160 years. |
