History of the Old House 

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The Old House, located halfway up Churchill Road on the corner of Kiln Lane, has a long and interesting history and as such has always been of interest to Welton residents. So much so that, in 1986, the then Welton History Group set about studying the structure and history of the building. 

For centuries it served as a communal oven, a vital facility in a time when most homes lacked the means to bake their own bread. We can imagine it was a real hub where women would have brought their dough and socialised with the others baking there. 

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Origins and early structure

We know the house is over 400 years old and the original History Group found it is evident that many features dated from the second half of the 17^th century. It is acknowledged that some 18^th century masons and carpenters could be quite conservative, so some features may have been executed in a manner suggesting they were older than they truly were.

It is also possible that at the heart of this building there remains a medieval core.  To further explore its origins, in 1986 the History Group sent a set of scale drawings of the property to the Historic Buildings Commission. To date, the current History Group does not know the outcome of this. 

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C 1600-1610 – Richard and Thomas Clarke

Four hundred years ago the property was called The Bakehouse. We know this from records held at the Northampton Records Office. In 1610. Richard Clarke, of The Bakehouse, died and left his house to his son Thomas Clarke, who was a shoemaker. 

We believe that the house at this time was one of a small number in the village that had a large oven, which was available for community use. A sketch we have seen suggests that a large oven, possibly partly external, was located on the far end of the property near where the current garage building sits. 

We have not yet been able to trace details about Thomas Clarke, however the records and later census registers show us that, in addition to the hugely wealthy Clarke family who had come originally from outside Welton and invested in huge areas of land, there was also a sizeable number of Welton born and bred Clarkes across many generations, many called William, Richard or Thomas.

In the 17^th century the house was what we would call today a freehold property – in other words owned by its holder. However, an annual rent was still payable to the Lord of the Manor, which was paid in kind until the 18^th century. In the case of The Old House, rent was paid in hens, and as the only ‘two hen’ house in the village, it is possible to trace the house through the Manorial Records. 

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1707 – 1717: Rev. Richard Nicholls: The vicar’s home

Above the door of the Old House is a tantalising date stone – with a clear 17, but not the following two numbers, and the letter N! The Manorial accounts show that the N on that date stone refers to Richard Nicholls, who was Vicar of Welton between 1707-1717. It appears that during that period Rev. Nicholls used the house as his vicarage, whilst his unfortunate curate was left to live in the by then largely ramshackle official vicarage, which was later demolished to make way for the enlarged park of Welton Place. It is believed that Rev. Nicholls upgraded the Old House, making it a house suitable for a ‘gentleman’ to live in, and recorded his initial and the date of his work above the door.  The mark that looks like a W but is made of two overlapping Vs is likely a mason’s mark.

When Rev. Nicholls died, the management of his estate was complicated. Although he died in 1717, his official final will was not fully proved and finalised by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury until December 18^th, 1723. The record of his will is currently held at the National Archives in Kew.  It records him as a ‘Clerk,’ however this denotes a ‘Clerk in Holy Orders’ meaning that Nicholls was an educated, university educated gentleman who had been ordained into the priesthood. 

When Rev. Nicholls died in 1717, the living (the parish income and church property) at St Martin’s fell into immediate temporary legal limbo. A Welton churchwarden, Thomas Duncomb was appointed as a “sequestrator” alongside the incoming vicar, Simon Adams. 

The reason why there was this delay was not uncommon. Had Nicholls been a poor priest or vicar, with only minor goods or wealth on his death, his estate would have been settled quickly by a local archdeaconry court. However, because his will had to be handled by the Supreme Prerogative Court of Canterbury, it tells us that at the time of his death Rev. Richard Nicholls possessed significant personal property, land leases or financial debts owed to him at over £5 over more than one diocese. 

The 6-year delay may also have been linked to The Dilapidations Act, whereby outgoing vicars or their estates were legally responsible for “dilapidations” (disrepair of the church buildings or the vicarage). Since Nicholls’ curate had been living in a “ramshackle vicarage” during his tenure in Welton, his estate likely faced extensive legal evaluations to determine how much money from his will had to be diverted to fix the properties before his family received their inheritance. 

