New Park
We are grateful to Meg Wise of Thornbury and District Museum and local historian and archaeologist Dave Rowley for their detailed research and their help. Contact us if you want to know more about the New Park.
Their research has ascertained that the creation of a ‘New Parke’ in Thornbury, together with the construction of a Castle, in the early 16th century was part of an ambitious scheme by Edward Stafford, the 3rd Duke of Buckingham, perhaps to promote himself as a possible successor to Henry VIII, should the King die without a male heir. The Duke already had two other deer parks nearby at Marlwood and Eastwood, which were created in the 13th century, but he obviously wanted a park within which his castle could proudly stand. In 1521 the Duke, being found guilty of treason, was executed at the Tower of London. The whole Thornbury estate, including New Park, then became the property of the Crown.
In 1554 Queen Mary I granted the estate back jointly to Henry Lord Stafford and his wife Ursula (nee Pole). However they no longer had the resources to maintain the estate and castle.
Much of the Castle was unused and slowly fell into ruin, but the land of the ‘New Park’ estate was leased to a series of tenants who farmed there until it was bought by Sir John Dent in 1629. After his death, it was eventually sold to Richard Newman in 1679 and descended through various members of the Newman family.
In 1775 in the absence of any direct heirs of the Newman family, ownership of the estate devolved onto the heirs of Anne Toll, the sister of Sir Richard Newman (1675 to 1721). Anne Newman had married Ashburnham Toll of Westminster about 1695/96.
Thornbury Park
Richard Newman Newman (1752 -1829) was baptised Richard Newman Toll.
Richard Newman Toll was a doctor. He had been born in Northampton on the 8th November 1752, the third son of Asburnham Toll of Preston Deanery by the former Miss Geary, the daughter of Lieut. Col. Geary of the 10th Dragoons. Richard began his medical training in Northampton to Dr Ker a Surgeon to the Horse Guards Blue. After this he trained at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, then becoming assistant to Mr Bromfield, the Queen’s Surgeon, for one year.
A document bearing the seal of King George III dated 27th November 1775 explains the next step in his career and reads as follows:-
“George the Third by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith – To our Trusty and Wellbeloved Richard Newman Toll, Surgeon Greetings. We do by these presents constitute and Appoint you to be Surgeon to our Fourth Regiment of Dragoons commanded by our Trusty and Wellbeloved Benjamin Carpenter Esq, Lieutenant General of Our Forces.
You are therefore carefully and diligently to discharge the duty of Surgeon by doing and performing all and all manner of things thereunto belonging. And you are to observe and follow such Orders and Directions from time to time as you shall receive from your Colonel or any other your superior Officer according to the Rules and Discipline of War.
Given at Our Court at St James the 22nd day of November.”
The Biographical Index for 1829 available online has an obituary for Richard Newman Newman and tells us that; ‘On the 16th of June, 1777 , Mr. Toll was married at Hamilton, Lanarkshire, to Miss Purdie, eldest daughter of Mr. Purdie, of that place. In October, 1778 , the University of St. Andrew’s conferred upon him the degree of M. D.; and in 1790, finding his family increasing, he determined on retiring from the 4th, then at Worcester, in which city he at one time intended to settle. Dr. Toll subsequently settled at Hamilton, where he practiced as a Physician for some years with credit to himself, and was much respected. ‘
Richard’s brother Ashburnham Phillip Toll had earlier changed his name to Ahburnham Philip Newman in accordance with the will of his great aunt, Frances, daughter of Sir Richard Newman, Bart. and sister and heiress of Sir Samwell Newman, Bart. of Fivehead Magdalen, Dorset. When his brother died without issue, Richard Newman Toll became the heir and followed suit by legally acquiring the name of Richard Newman Newman. At the end of the year 1805, Dr. Newman retired from practice, and moved to the Bristol area living quite retired till his death.
The memorial inside St Mary’s church in Thornbury confirms that the then owner of New Park, Richard Newman Newman, died in 1829. We understand that he died in Bristol but his remains were deposited in the family vault in the church in Thornbury. His two sons, four of his sons in law and one grandson attended the funeral and Richard’s tenants met the funeral cortege at Alveston and processed with it to the church.
Henry Wenman Newman (1788-1865). Henry inherited the property in 1829 on the death of his father. At that time the park consisted of a total just over 445 acres of land. Henry occupied about 100 acres himself. The rest of the property was let to tenants. Henry enclosed small sections of three fields within the park (Dry Leaze; Harding Parke and Rushey Popley), and during the period 1832-6 he built a mansion called ‘Thornbury Park’. Its style is said to be a “square two-storey neoclassical villa with an Ionic portico and a large service wing. We have a photograph above of a print which shows the property about the time Henry Wenman Newman owned it.
Henry was born on 1st June 1788. According to the Family Search website he was baptised on 6th June 1788 at All Saints Church in Worcester as Henry Wenman Toll.
In 1820 Richard Newman’s son Henry Wenman Newman had been appointed to the rank of captain in the Corps of Royal North Gloucester Militia by Henry, Duke of Beaufort. We know that Henry served for 47 years in the militia because he was presented with a clock commemorating this service in June 1860. At that time he was Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal South Gloucestershire Light Infantry Militia.
Henry had some importance and influence in the administration of Bristol and Gloucestershire. The Duke of Beaufort appointed Henry to the post of Deputy Lieutenant of the City and County of Gloucestershire in 1822. Henry served as a councillor in Bristol from 1827 to 1835, and as sheriff in 1827/1828. His residence at this time was at Richmond Terrace, Clifton, and his occupation was described as a ‘merchant’. Henry’s name appears as a Justice of the Peace in the Gloucestershire Archives from at least 1829.
