Documentary and Historical Evidence

by Ian Hanson

  1. Introduction
  2. Documentary and Historical Evidence
  3. Acknowledgements
  4. Bibliography

1. Introduction

1.1 Excavations at the Thorne Close Avenue Estate in Leytonstone in the London Borough of Waltham Forest in 1993 (figure 1.) revealed archaeological remains from the 10th to the 19th centuries. These reflect an agricultural landscape until the later 19th century when terrace housing was built.

1.2 The excavations revealed the brick foundation of an early 18th century building and the landscape immediately surrounding it, including an extensive cut for a cess-pit, containing comprehensive assemblages of glass and ceramics, and environmental information (from Jarrett 96).

1.3 Research into past boundaries, buildings, occupiers and owners of land in the area in which the excavation took place has been undertaken to document any background information which will help to provide evidence for changes in the social habits, fashions and status of those living in the post medieval period.

1.4 The documentary and historical records studied to compliment the archaeological evidence included early cartographic documents from the 18th and 19th centuries, parish tithe maps and documents, census records, Ordnance Survey reference books, parish histories and periodicals.

2. Documentary and Historical Edvidence

2.1 The earliest evidence from documentary and cartographic sources for the presence of the building excavated and it's associated land plot comes from the 1721 survey of Ruchholts Manor (Kennedy, 1894, p18), which shows the site as part of a field at the corner of the south side of the East end of Hollewell Lane (see Fig 2.) The 1728 survey of the same manor (Cushee, 1728), shows the same field, with two houses in the east, fronting Leytonstone High Road, and a larger building within the area of the excavation. Rocque map of 1745. Two small buildings with cultivated gardens in adjacent plots can clearly be seen (figure 3.).

2.2 The Chapman and Andre map of 1777 again shows two buildings with gardens but the detail is indistinct (figure 3.). The accuracy of these 18th century maps is not exact, but it is clear that a small cottage with garden is situated on the site.

2.3 The Wanstead Parish tithe map 1841( figure 4.) shows the two cottages in more detail. The land plot boundaries are not shown as the site falls outside the parish boundary (in Leyton) and the buildings are only planned in outline only. This does however show that the most easterly building is of a larger size ( approx. twice the area) than the adjacent cottage excavated in 1993.

2.4 The Leyton Parish tithe map 1843 (figure 5.) shows the excavated building in fine detail. It is divided into two cottages with a very small garden (plot 316). The adjacent plot is now empty. Presumably the most easterly building shown in the Wanstead tithe map has been demolished, the plot listed only as a garden (plot 313).

2.5 The list of the Leyton Parish tithe map names the owner of the plots containing the buildings as a William Wellesley. The excavated cottages were occupied by a "Patrick Muldoon and others".

2.6 The Leyton Parish census shows that Patrick Muldoon, his wife Catherine and later three daughters occupied one of the cottages from at least 1821 (when he and his wife are listed as being aged between 30-40). The building was demolished in 1845, "pulled down and the site thrown into the road." Muldoon only started paying rates in or a little before 1839. Presumably before this he had not been wealthy enough to pay rates. Muldoon and his wife are listed as agricultural labourers by profession. He died in 1847. Catherine Muldoon was listed as an inmate of the Union Workhouse in the 1861 census.

2.7 No indication of the identity of the occupiers of the other cottage within the same building has been traced. No records of the occupiers of the building or the building in the adjacent plot could be traced before 1821.

2.8 The Ordnance Survey map of 1860 (figure 6.) shows the plot that contained the buildings shown in figures 4 and 5 standing empty.

2.9 The road on which the cottages were situated was from at least 1821 called 'Irish Lane', having changed from Blind Lane due to the large number of Irish immigrants who lived there, including Muldoon and his family. Nearly everyone who occupied a cottage in Irish Lane in the 1821-41 census' was Irish. The cottages on Irish Lane seem to have been low status, low rent dwellings for farm labourers between 1821-1845. Whether the eighteenth century buildings demolished in the 1840-50's were of a higher status before 1821 is not known.

2.10 The size of the garden plot of the excavated building certainly seems greatly reduced from the maps of 1745 and 1747 (figures 2. and 3.) to the 1843 tithe map and list which states the plot (plot 316) size as only "3 perch". This may reflect a reduction in status of those occupying the property during the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries.

2.11 The land lost from the garden is by 1843, according to the Leyton Parish tithe map and list (figure 5.) within a plot listed as "arable" (plot 321), occupied by the Nurserymen William and Edward Perkins.

3. Acknowledgements

Newham Museum Service wishes to thank Josephine Parker and Brian Mardell of Vestry House Museum, and the staff of the Local History Centre, Ilford Central Library for their time and help.

4. Bibliography

Chapman, J. and Lympne, A.P. 1777 Survey of the County of Essex, Harry Margary,and Castle, Kent and Phillimore & Co. Ltd., Chichester

Kennedy, J. 1894. A History of the Parish of Leyton, Leyton.

Doyley, W. 1824. Parish Map of Leyton, Held at the Local History Centre,Central Library Ilford

Essex County Record Office 1838. List for Leyton Parish tithe map, copy held at Vestry House Museum.

Essex County Record Office 1843. Leyton Parish tithe map, copy held at Vestry House Museum.

Essex County Record Office 1841. Wanstead Parish tithe map, copy held at Ilford Central Library.

Essex County Record Office 1843. List for the Wanstead Parish tithe map, copy held at Ilford Central Library.

Hall Crouch, C Vol. XXVII. Spencer Turner and his nursery: another forgotten gardener botanist, in Essex Naturalist, p.45-48.

Harvey, J. 1974. Early Nurserymen, Phillimore and Co., London, p.81,87.

Jarrett, C 1996. A Proposal for the publication of excavations at Thorne Close Avenue Estate Leytonstone, unpublished document, Newham Museum Service.

Kennedy, Rev. J. 1894. History of Leyton, Essex Vol. V and VI, held at Vestry House Museum.

Ordnance Survey. 1870, Book of reference to the plan of the Parish of Leyton, held at Vestry House Museum.

Ordnance Survey. 1860, OS map, held at Vestry House Museum.

Rocque, J. 1745. Map of London, Kent and Phillimore & Co. Ltd., Chichester

Vestry House Museum. Index of Leyton People.