The building of 4 & 6, 8/10 and 12/14 Acrefield Road
(from deeds and maps)

Once upon a time in Georgian Much Woolton there was a joiner, Edward Holmes. He had a wife Sarah, a son John also a joiner, and daughters Sarah and Ellen (two children, Thomas and Elizabeth, predeceased him). Edward Holmes made his will in 1810 and died in 1821.

In 1829 James Gore (1784-1872) the builder, bought 2 statute acres, part of the Mill Croft, from Holmes' estate. This was the area we can still define - the site of Yewfield on Church Road, and on Acrefield Road the frontage from No.2 (White Horse) to No. 20. We might expect that James Gore would start developing at the south end, next door to 2 Woolton Street which, in an earlier state, was there from 1768 at least. It seems probable that No.2 Acrefield Road was the first built, perhaps for the young shoemaker, Mathias Potter.

Henry Averill (c.18o3-1867) the Staffordshire born school-master ("Private Tutor" according to J.P. Marsh) married Joice Jones at St Phillips Church, Hardman Street in May 1833 and on 22 June 1834 their daughter Anne was baptised by the Rev. Robert Leicester at St. Peters Woolton. So it would seem that by 1834 Mr. & Mrs. Averill were living in Woolton, probably at No. 4 Acrefield Road, where they were 6 years later, when it was described as "house, school & garden". Henry Averill's property owning career in Woolton began in Oct. 1832 with a year's lease (a form of deposit?), from James Gore, probably of the site of Nos 12 & 14 Acrefield Rd., renewed in 1834, and becoming a purchase in March 1835 when it was still a parcel of land, lying between William Williams' No.16 on the north and Benjamin Armstrong's site for Nos 8 & 10 to the south.

Bennison's map of 1835 shows that at the time of his survey No. 2, No. 4, No.16 and Nos 18 & 20 were built, the sites of Nos 8 & 10 and Nos 12 & 14 were still gardens. The building of Nos 12 & 14 must have followed within 3 years, as on 21 April 1838 Mr Averill was borrowing £260 on security of the site "with 2 cottages recently erected" from John Okill of The Lee in L.W. Three days later he was using the money thus raised to buy Miss Alice King's house, which we identify as No.4 - in which the Averills lived - as well as Benjamin Armstrong's pair of houses Nos 8 & 10. Thus by 1840 we see Henry Averill, the schoolmaster, recorded as owner of No.4, Nos 8 & 10 and Nos 12 & 14 Acrefield Road, and by December 1843 he had repaid the money borrowed to Mr. Okill.

From this story we can obtain some idea of the way in which enough money could be raised to finance the building of such simple and modest houses as No.2 to No.20 Acrefield Road in the first half of the 19th century.

continued . . .