It was only upon the legal finalisation of his administration that ownership and occupancy of this rectory property formally transferred to his successor, Simon Adams. 

Within the will he made provision for his wife, Susannah, his son, William and his daughter.

He wanted his estate used for the education and maintenance of his son and instructed that land he held in Duston should pass to his son, and that in turn his son should, from this, pay his daughter the sum of £400 – somewhere around £1 million in today’s terms. 

It is also evident in the will that Nicholls held lands in Oxfordshire. 

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1717 – 1731- Rev. Simon Adams

Simon Adams was brother to the Lord of the Manor and one of the Adams family who had lived in Welton and Daventry for several generations. It was the Adams family that built the original manor house on the site of what is now Welton Manor and in 1660 the family built the Manor House, now called Old Manor Court, at the bottom of Churchill Road.

Rev. Simon Adams came from a distinguished family and his descendants went on to be closely associated with Ansty Hall in Warwickshire. The tree in summary details:

Rev Simon Adams moved into The Old House on becoming Vicar of Welton. Born in 1693, he was the son of the Daventry doctor, also called Simon Adams, above. He was educated at Rugby School before going on to Lincoln College Oxford.

In 1717 or 18 he married Anne Clarke, the daughter of John Clarke Esq of Drayton Manor in Daventry and later of Welton Place. He died on 2^nd October 1731. His eldest son, Lt.-Col Clarke Adams served in the Northamptonshire Militia and married in 1744 Elizabeth Dobbins, who went on become the heiress to Rev William Taylor of Ansty Hall in Warwickshire. 

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1748 – 1846: The Gibbons era

By 1748, some years after the death of Simon Adams, the house had ceased to be the Vicarage of Welton, when it was bought by an up-and-coming farmer named Thomas Gibbons, one of the men who put his name to the petition against the enclosure of the open fields in 1754. The house remained in his family until 1846 when his two great-granddaughters put it up for sale, advertising it as:

By the early nineteenth century, populations were rising quickly and it was not unusual for larger homes to be subdivided into two or more smaller cottages rented by a number of tenants. The Bakehouse was not the only property divided in this way in Welton – see The Gables for example. Of course, later many divided properties were restored as single dwellings and in other cases pairs of smaller cottages were reconstructed to form larger cottages (e.g. Wisteria Cottage)

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1846: Acquisition by the Clarke family

In 1846 the house was bought by the Rev. J.A Clarke and remained in the Clarke family as a pair of rented cottages, until the turn of the 20^th century. It was in 1846 also that the Rev. Daniel Darnell became Vicar of Welton, living in The Stone House on the High Street which became the next Rectory of Welton, until his retirement in 1894, when a newer rectory was constructed by the Church on the current site of Harrington House, just next door to the Stone House. 

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20th century and modern life

Examination of census records does not help to track residents of The Old House from 1851 onwards as house names or detailed addresses are rarely used, however in the 1911 census we find:

This family reappears in the 1921 census where we find the following living on The Green at the top of Kiln Lane, which we believe does refer to The Old House:

Fascinatingly, we can trace the family back to the 1901 census, which records them as living in the ‘Lower Village’ as follows:

The family live just 2 doors away from another Smith family: this time Martin Smith aged 75, a farmer born in Welton, his wife, Elizabeth Smith aged 68, who was born in Bicester, Oxfordshire and their servant Amy Bester, aged 19, born in Welton.  

We can trace Martin back to the 1851 census when he is recorded as 25 years of age, working as a coal dealer and living with his widowed mother Temperance Smith who was listed as 55 years old and a schoolteacher and his wife, Mary Ann who is aged 30. Could the two families be related in some way? 

It is not yet clear whether this family did go on to occupy the Old House, however we do know that the current residents are part of one of the village’s longstanding families, remain active in the support of the village and are careful custodians of this incredible house.  

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During the 20^th century the house was restored to a single dwelling. The restoration has preserved many of its wonderful historic features such as the thick stone walls, timber framing, stone framed windows and the traces of earlier hearths and partitions.

The Old House is an important part of Welton’s architectural heritage and its long story, alongside those of its various occupants and owners, mirrors the evolution of the village itself. 

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