Stantway House? (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Wednesday, September 19, 2012, 21:52 (4458 days ago) @ unknown

Hi Laura, welcome to this great website and forum !

No, I don't think Stantway House was the Workhouse. The ever reliable British History site has several mentions of an important house/farm house at Stantway since very early times, eg
"A house and one plough-land at Stantway was held from Rodley manor by Ralph of Abenhall at his death c. 1301; he was succeeded by his son John from whom the estate presumably passed to his brother Ralph, and Reynold of Abenhall, Ralph's son, held it at his death c. 1341. The estate of the Abenhall family was apparently that called the manor of STANTWAY which Philip Hoke granted to trustees before 1412 for the endowment of a chantry in Littledean church. In 1550, after the dissolution of the chantry, the manor was granted by the Crown to John Butler and Hugh Partridge, who granted it a few months later to one of the Wintle family whose son Henry Wintle held the estate, comprising Stantway Court and 80 a., in 1591. In 1614 William Wintle sold the estate to Alexander Baynham, the owner of the Westbury Court estate, who sold it in 1621 to Thomas Young of Chaxhill. Thomas sold the estate in 1634 to John Osborne from whom it was bought in 1647 by William Aylburton of Elton. In 1683 a division of the house was made between Samuel and Joseph Aylburton, and in 1690 Joseph sold his moiety of the house and part of the land to Sir Duncombe Colchester of Westbury Court. The rest of the house and estate was owned in 1709 by Mary, daughter of Samuel Aylburton, and in 1742 was sold by Mitchell Aylburton to Maynard Colchester; the re-united estate then descended in the Colchester family, until sold c. 1944. In 1968 Mr. R. J. Liddington owned the house and 119 a. The house, which apparently dates from a complete rebuilding in the late 18th or early 19th century, is of two stories with attics and is built in the local Lias stone."

HOWEVER whether this is the same house as your Census refers to I don't know. There is still a Stantway Lane in Westbury so I guess anyone living there could, perhaps, name their house Stantway House ?.

Indeed, the same reference site suggests plenty of possibles..
"The small tithing of Stantway apparently took its name from the main road. It comprises a small group of 19th- and 20th-century houses at a bypassed bend in the road, and a number of farmhouses south of the road including Stantway Court which was the centre of a small medieval manor."

From: 'Westbury-on-Severn: Introduction', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 10: Westbury and Whitstone Hundreds (1972), pp. 79-85.
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15765

Does the Census indicate the size of your House at all, eg number of residents, any staff, etc ? It states Thomas was a "farmer", does it give anymore clues, sometimes they proudly mention their acreage or number of animals etc ?. Not suggesting it's the case here, but occasionally some people called themselves "farmers" when in fact they were farm labourers not owners... Also, you might be able to gauge whereabouts it is from the neighbouring houses as shown on the Census forms.
(I've just looked up the Census on Ancestry (1911 being free to access still), and I see the adjacent images ie neighbouring households are Frederick Hart at Rock Farm & Elizabeth Saysell of Rock Lane.)

The old Trade Directories are also worth lookingup. This site includes the 1879 Kelly's Directory, and it lists a "Ricketts James, farmer, Stantway farm"
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/kellys/Westbury_on_Severn_1879.htm

HOWEVER the slightly earlier 1876 Directory lists
"HARRIS Charles, farm bailiff, Stantway farm" AND ALSO
"RICKETTS James, farmer and landowner, Stantway court; and Cape hall, Frocester" AND
"SMITHYMAN William K., Esq., Stantway house."

So ?????

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cbennett/westburyonsevern1876.htm
Other Dean towns are at
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cbennett/index.htm

The excellent Historical Directories website carries a 1914 Kellys Gloucestershire Directory, "thankfully" (compared to most searches I've done) searching it for "Stantway" only gives five hits, one of which states
"Partridge, Thomas, farmer, Stantway House".
Being a Directory I'm sure this would not be a Workhouse reference.

http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/findbylocation.asp
I cannot give a direct link, so first use the above link and select Gloucestershire to give a list of available Directories. Look down the r/h side for the 1914 Directory, select Directory to open it, search it for "Stantway", click "next hit" until it displays pages 364 & 365 for the Westbury entry, the "hit" is highlighted in yellow.
You can save these two pages to your pc as high quality pdf files.
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For the Workhouse this is the best reference site for such queries.
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/WestburyOnSevern/
As you can see for Westbury there's a very detailed history and photographs, but I couldn't find any reference to Stantway amongst it all. Also the site states
"From 1904, to protect them from disadvantage in later life, the birth certificates for those born in the workhouse gave its address just as 1 High Street, Westbury on Severn."
ie NOT "Stantway House" as per your 1911 Census.

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My best guess is it seems likely your Stantway House was not the Court, and definitely not the Workhouse, but was a long established farmhouse.

Hope this helps, Jeff.

PS:
Looking at the great Old Maps website, Stantway House is clearly marked and would appear to still be there. It is at the junction of the modern A48 main road (as it approaches Westbury village from Chaxhill/Gloucester direction) and the smaller Rock Lane which itself leads to Rock Farm. It is/was definitely not the Workhouse.
Sadly cannot give a direct link but if you click
http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html
I suggest you use the monitor screen zoom to say 200% so the map image frame fills your screen.
Enter "Stantway House Rock Lane Westbury" or cordinates 374243 & 214285 and press "go".
A modern map will load first, with Stantway House at the centre. Now, using the righthand dropdown menu can select one of various maps, always select those with the "largest" 1:2500 scales.