Laburnum Terrace

'Selwood' - No. 22 Gloucester Road

We don't know exactly when number 22 was built and we have not yet been able to see the deeds which may have more details.  The Algates who lived in the house in the 1970's remember being told the house was built in 1812 but they can't remember the source.

Number 22 is different from the other houses in the terrace, in many ways. 

These physical differences and peculiarities are dealt with on a separate page and can be viewed by clicking here.

The house is also the only in the terrace not built by the Hodges family.  We think John Hodges bought the house in 1832 as we have discovered a reference to an indenture between John Hodges and James Ford dated 23rd & 24th August 1832.  This would appear to confirm that the house was built earlier than 1832, but we have not been able to trace a copy of this indenture.  The Land Tax records of 1825 and 1826 show that John Hodges was renting a house from James Ford and it is possible that this is the same house.

We suspect that after John bought number 22 and the land adjoining, he set about adding houses and building the terrace.  We know the house was there in 1840 when it was shown on the Tithe Map as being part of Plot 249.  This plot covers what is now numbers 20 and 22 Gloucester Road and is described in the accompanying details as “a house, stables and garden and covers 18 perches.”  The significant word here is “House”.  This would appear to confirm that in 1840 the two houses were joined.

Plot 249 is owned by John Hodges and occupied by Charles Ford.  This may be the same Charles Ford who is shown in the 1841 census as the beer-house keeper in what is now ‘The Royal George’.  The adjoining Plot 248 shows that two more houses had been added to the terrace and that John had moved to one of the new houses.

The 1841 census shows three households in the terrace.  It would seem that  John Hodges, the carpenter and builder who came to own the whole terrace, and his wife Sarah had now moved back into the house.  Their son, George also a journeyman carpenter, and their young daughter, Emma, were living there as well.   They had a  lodger Richard Cowle aged 25 a carpenter journeyman, whom we suspect was an employee of John Hodges.  One of the new houses (we think number 18)  was uninhabited at the time of the census but John's elder son James and his wife Charlotte were living in the other one.

In the 1851 census, it is not clear who is occupying which household but we have found supporting evidence to make some assumptions.  John Hodges had moved from number 22 about this time to Gloucester House which he also built and is sharing it with his daughter, Emma and her husband, John Williams.  We know from an indenture of 1852 that John Hodges shared the house with John and Emma Williams and had even divided it into two separate households.

There are only two other families listed in the census as living in that part of the road in the census, one of these being that of George Hodges, the other, Sarah Nicholls, a landed proprietor from Littleton.  It seems likely that John's son, George, who married in June 1850 stayed in  number 22 with his new wife.

In the 1850's John Hodges started making arrangements for the transfer of his property to his children.  We have found a reference to an Indenture of Settlement of 27th August 1858 made between John Hodges and John and Emma Williams and an Indenture of Settlement (Endorsed on the last mentioned indenture) dated 6th June 1859 and made between John Hodges, John and Emma Williams and James Hodges.   Although we haven't seen these documents we believe that they transfer the ownership of numbers 20 and 22 to John and Emma Williams.  Certainly John and Emma Williams owned these properties.   This is confirmed by an indenture in the deeds of No. 8 Gloucester Road which has a map showing the ownership of property in the terrace in 1865. 

We have written about the interesting aspects of the building itself and about the Spite Wall  and you can click on those to read more, or you can see  details of the OWNERS of No. 22 and the families who occupied the property as TENANTS

This page was last updated: 23/03/2007