Numbers 28 and 28A Castle Street in Thornbury are now two separate houses. In the first photograph number 28 is a white building with a white door, 28A the taller of the two properties, is a blue building.
In looking at the history of the properties that now comprise these houses we have used a schedule of deeds and other documents held by Gloucestershire Archives Office and a collection of documents given to Thornbury Museum. These confirm that both properties on this site date back until at least the mid 1600s.
At various times the premises have been two separate properties occupied by as many as five households. At other times the whole property has been owned and occupied by one family. The history of the two houses is complex for all these reasons and it has been very difficult to attempt to untangle the history of the properties.
Scroll to the bottom of this page to use the buttons to access separate pages for the early owners and the occupants of the two houses.
Although they were originally both part of a single large property, for much of their history until 1802 they were two separate properties. They came into the same ownership after Abraham Riddiford first acquired the property that later became 28A Castle Street in 1788 from Mark Nash and then bought the neighbouring property on March 23rd 1802 from Charles and Sarah Smith.
extract from Tithe Map 1840
Abraham Riddiford married Hester Child in 1763. He died aged 66 and was buried on the 27th January 1831. His daughter Ann Child Riddiford and her husband Thomas Freem inherited both properties. Click here to read about the Riddiford and Freem families
Until the Freems became the owners we had no information about how the properties were divided, although the will of Abraham Riddiford makes it that there were five different households living in them (two families in number 28 and three families in 28A). The tithe apportionment compiled between 1838 and 1840 and the accompanying map give us a slightly clearer idea of where the individual households may have been . We have an extract from the Tithe Map of 1840 here on the right. This seems to show that the house that is now 28 was number 277 in the Tithe Apportionment and that divided into two on its street frontage. The neighbouring property (now 28A) was given the Tithe number 278. At this time it had three buildings built onto the back of it which are hatched to show that they were inhabited. These buildings would have been like a court at the back of the houses fronting Castle Street.
28 & 28A Castle Street in 1910
We are not sure for how long a passageway into the properties at the rear existed or how wide it was. Looking at similar arrangements elsewhere in Thornbury we believe that if there was an entrance to a “court” at the back it could have been quite a small narrow passage. The photograph below on the left taken in 1910 shows a small door and a window where there was later an entrance with double wooden doors (see below). These were removed leaving a large archway as shown above.
Please note when looking at this photograph that the perspective is slightly distorted and the whole building looks narrower than it really is. The first part of the house has a long banner on it which says “Long live the King and Queen.” The second taller part of the house has a sign on which juts out into the street and which says E J Salmon.
Thomas Eddington
By 1861 a painter and decorator, Thomas Henry Eddington, lived in one of these properties, 28 Castle Street.
It seems that about this time the number of occupants of the two properties changed. Whereas in 1841 there had been five households, by the Census of 1861 there were only three. Thomas Eddington and family lived at 28 and there were two other families at 28A. Thomas Eddington bought both properties in 1881.
Thomas Eddington died on 6th September 1896. The application for a certificate from the Inland Revenue after his death makes it clear that although Thomas Henry Eddington owned both properties he actually occupied the house and premises at 28 Castle Street. “James Tilley” (also called James Tilling or Telling) occupied the adjoining cottage (28A) until his death in 1907. There were various other buildings on the premises but by this time they were used for storage and workshops. Read about the Eddington family
In the photograph above which was taken about 1910, 28A seem like a large property as it is on three floors with dormer windows in the roof. The descriptions of the property in the Census of 1891 shows that it only had four rooms and in 1901 the census says there were only three rooms.
Edwin Salmon
The 1905 Rate Book shows that 28 and 28A Castle Street were owned by the widowed Elizabeth Eddington. 28 Castle Street was occupied by Edwin John Salmon, a plasterer and painter. The deeds of the property contain an indenture of 31st December 1908 which shows that Edwin bought both houses for £640. Edwin let the second property (28A) to William Eddington. Edwin died on November 19th 1914. By 1916 his widow Eliza had moved to Bristol. Read about Edwin and Eiza Salmon
Although the Rate Books continued to treat these buildings as two distinct properties when the estate of Thomas and Elizabeth Eddington was put up for sale in 1908 it was described as ‘a substantially built dwelling house’ with a large garden and outbuildings. It was said to have a frontage of 55 feet with one main entrance and two side entrances from the street. The dwelling house contained 6 bedrooms and two attics, two front sitting rooms with office kitchen etc. The outbuildings which had been used by Elizabeth Eddington and E J Salmon comprised of large brick built store rooms, workshops with offices and store rooms over, sheds and workshops with entrance from Castle Street.
Robert Mills and his family
The Mills moved into the property about August 1916 as tenants. The 1921 Census shows that the smaller part of the property (only two rooms) was occupied by Reginald Williams aged 21 a cycle mechanic for John H Bond. He was born in Thornbury as was his wife Lily aged ’16 years 11 1/2 months.’ Lily Bennett and Reginald Williams were married in the last quarter of 1920 in Thornbury. We believe that by 1939 they had moved to the Cirencester area.
The Rate Books indicate that Robert bought the whole property by 1926. The Mills family continued to live there until 1984. Click here to read about the Mills Family
Robert Mills’s grandson has confirmed that the property was at one time five separate cottages and says there was a baker’s shop there as well. Apparently there was also a partitioned outhouse that had a stall for a horse. For many years the back of the house was used as a yard for the painting and decorating company owned by the Mills family which traded as Mills and Philips for much of its time (certainly from 1923 to 1973). The tall building at the back of the houses was said to be where the Mills family printed their own wallpaper designs.
At about this time the archway into the rear of the property was secured by double wooden doors as is shown in this photograph
28 & 28A Castle Street in 1984
A local history enthusiast, Mrs Riddiford, has said that she can recall a time when the entry on the south side of the building (shown above with double white doors) went into a small courtyard which had four buildings in it. Mrs Riddiford said that Eddington the printer used one building, two others were residential and one was a store which once had hooks in the ceiling. We have one photograph below which illustrates the buildings Mrs Riddiford can remember seeing. Click on the photograph for a larger image. If anyone is interested in seeing further images of the rear of this property they can contact us.
Rear view 1980s
The catalogue for the auction of the house in June 1984 describes a property with four rooms with rear lobby and hall on the ground floor, five bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor with a concealed staircase to a second floor and two more bedrooms plus an integral garage and a two storey workshop. The total building is so large that the Local Planning Authority indicated that they would welcome the property being converted into two or three town-houses and they suggested that the buildings at the rear could be demolished. We find that interesting as the house was also said to be in a Conservation Area.
Sally and Richard Embleton
The Embletons who bought the house in 1984 say that when they first had the property, the buildings at the rear were still standing. The walls of the building on the left at the rear were made partly of doors which were simply rendered over. The yard had a cistern which is quite a common arrangement in Thornbury. Click here to read more about Thornbury’s cisterns
Sally and Richard Embleton made considerable structural changes. They divided the house into two and the smaller house, number 28, was occupied by Mrs Cockram, Mrs Embleton’s mother. The Embletons lived in the larger property and it was called 28A. The Embletons themselves built a “decorative well” for watering the garden. The house is built on Thornbury rock and has no cellar.
They moved to France in 2003 where they have a gite in Bley in Cordes Sur Ciel.
In 2003 Neil and Sarah Curtis bought 28 Castle Street and Alan and Anthea Waites bought 28A Castle Street