The Field Estate and William Cowle
a research project for the Museum in the Park
On this website:
Although our timeframe is 1873 to the 1950s, we have gone back as far as the 17thC for background, and snippets appear here. Our research was written up at different times so these links take you to specific sections. We are now (March 2012) re-arranging the essays into a better format, starting with this new Contents page. If you get lost please click the green button to come back here!
The 1873 auction
The auction catalogue
In which William COWLE offers 103 highly desirable building Lots for immediate sale.
The plans of the Lots
and how they came to be sold. The plans were drawn by William Henry Cox FISHER, local architect.
The original Lot buyers
The Lots were bought by local tradesmen, builders, landowners, and a couple of convenient front-men.
The Field Estate before 1873
Until the 1860s, Granville Cottages and Holy Trinity were the only new buildings for 200 years. This page briefly describes the early owners.
The Field estate lands in 1853
We found a description in an 1853 mortgage transfer. JCCBPH's many debts were only paid off in 1873.
Documents
The transcripts and images in our research archive are too large to be made available here (25Gb so far) so I have made PDFs or low-res images of key items for this website (may still be slow to download). When completed the archive will be available on DVD.
1873 Deed of Mutual Covenant
A transcript of the original Deed - mandatory for all purchasers; it still applies today.
William COWLE's daybook
We carefully photographed this fragile scrapbook from the early 1890s. Here is a list of the contents, with some illustrations.
the FEWC Research archive
Introduction and overview
Our archive holds © data, lent or donated by neighbours. This page explains how the project started and what we want to achieve.
Early development after 1873
In 2010 we switched our focus from the people to the buildings and the early development of the estate.
Stories from Title Deeds
In 2011 we collected title deeds, wrote up research notes, visited houses, found surprising facts about local people, and were given lovely old photos for the archive.
Personalities
Here are some of the personalities emerging from this research:
William COWLE (a whole biography is accumulating!); James TRATT and his wife Alice Beatrice, who bought Park House with her money when WC died; Reuben GREENHILL, who bought the land at auction for George HOLLOWAY; Ulrich HOLBOROW, who bought up much of WC's estate; the WHEATLEY Bros, local builders; the early ARUNDELLs ....
George HOLLOWAY's article on home ownership
Rent-to-buy was George Holloway's plan and the four terraces on The Field estate were the result.
Maps and Directories
Ordnance Survey maps between the 1880s and 1950s clearly show the development stages of The Field estate. OS copyright restricts the free publication of modern maps but here are some that we have permission to display:
the Previous Owners
The Revd JCCBP HAWKINS
The HAWKINS, GREGORY, ARUNDELL families - and JCCBPH's awfully rich CALLAND relatives - are in another section on this website.