History of Charlotte Cottage – previously the Wesleyan Chapel

Charlotte Cottage, at 5 Well Lane, has had many names including Chapel Cottage and, for about 90 years, was the Wesleyan Chapel. However, the land has had a complex chain of ownership over time as 2 extant archive documents from the 1850s show.

Eric Fleming drawing showing left from bottom: Alms house, village barn, Wesleyan Chapel

An Indentures dated 5^th June 1855 seems to be a deed of conveyance relating to several cottages on the plot being leased and released between Mr William Harrison (the blacksmith) and Mr Thomas Smith, although the text is both complex and hard to decipher, making the precise nature of the transaction hard to establish.

Note: A ‘lease and release’ was a now outdated way of simplifying transfer of property. The seller ‘leased’ to the buyer for a short period, usually a year, for a small amount and at the end of that time ‘released’ ownership to them for the payment of whatever the agreed sale price was. Popular from the 16th century through to the mid 1800s, the lease and release was a clever workaround for English property laws. Under the Statute of Uses, it allowed individuals to legally sell property without having to publicly enrol the deed.

The document is signed and sealed by both of the above as well as Thomas Harrison and refers to a payment of £160. It seems that the Harrisons are being paid by Thomas Smith for the property. The transaction is witnessed by a Daventry solicitor.

An additional part of the document details what looks like transactions relating to the site:

29 May 1822: Message between William Roberts of Welton (baker) and George Bird & Samuel Underwood
20^th January 1825: George Bird and Samuel Underwood, William Roberts now of Kilsby, John Plomer Clarke of Welton (Welton Place) and Edmund Singer Burton of Daventry (who we know lived in Churchill House / Welton Manor)

Being at the top of the hill, close to the church and close to field and orchards with cottages suitable for tenements for farm workers, this probably would have been a sought-after area to hold.

Owners and Tenants

What is interesting about this document that gives us a clear indication of the people who owned land or occupied cottages as tenants at this point in time.

This plan shows that in 1855:

House A: grey block on corner of Street and The Lane, now The Old Post Office, was tenanted by George Cooper

Site B: grey block below Orchard Close now the chapel, was previously tenanted by Thomas Chamberlaine

There is a clear gap leading up to the chapel now set back where cottages previously may have stood, with the yard and outbuildings leading to the chapel set back from Well Lane.

Five cottages (dark red strip) remain backed by gardens, which were tenanted as follows:

William Dunkley
W. Crisp
S. Haynes
J. Blundell
Thomas Line

Surrounding landowners included Richard Trevor Clarke, Thomas Lomas, John Farr and Thomas Pearey. At present these remain names in our history of the village, but overtime closer analysis of parish and census records may give us more information.

Establishing as a chapel

The second document is the original vellum Indenture for the transaction relating to the Wesleyan Chapel. In April 1859 Elizabeth Reeve, the widow of Braunston farmer William Reeve, paid £1 14s 6d for the conveyance to be registered at the High Court of Chancery to establish a Wesleyan Chapel.

They were also supported in this, according to a transcript of the Indenture, by farmers, Henry and William Bowers of Braunston. The chapel building was of red brick and built to accommodate 100 worshippers. It was set back from Well Lane and fronted by fine iron railings. You can just see the railings mid-way up on the left, with the eaves of the chapel behind them on the image below

However, the conveyance also tells us that:

The agreement required the support of the Poor Law Board.

Elizabeth Reeve had already “pulled down” two cottages on the site and used the plot and gardens, and “hath erected a building now used as a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel.”

The names listed were in the process of buying this “chapel or place of religious worship with such appurtenances as may be thought convenient for the use of people called Methodists…”

The plot of land allocated was 45ft 11in long and 27ft wide, bounded on the north by “the public street of Welton”, on the west by other property of Elizabeth Reeve, on the east by a “messuage or tenement” belonging to Thomas Smith, and on the south by property… at this point the document is blank, although it states that this was the area of the two cottages previously tenanted by Williams Russell and Earl as referenced below.

