Hawkins, Stidcot Lane

Buildings

People in medieval times had a keen eye for the best building sites. A cottage was built on the highest point of the lane between Tytherington and Stidcote, for dryness, yet exactly where a line of ponds served with water emerging from the base of the limestone crossed the lane. Its foundations were dry, its well always full. William Shield, senior and junior, lived here through the second half of the 17th century.

On their death, the cottage and land, some six acres, was bought by William Pullen at Mill Farm, who used the fields but allowed the dwelling to become 'void and uninhabited' for some years, until Ann Briard acquired the little farm in 1720. She was a Moxham, born in Tytherington, widowed and living in London. It was understandable that she should want to return to her village. Down came the derelict cottage, up went a respectable small house in which she lived until her death; in her will of 1753, she left the house and land to her nephew, John Hawkins. That the house has been called Hawkins's to this day indicates that he lived here on his retirement from London, where, as his elaborate chest tomb in the churchyard here recounts, he was 'of the City of London Wine Cooper late of this Parish Gent who departed this life the .... Day .. 1779 Aged 84 Years'. His tomb is listed by English Heritage. In 1770, his only child, Elizabeth, married James Pullen of Newhouse Farm, her marriage settlement including Hawkins's where they lived for a while. James and Elizabeth had eight children and in their wills left an eighth share of Hawkins's to each. The seventh child, Sarah, had married Nathaniel Tyler and between them they acquired the other seven shares. Sarah was widowed in 1825 but continued to farm West End Farm up to her death age 81 in 1868, meanwhile letting Hawkins's to various tenants, as did her son the entrepreneur John Hawkins Tyler. The last of these tenants was Jonathan Davis, grandfather of Emily (`Emmie') Davis who still lives in the village.
The death of Tyler brought a change. Thomas Daniels took on the tenancy of both house and land, farming it for some forty years until just before the First World War. He was the third Thomas in succession; his grandfather and father had been shoemakers, their wives running the grocer's shop in the house that stood through the 19th century across the road from the church. His cousin William farmed Yew Tree Farm, and he himself had married a Clements. Truly a Tytherington man. At the age of 68 he handed the farm over to his son Hector, married to Annie Bennett of Oldbury-on-Severn. The War came and towards the end of it Hector received his calling-up papers and abandoned the farm.
Meanwhile, in 1904 J H Tyler's heirs had sold Hawkins's to Squire Hardwicke but in some financial straits of his own after the War he in turn sold it for £720 to William Pullen Cornock whose daughter 'Dolly' married Harry Blanch in 1921 and moved in to the farm. Harry died in 1961, Dolly in 1962; the surviving Trustee of W P Cornock's will retained the land but sold the house (for £2250) which changed hands in quick succession from J L Judd to E K Judd (for £3000), to W C E Miles (for £3750) who extended it, and in 1965 to A B Baddeley (for £7550) who extended it further and occupied it until early 1991. During those 25-odd years the garden was greatly extended and developed to its present state.

                       Mr Hall, of Hall & Co., tinplate manufacturers, Bristol, married Fanny, sister of
Thomas Daniels of Hawkins's. Here she is, visiting her brother, about 1905, with
Mr Hall driving. (Verbal, Mrs Dorothy Daniels, 1979.)
The car is an Armstrong-Whitworth (1904-7), 4-cylinder, 4-speed gearbox,
with shaft drive.

Click on the thumbnail photos to enlarge them.