The Previous Custodians
Its taken us some time to compile this and we could not have done this without Paula. An instagram follower asked if she could help out and she was invaluable in the search for all the information.
Its so interesting looking back at Census data as it can really paint a picture of the setup of the house over the years, the workers and the main residents.
Even though data protection doesn't apply after a certain period of time, we will be respectful in not mentioning any full names in the following information.
As the addresses for the town that My Tiny Estate is located have changed frequently over the past 200 years there may be discrepancies in our findings but from what we worked out, these are the past residents of My Tiny Estate.
The owner of My Tiny Estate prior to us had owned the building and land it sits on since 1485 when Henry Vll gifted it to them. Over the years his decedents and family of descendants occupied this house. At some point, just as a holiday home but on other occasions as their permanent dwelling.
We have tried to put a ground floor plan together on how we imagined the spaces would have been laid out based on the age of the materials on site and the amount of staff they had. We always wondered why the attic was only accessible via the servants stairs and we now believe it was because the children lived up there with the Nannys and Governess. We found evidence of separate call bells up to the top floor to allow the nannys to bring the children down when called.
So lets start from as early as we have found to date…
1859
A news article from 1859 suggested that the estate was used as a school, however we cannot find any other evidence to suggest this.
We believe at this time the two cottages were interconnected providing a large servants hall/corridor with multiple rooms off the space.
1861
This was the home to the Vicar of the town. As the vicarage was next door, we thought there may be some confusion in this, but we believe he relocated to this house upon his retirement with his Daughter and residing at the time, his nephew. Its also possible My Tiny Estate was in fact merged with the Vicarage next door at this time as there is evidence of blocked in doorways in the garden walls separating the two buildings.
Within the household were a number of staff:
Butler
Footman
Valet - Who we believe was for his Nephew who was visiting at the time
Housemaid
Kitchen Maid
Housekeeper
Governess
Ladies Maid
Page
Groom.
Assume a there was a cook whom wasn’t there at the time of recording,.
The hierarchy of Staff in an English Household
The rare Gold Medal Eagle range, the best money could buy back in the day was install around 1861 and is still located within the servants cottage
1871
One of the daughters of the Lord that owned the estate resided here with her husband and 6 children. Her husband was a Reverend. They were not alone and had a number of staff:
Example of a larger staff household… unfortunately we have no photos of the previous occupants
Ladys Maid
Cook
Scullery Maid
Head Nurse (Nanny)
Under Nurse (Nanny)
1881
By the time 1881 came around the previous tenants had moved into the vicarage next door as the husband was retitled as the Vicar of the town. This is when another daughter of the Lord moved into My Tiny Estate with her husband and one child. Their in-house staff included:
Cook
House Maid
Gardener/Groom
1891
The house changed hands quite frequently, whilst the ownership remained the same. At this point a new family had moved in that we believe had no connection to the owners themselves, believed to be renting or whatever the agreement was back then. The couple moved in with their six children and a few staff:
Cook
Housemaid
Coachman & General Servant
This wall with the panelling was constructed around this time and separated the Caretakers Cottage from the Servants Cottage Cerca 1891
By the time the end of the late 19th century the servant accommodation was at its height with even the scullery stretching into the main part of the house. There were very little spaces for the actual residents and more designated for the staff
1901
By the time 1901 came around we believe a Surgeon moved in with his wife and three children. A friend of the children was visiting at the time and was recorded in the census. The staff they had at the time were:
Governess (Teacher for Children)
Cook
Housemaid
1911
In 1911 the family of the owners return again, with solely the husband and the child as the wife had already passed away. The child wasn’t living in the house at the time of the census which leads us to believe the husband was only at MyTinyEstate on business or at least away from his main residence. It was a busy household at this time:
Cook
Housemaid
Kitchen Maid
2 x Gardener/Caretaker
Footman.
In fact by this time the Caretaker Cottage was classed as a separate entity once again and has its own census records. In fact the family that lived there (Couple and two children) were servants for the main house. This is why we titled the Caretakers Cottage as we did.
to be continued…
We believe by 1921, it was the end of the in-house servants and the property was short term rented as separate cottages before being subdivided in 1961 to serve as a public library. The remaining spaces unused by the library were either untouched or frequented rarely by the owners of the estate when they visited the area. The local council maintained the buildings between 1961 and 2004, following this it was left empty after the failure of the heating system and no way of renting the spaces out without carrying out extensive work.
When we purchased the house in 2019 the gardens had become significantly overgrown and nature without maintenance, had taken over again. Within 15 years it had filled the courtyards up to the first floor window and without the maintenance of the gutters caused significant water to seep into the building causing wet and dry rot and significant amounts of irrepairable damage to the interiors. It still didnt seem to scare us off though!
I suppose to know the rest we will have to wait for the release of the next census records. The records pre-war (1939) titled four men of different origin living in the different houses of which we cant work out how the buildings we laid out or if this is even correct.
Its so interesting to work out who lived here as it has helped us work out the layouts of the buildings over the years. Whilst we don’t believe it was extended much during this period, the internal layout changed quite a lot.
This is the ground floor layout of the main part of the estate in the late 20th Century, when the ground floor spaces were converted into the public library whilst all the upper floor remained the same. Albeit with the introduction of a kitchen and lounge on the upper floor.