Poaching at New Park was a problem. Meg Wise of Thornbury and District Museum and Dave Rowley a local historian have given us one example of this;
‘At about 3 o’clock in the morning of Friday 16th December 1831 one of Wenman’s keepers was killed by poachers. The man who was killed, the leader of four keepers, was George Webb, a forty-two year old man with a wife and seven children. The assailants left an important clue to their presence; the stock of a gun, broken in the violence of their attack on Webb. Later the same day, statements were sworn by the other keepers and an enquiry to establish the ownership of the stock of the gun was started in the town. By the end of the day, several men were charged upon the oath of Henry Newman of the killing of George Webb.
William Clutterbuck made a full confession “George Webb went down. I heard the blows: there was Thomas Jenkins and Alfred and Joseph Pearce and Joseph Thomas, they leathered him and came off; then we went on as far as the gate and then we met Jones; he came up and cocked the gun and said he would blow our brains out, and then Alfred Jenkins went into him and both went down; they struck him once or twice; I walked on and they all came after me; Jones fired and I think he struck Joseph Thomas, but I have not seen him since: Thomas Jenkins and Alfred had guns, and no one else.” Of the poachers involved in the case, two died of fever in Gloucester Gaol before they could be tried, one turned King’s Evidence and was eventually released, and one escaped capture altogether. The youngest, Joseph Thomas, was convicted of manslaughter and transported to Australia for life.’
On 27th December 1831, Henry Wenman Newman attended a meeting with forty other local proprietors to further the enclosure of common lands in the Parish of Thornbury in their mutual interest. The lands in question mainly bordered the roads surrounding the town of Thornbury, though more substantial areas of Oldbury and Milbury Heath were included. Newman was elected to the committee representing the group of land owners which on each week until the terms of the clauses of the intended Enclosure Bill were decided. The Bill passed into law in June of the following year and the final enclosure was to be executed in 1836.
In 1835 Henry was appointed High Sheriff of Gloucestershire.
His residence at this new house didn’t last long, for at the age of 58 he married Frances Margaret Goodenough on 5th December 1846. She was aged about 33 (born in 1813) and was the daughter of Rev John Joseph Goodenough DD, Rector of Broughton Poggs in Oxfordshire and sometime headmaster of Bristol Grammar School, by his first marriage. Rev Goodenough’s second marriage in 1818 had been to Henry Wenman Newman’s sister, Isabella Newman. Rather confusingly Frances’ marriage made her stepmother her sister in law. Her father was both Henry’s brother in law and father in law.
We have been unable to find any entry in the 1841 Census for Henry or for Thornbury Park.
In 1847 and 1848 the Electoral Registers show that Henry’s address was in Richmond Terrace, Bristol but his ownership of Thornbury Park entitled him to vote in the Thornbury elections.
Shortly afterwards he moved to Stroud although he retained Thornbury Park. At around the same time it appears that he sold most of the “New Parke” estate land back to the Howard family who were now restoring Thornbury Castle to become a family home.
The 1850 Electoral Register shows that Henry Wenman Newman’s address was in Stroud but that he retained his right to vote in Thornbury because he owned Thornbury Park. The 1851 Census shows that Henry lived with his wife Frances and sons Henry and George at New House in Thrupp in the Stroud area.
He died at Hillside Cheltenham on 24th July 1865. He was buried in Thornbury on 28th July 1865. The Electoral Roll of 1865 shows that although it was not his home, Henry continued to own Thornbury Park until his death,
After Henry’s death, probate, rather unusually, was granted to a creditor, Charles Anstey of Kington. The National Records Office at Kew shows a record of a case in the Chancery Court of Charles Anstey against Frances Margaret Newman widow and Henry Ashburnham Toll Newman and George William Newman all infants. The case was reported briefly in the London Standard of December 8th 1865.
In the 1871 Census his widow Frances and her son George, who was an undergraduate at Oxford, lived in Cheltenham.
We understand that Henry’s family continued to own The Parks until 1904. His widow Frances Margaret Newman died at Cheltenham on 22nd January 1904, aged 90. On 28th January she was buried in the grave of her husband in the churchyard at St Mary’s church in Thornbuy. Probate of her estate which amounted to £4,381 was granted to Thomas David Taylor, Miss Georgina Caroline Taylor and a solicitor, Lionel Ley.
Of Their Children
Henry Ashburnham Toll Newman was born September 27th 1847. He married Margaret Greene McGilvray the daughter of the Reverend Walter McGilvray, Doctor of Divinity, of Aberdeen in 1883. They had two children Ashburnham Walter Goodenough Newman (1884-1888) and Margaret Elizabeth. The 1911 Census rather unusually shows the Head of the household as Margaret Newman. Margaret aged 54 was employed as a lace mender and cleaner. Henry Ashburnham aged 60 was a retired army officer. Their daughter Margaret Elizabeth aged 22 was an assistant librarian. Henry died in Eastbourne in 1920.
George William Newman was born on 23rd April 1950 in the Stroud area. presumably at New House. In the 1861 Census he was a pupil in a boarding school in Cheltenham. After graduating from Oxford he became a clergyman. In 1891 the census shows that he was a curate at Applethwaite in Cumberland. On his death in 1924 he died at Hazelgrove Cemetery Road in Cheltenham.
Later History of The Park
From about 1848 to 1904 Thornbury Park was owned by the Newman family but rented to various tenants. Click here to read about John Davies and the Churchill sisters who were tenants of this property during that time
The next occupants were Robert and Henrietta Rodney who initially leased the property but bought it in 1904. Click here to read about Hon. Robert Rodney and his wife Henrietta
The Bennett family also initially leased the property but bought it in 1914 and they continued to live there until the death of Richard Bennett in 1951 after which the estate was sold to the Camphill Community. Click here to read about Richard Alexander Bennett and his wife Albinia and the Camphill Community.