Whitchurch Town Trail: Claypit Street

Shown as St Luke Street on the 1761 Town Map, Claypit Street runs northeast from the Horse and Jockey pub at the end of Church Street. It continues for a short distance after crossing the London Road/Brownlow Street junction, eventually becoming Alport Street. The likely existence of an 18th century clay-pit in this area is supported by the discovery of a large number of clay pipes nearby. On the southeast side, opposite the side of the pub, is a row of timber-framed houses dating from the 17th century. (See Whitchurch Remembered (WHAG, 1980), illustrations 4 and 5, for comparative photographs from 1901 and 1979.)

During the Civil War, Parliamentary forces of 800 men under Sir Will Brereton took Whitchurch on 30th May 1643. The fighting ‘probably took place in the Claypit Street area to the east of the town’. The Parish Register records the burial of 15 soldiers on that date. (Joan Barton: A Millennium History of Whitchurch, WHAG, 2000).

The Catholic Church: The Roman Catholic congregation in Whitchurch began in 1855 under the Rev. Fathers McCarte and Kenny, meeting at a private house in Green End. The present chapel in Claypit Street opened for worship on Whit Monday 1878, the preacher the Very Rev. Canon Cholmondeley. (TC Duggan)

The Pound:
. . .was a strongly-built small yard, with high walls, and was used to imprison horses and cattle which were found straying on the public roads. When claimed, the owners had to pay a fine to recover their animals. [It] was erected behind the row of houses now [1935] called “Claypit Street Terrace”.
TC Duggan: A History of Whitchurch, Shropshire, 1935

In this street, the town’s first known Post Office was established, when mail coaches were pulled by teams of horses. John Wesley preached in a ‘little chapel’ here. The Rev. WH Egerton, Rector of St Alkmund’s for over 60 years, was ‘primarily responsible’ for the new church schools in Claypit Street.

What else went on here?

The Poor Rate Valuation Book of 1827 lists 45 premises in the street, 9 owned by the Earl of Bridgwater and 8 by Mrs Underhill. Most are described as ‘House and Garden’ but notable exceptions are the Horse and Jockey pub, Lock-Up House, Slaughterhouse, Cow house (4), Maltkiln and Timber yard.

Shops and Trades

Butchers:
John Barrowe, member of a large family of local butchers, had a premises in Claypit St during the 18th century.

Upholsterer and chair-maker:
G Hughes 1822-35

Cabinet maker:
J Johnson by 1888, moved to No 62 High Street c.1916, continuing as house furnishers until 1940s.

Chemists:
CW Hubbard c.1913-36, also at Green End
J Hadley, late 19th century, moving here from High Street.

Shoemakers:
W Allinson at No 2, c.1860-79
William Phillips at No 6, shoe-repairing but without a retail shop.
Penk family, starting with Samuel Penk c.1815
Phillip Woollam, boot-repairer, at No 20 in 1878, still there 1925.

Pubs - Past and Present

The Horse and Jockey pub

At the end of Church Street and on the corner of Claypit Street, the building has proved difficult to date precisely. The roof timbers show four building phases, the third of which is an upper-cruck construction. RB James (Old Inns of Whitchurch, WHAG, 1997) has discovered:

- The 1761 Town Map shows a small oblong building, which might possibly have been an Ale-house in the late 17th or early 18th century.
- First known occupant in 1822 was Elizabeth Casterton, with sureties given by Thomas Casterton, butcher, and Thomas Lythgoe, grocer.
- Later licensees: John Jones 1830; John Sandford 1840-51; Henry B Jones (son of printer Robert B Jones) 1859; Betsy Jones 1861; J Phillips 1868; Alex Robertson 1896; JF White 1905-9; Louise White 1909; James Hooper 1917-34.
- Accommodation listed 1896: 4 bedrooms for 6 lodgers, stabling for 6 horses by night, 20 by day.
- Licensing laws were broken fairly frequently. In 1830 “John Jones, victualler of ‘The Horse and Jockey’ for keeping open after 12 pm and for having riotous and drunken persons in his house – First offence 5/- and £1.9s.6d costs.”

Listed Buildings

Southeast side: No 33 (The White House)

Northwest side: The Old Rectory, its Coach House and Game Larder

Number 33 (The White House)
On the corner of Claypit Street and Brownlow Street. A large red-brick house, now rendered and painted to the front, built early 18th century, enlarged and remodelled early 19th century. When listed in 1951 it had become the White House School, and is now divided into several separate residential units.

Said to contain a ‘single flight staircase of c.1710-20 . . . with closed string, balusters consisting of fluted columns on acanthus-wreathed vases, ramped moulded handrail with curved knees, fluted columns-on-vase newel posts with octagonal bases and caps (English Heritage listing description, 1988).

The Old Rectory
Listed Grade II*, now a house, dated 1749. English Heritage details note that ‘the house stands, along with a former coach house, in a moated site. The house is notable for its complete mid-18th century interior.’ The two-storeyed house is five bays wide with a long service wing at the rear.

Its design has been attributed to the architect William Turner of Green End, Whitchurch. (He is described in a Deed of 1820 as ‘architect, dealer and chapman’, declared bankrupt in 1815). Turner was certainly involved in the demolition of the earlier building on the site, but no obvious evidence exists to link him with its replacement. Madge Moran believes that an equal claim can be made for Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. Her preliminary investigations also reveal:

The previous building on the site was demolished c.1749, and was probably
of medieval origin. It could have been the Whitchurch manor house.

Later owners were the Egertons, Earls of Bridgwater. The 9th Earl became
Rector of Whitchurch, ‘one of a line of eccentric incumbents’.

1784: Noted landscape designer William Emes commissioned to create
a park but very little of his work remains.

World War II: Building used as a tracking station intercepting German
communications for Bletchley Park.

The Coach House, its stable block and forecourt walls, also built 1749, are Listed in their own right. Restored late 20th century, they are now in residential use.

The Game Larder, disused according to English Heritage description 1988, built late 18th century, is a single-storeyed square plan building, included in the Listing ‘for group value’.

Find out more from Madge Moran: Vernacular Buildings of Whitchurch and Area (Logaston Press, 1999) and her forthcoming extended study entitled
The Old Rectory, written with Jean North, due for publication by Logaston Press during Spring 2007