THE WHITE HOUSE, CHAPEL STREET AND ITS HISTORY
White House has an intriguing and often puzzling history. However, we can say with fair certainty that it was built in 1635 by Simon Bowring. According to Hutchins Dorset ‘Here was also the chapel of St. Catherine, to which belonged the tithes of Down Farm. Simon Bowring possessed it in 1650’. He obviously was gentry of considerable status. The site of the chapel most probably was at St. Catherine’s Cross on the road to Shipton Gorge - see the OS map of 1903.
The tithe survey of 1839 shows that White House was part and parcel of a large farm of over 235 acres called Sumner’s Farm, and the house appears to have been part of it from the late 17th century. It was not, however, the farmhouse. This was situated over the road on tithe survey area no.75. Today, the Women’s Institute Hall is on the approximate spot. White House, although part of the farm estate, was given out as a residence for gentry or, alternatively, was the house for the holder of the estate who rented out the farmhouse over the road and its lands to farmers.
On the tithe schedule, James Brown is named as both the owner and the occupier of Sumner’s Farm and White House. However, this is deceptive because the ultimate owners were most probably the Pitt-Rivers family and Brown was holding the farm from them on long lease. The tithe survey often describes long lessees of properties as ‘owners’. (An 1884 Pitt-Rivers map and the 1910 Inland Revenue survey confirm Pitt-Rivers family as owning White House. It is possible but not probable that White House was privately owned in its early history and was only bought by the lords of Burton Bradstock in the 19th century).
In 1635 when your house was built by Simon Bowring, John Freke was lord of the manor of Burton Bradstock. That Simon built the house and fixed his initials on the south west gable would suggest that he expected that he and his family would be in proprietorial residence indefinitely. This turned out to be so and the Bowrings and the Ridgways were there for more than a hundred years. It was clearly held on a very long lease. There were various types of tenure under the manorial system of which the copyhold tenure was the most common. Under this leasing system, finally abolished by an act of 1920, a property was held from the lord of the manor on a number of lives. When a life died, a herriot or tribute was payable to the lord and a life could be added in its place. Under the system, families could hold a property for hundreds of years.
We do not know exactly what sort of lease the Bowrings held on White House because there is very little about the property in the large deposit of Burton Bradstock records that the Pitt-Rivers family have lodged in the Dorset County Archives. Fortunately, however, we were able to glean a lot of the history of the house from alternative sources. (This dearth is not due to any Pitt-Rivers estate records being destroyed by fire. Notwithstanding the two catastrophic fires the village experienced in the 19th century, the family estate papers for the extensive lands it owned in a number of counties must have been lodged at the central estate office of the family. This was not in Burton Bradstock and, therefore, could not have gone up in the two conflagrations).
The year 1635 was a momentous one for the Bowrings. In addition to it being the year that White House was built, Simon Bowring’s daughter married the rector of Burton Bradstock, Nicholas Ridgway. It was also the year Nicholas was instituted as rector. A transcript of the wedding registers noted: ‘Nicholas Ridgeway, clerk, rector of Burton, Married Edeth Bowering, 18 Feb 1635.’ However, the parish registers being in poor condition and difficult to decipher, we wonder if an error in transcription did not occur with the name correctly being Bridget and not Edeth. We say this because the administration of a will of 1680 gives Simon Ridgway as the natural son and lawful administrator of the will of Bridget Bowring. Nicholas Bowring, the rector, had died in 1672. It all fits - Simon Bowring built the house and lived in it until he died. It then passed, via his daughter, Bridget, to his grandson Simon Ridgway. On the 1662-1664 hearth tax we find: ‘Symon Ridgway for ye Farme ... Symon Ridgway for himself.’ This surely must be your property. The way this hearth tax entry is made it looks as if White House was separate from the farm in 1662 although held by the same person. We were able to track it from Ridgway to Sumner to the Brown family in the church and poor rates and land taxes right up to where it was definitively identified on the tithe survey map and schedule of 1839.
It would be an attractive idea that White House was the residence of the rector, Nicholas Ridgway, during a period of its existence. However, in the light of the 1662-1664 hearth tax it rather looks as if the house might have gone straight from Simon to his grandson. Nicholas Ridgway only died in 1672 and was living in another house in 1662. That house being, of course, the parsonage. However, when he died his widow would have had to vacate the parsonage and might well have come to live in her son’s residence.
