When we bought this old house in September 1999, we were disappointed that no deeds were available to show its history. Such documents ceased to have any legal significance when the Land Registry system was introduced and so were presumably disposed of during a transfer of ownership. Also there is no documentary evidence to hand for the name “The Old Manor” which seems to have been adopted by Mary and Mike Gidman who bought the house in 1957 when it was called “The Laurels”.  Mike Gidman apparently based the name change on his research into the history of the Helmdon manors, a topic which others have subsequently tackled inconclusively.  

The Old Manor today

What is certain is that the house was standing in 1758 when the Helmdon Enclosure map was drawn up. This clearly shows the house with land in the ownership of Richard Fairbrother around it, including a large field north of the Wappenham Road where the Barratt family now have South Farm. Richard Fairbrother’s headstone in Helmdon churchyard shows he died in July 1780. 

It is also clear that the house is built of the local Helmdon stone. Dr Diana Sutherland’s 2003 book Northamptonshire Stone has a photo of the front of the house captioned as, ‘a rubble stone cottage, with dressed stone doorcase.’ 

The Old Manor, looking towards The Square

Her book notes that stone masons were active in Helmdon in the 1720s.  An earlier dating of the house was opined by Mr Grice of Culworth Forge when he fitted our wood burner and spent time examining the hinges on some cupboard doors and the main chimney. He felt the ironwork was 17^th Century but when the house was listed Grade II in June 1987 it was described as early 18^th Century.  

A study by R B Wood-Jones (1986) of domestic architecture in the Banbury region, shows there was a lot of building after the Civil War (1640-51) to provide homes for prosperous yeoman farmers. The floor plan of No 3 is typical of these houses, such as a Chacombe farmhouse built in 1654 that also has the same window hoods and angled fireplace in the parlour. The stone kneelers and windows in the gable ends accord with nearby houses built in the 1660s.  

According to Wood-Jones there were fewer new builds after 1700 when the rural economy declined, but lots of extensions to provide kitchens, pantries and dairies.  The rear section of No 3 does seem to have been just such an extension. Also there are two blocked windows in the North gable that may be a result of the Window taxes that began in 1696.  Thus we are inclined to think this house was built in the late 17^th or early 18^th century.    

Ken and Marjorie Watson’s 2001 article in Aspects of Helmdon No 4 reports that according to Will Wrighton, No 3 was the farmhouse for Langlands Farm with land on the Wappenham Road stretching down to the Weston Brook.  The lawn at the rear of the house has cobbles beneath, typical of a farmyard, and the top left corner of the garden is stony where early maps and photographs show a small barn standing.  

The 1910 Valuation Books for Helmdon list W and H Wrighton as the occupiers of what seems to be our house, but the owner is named as Elizabeth Aris of Weedon Lois. The census records for Cross Lane, which is sometimes named as Pettifers Lane, are difficult to relate to the houses. The enumerators seem to have taken different routes up and down each side! However, we have some reports of previous occupants from Helmdon residents.  

In 2001, one of the oldest inhabitants, Hilda Gulliver, spoke to us after her charity sale at the Chapel and recalled that ‘grandfather Gulliver used to live in that house’ but she couldn’t give any dates. Bill Gidman remembered hearing that a Humphrey farming family was living in the Old Manor before World War I. This memory ties in with the 1901 census showing a house in Cross Lane with a widow, Ann Ayres, living with her daughter and son-in law, Thomas Humphrey, plus their four children.  A tentative step back to the 1881 census suggests the occupiers then were Henry South, a retired grazier of 75, and Ellen Williams, his niece. They were possibly followed in 1891 by a widow Ann Hutchings, aged 67 and ‘living on her means’.   Jim Watson recalled delivering feed to Will Wrighton who kept pigs and was living here alone up to his death in the 1920s; he drowned in the Astwell ponds. Then a Miss Elkington, a Wrighton relative, lived here into the 1930s. By 1939 the occupiers were a Mr and Mrs White and then during the war ‘an American actress’ rented the house. In the 1951 census Mr Ratledge, a music teacher, was resident. 

The house was in a poor condition when the Gidman family moved in, for instance a pump from the outside well was still in place in what is now the sitting room. They replaced the thatched roof in 1958, and their son Bill recalled a large bonfire of old timbers and straw in the field in front of the house which was then part of the property and known as ‘Cock o Bulls’. During work on a bedroom wall, Mike Gidman found an old child’s shoe lodged therein and donated it to Northampton Shoe Museum; experts there dated the shoe to about 1600. The Gidman family built a new house in Cock o Bulls and moved across the road in 1981. Later they moved to Falcutt. 

In November 1981 Tom and Jane Pomeroy bought the house from Mary Gidman and moved in with their family. One of their first actions was woodworm treatment.  When they moved to Weston in 1992, they sold the house to Mrs Antoinette Wye who brought with her a great many books.  We bought the house from her and soon filled the shelves she had left for us! 

Val and Roger Miles, 

January 2024. 

References 

Wood-Jones R B (1986)  Traditional Domestic Architecture in the Banbury Region.  Wykham Books (reprint of 1963 publication by Manchester University Press) 

Sutherland DS (2003)  Northamptonshire Stone. Dovecote Press. 

Aspects of Helmdon  no. 4.