The Conveyance of the Welton Wesleyan Chapel to the Trustees was enrolled in the High Court of Chancery on June 28^th 1859.

Note:

Wesleyan Methodism continued to grow in the mid 19th century and was very popular during the 1880s when many villages saw the development of chapels within their communities, including Long Buckby and Kilsby.

The Daventry Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was built in 1824. By 1941 it had been enlarged to accommodate a school hall and three other rooms.

Wesleyan chapels in the area saw diminishing numbers as the 19th century progressed into the 20th century. It is thought that the Daventry chapel closed when a new chapel was opened in Lodge Road / Eastern Way.

The building later became a cinema and is now the Chasers Bar near the Tesco store, though at the time of writing it is designated to become a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.

The Welton Wesleyan Chapel of 1859, the conveyance shows us, was purchased by and thereafter supported through several local figures including Joseph Emery the elder (farmer from Middlemore), Thomas Smith(shoemaker in Welton) and Clement Clarke (tailor and draper of Daventry) who were all trustees of the chapel.

Other contributors included: Joseph Sheasby (shoe maker) of Daventry, John Upton (baker of Daventry), John Wright (baker from Newnham), Jabez Willoughby (farmer of Preston Capes), Philip Owens Hillman (draper of Daventry), Martin Smith (coal dealer of Welton) and James Watson (farmer of Priors Marston) as well as Lorenzo Smith (tailor of Priors Marsden).

The indenture also references a Bernard Samuel Smith at the top; possibly he was theholder of the land at 5 Well Lane, however this is not clear.

The memorandum to confirm the Trustees (who had been confirmed by April 1859) was signed on 18^th June 1859 at a meeting with all Trustees which was held in the chapel, so we know the building had been completed by this date.

We do not yet have a full list of preachers nor photographs of the chapel, however we do know the Revd. James Thomas Jeffery of Daventry, Wesleyan Minister, was the Superintendent Preacher of the Circuit, and was present at the 1859 meeting. He is listed in the Indenture. The Wesleyan Chapel Trustees meeting book of 1895 cites a Rev James Thomas East as Superintendent Minister.

Two cottages on the site which belonged to the parish, which had been tenanted by William Russell and William Earl had been demolished to accommodate the chapel building which was set back from the road behind iron railings, however two semi-derelict alms houses remained at the front of the building, possibly until 1940s.

From the 1921 census we know that these alms houses were occupied:

Mary Robbins – 82 – widow – address recorded as “alms-house, Welton”
Sarah Houghton – 54 – single – “not occupied for a living” – at “alms-house, Welton”.

The alms-houses were next door to Rose Tree Cottage, which had an oven to which residents in those times sometimes took their food to be cooked.

Conversion to a dwelling

Over time and as attendance figures diminished and newer, larger chapels were established elsewhere in Daventry, it was decided that the Wesleyan circuit no longer required the chapel on Well Lane for Methodist trust purposes (see opposite).

In November 1949 the Wesleyan Conference in Liverpool agreed to the sale of the Welton Plot of 138 sq yards and building.

In 1952 Daventry Rural Council granted permission to Mrs F M E Wilson of 5 Ashby Road to convert the chapel building to a dwelling (see below). £60 was payable to secure permission for this conversion.

Chapel Cottage was developed from the existing chapel structure; however, this building has been much modified over time. The original chapel windows remained for some time and were the best indicator of its previous use as a chapel, although these are no longer evident.

The chapel after conversion back to a house

The cottage has been extended and where the dining room currently stands there was once an old lean-to structure, which was part of the original chapel.

The cottage for sale in 1961

It was still known as Chapel Cottage in the 1980s – we have evidence of Mr Wulfric George and Mrs Rosemary Beatrice Lloyd living there for a number of years.

The current owners purchased the property from the Lloyds, and it may be at this point that the name changed.