Hutchins Dorset observes: ‘A little north of the church stands a desecrated chapel, long since converted into a poor house. This seems to be St. Laurence’s chapel. Near it is supposed to have been a chapel yard, many human bones having been dug up thereabouts; particularly, 1736, a skeleton seven foot long ...‘ What is most intriguing about this is that the Maps mark the site of the chapel as being right on the barton area of Sumner’s Farm which was over the road from you and behind Ingram House. So where was the Poor House that Hutchins mentions? How does this tie-in with White House, and the farm going with it that was in existence when St. Lawrence’s chapel was still standing? Although not directly to do with your house this must count as a fascinating mystery associated with the estate. Also, how do we reconcile Simon Bowring’s possession of St. Catharine’s Chapel with him also holding the land on which St. Lawrence’s chapel stood over the road? It is extremely complicated but what it suggests is that when Simon Bowring built White House and lived in it, it was not part of what was later called Sumner’s Farm. Only when Simon Ridgway came into the house was it Joined with the farm and its lands. This remembering that the hearth tax rated his house and his farm separately. This then is what we think must have happened i.e. White House was a separate property and only became part of the farm estate in the later 17th century. We take it that the house and outbuildings shewn on area no.75 on the tithe map must have been built only after St. Lawrence chapel became defunct. Alternatively, Hutchins had another St. Lawrence’s Chapel site in mind or the OS maps have got it wrong. As we say, it is a fascinating puzzle.
By 1758, White House and the farm, now one, was held by Mrs Sumner and it then went to her daughter, a spinster called Letitia Sumner. Letitia let out the farm to Francis Roberts and then his son, Robert Roberts. A probable scenario is that she lived in White House and the tenants over the road in the farmhouse. When she died in the late 18th century Sumner’s Farm, as it was now called, was acquired by a landowner of means called Jacob Brown, and on his death in 1817 it went to his son, James Brown.
With there being two houses on the one estate, there is a great problem in deciding who was actually living in White House during a large part of the 19th century. This problem is compounded by it not being called White House until late in the 19th century, after old James Brown had died. This made tracking it in the censuses extremely difficult. What might have made the task easier would have seen the 1817 will of Jacob Brown. However, this will was probated in Canterbury, the probate court of the gentry and land owning classes, and these wills are all lodged up in London. It would mention properties and might well say where he was living when he made the will. A likely situation in 1817 was that he was living in White House when he died and his young adult son, James Brown, was living in the farmhouse over the road.
Trewmans Exeter Flying Post reported in its issue of 13th July, 1854: ‘Another calamitous fire, resulting in the entire destruction of fifty houses, and involving a great loss of other property has occurred at Burton Bradstock, near Bridport, Dorset. The fire commenced early on Friday morning week, at the homestead in the occupation of Mr James Brown, a farmer, and is supposed to be the work of an incendiary ...’ Comparing the tithe map with the later OS maps, it can be seen that the whole complex of buildings on area no. 75 were destroyed and were never built on again until the Women’s Institute Hall.
James Brown must have been living in the house attached to the barns on 75 when the fire occurred. Who was living in the White House is impossible to say with certainty. (Fortunately, the fire did not jump the road.) However, the 1841 census gives a John Ewens, manufacturer, living a couple of households away from James Brown. Also, there was a Maryann Hitt, independent, living on ‘Chappell Row’. Both of these could have the status to be occupants renting White House.
We think James Brown might have gone to live at White House after the fire because subsequent censuses give him still living in the immediate area. The 1871 census shows the old bachelor of 88 living in a house with his faithful housekeeper, Elizabeth Waldron, who had been with him for more than twenty years. Though of venerable age, James Brown was still running a 500 acre farm and employing a labour force of 6 men and 3 boys. He was assisted by a relative, Edward Brown, who lived at Darby House.
After James Brown died, White House was detached from the farm. In 1891 it was now called White House, with a single lady of independent means called Fanny Major living there with one servant.
According to the 1910 Inland Revenue survey, it was lived in by W.G. MacKilligan, esq. and owned by A. Pitt-Rivers esq. Its extent was 1 rood of land. On the eve of the Second World War, Major John Marc Wratislaw was resident. We stopped at 1939 because the time allowed by the commission was given to the priority of uncovering its early history and origins. However, the Dorset Record Office holds a set of voter’s lists right up to the 1960’s which can be worked through to give all the occupiers after the Second World War.
OWNERS & OCCUPIERS
|
Date |
Owner/Proprietor |
Date |
Occupier |
|
1635 |
John Freke |
1635 |
Simon Bowring |
|
1662 |
Thomas Freke |
1662 |
Symon Ridgway |
|
1716 |
Thomas Freke |
1716 |
Mrs Ridgway |
|
1733 |
Pitt (Fox-Pitt-Rivers family) |
1733 |
Nicholas Ridgway |
|
1758 |
Pitt |
1758 |
Mrs Sumner |
|
1778 |
Pitt |
1778 |
Miss Letitier Sumner |
|
1800 |
Pitt |
1800 |
Jacob Brown? |
|
1817 |
Pitt |
1817 |
Tenant of James Brown |
|
1854 |
Pitt |
1854 |
James Brown? |
|
1891 |
Pitt |
1891 |
Fanny Major |
|
1895 |
Pitt |
1895 |
Henry Collings |
|
1907 |
Pitt |
1907 |
William MacKilligan |
|
1927 |
Pitt |
1927 |
Dunstan Edward Beethoven Sewell |
|
1939 |
Pitt |
1939 |
Major John Mark Wratislaw |
|
Present owners and occupiers Mr and Mrs C.J.Wilkinson |