Hayes Place, Great Marlow

Earliest name "The Hayes". 

This is a very short street off West Street. None of the cottages wherein your Marlow Ancestors may have lived survive. Picture above shows the street in 2020, looking out towards West Street. Residents there would have had foot access round to Quoiting Square the other way and can also be given the address Quoiting Place as Quoiting Square was then known. Though in the heart of town in terms of being near to the river, High Street and main shopping areas Hayes Place was less than 10 minutes walk from open countryside going up Oxford Road or West Street. Though the homes there were crowded together there was just enough space for most to have small  gardens.

The first mention I have of homes on the site is 1832. In 1833 there were 15 households in "The Hayes". This was generally a poor address, though not grindingly poor or rough in the way areas like Dean Street were considered to be at the time.

Most of those who lived in the street had always been amongst the less well off but Hayes Place also provided refuge for some who had known better things- Robert Smith who had had a successful hairdressing business in Spittal Street became insolvent and went to live at number 13 for a few months in 1845 for instance.

On the 1833 assessment the properties in the street range from probably a one room very tiny cottage - that  occupied by "late Jane Moore" with an assessed annual value of only £1 10 shillings up to three houses valued at £6 10 shillings a year each, in the occupations of " late George Ward" [a butler whose wife Patience was a dressmaker. They left the town for Taplow in late 1832*], "Robert Reid" and "late Hunt". Note that these three houses appear to have been set off back from Hayes Place proper, and could be accessed just as easily from Quoiting Square. Jane Moore may have moved away from her tiny cottage recently at the time of the assessment but she was back later. She was a middle aged unmarried woman who worked as an laundress and a lace maker at different times.

Involvement in the lace making, satin stitch, laundry and paper making trades (as rag sorters in the latter case) plus domestic service were the most common traceable occupations for Victorian and Edwardian female residents of the street while involvement in agriculture, paper making, wood related crafts and brewing (most of the brewery workers will have worked at Wethered's brewery only about 5 minutes or so walk away) was common amongst male residents.

Someone not keen to gain employment or look after his responsibilities was 1833 resident Richard Lodge. Repeatedly in the 1840s he was fined or jailed for having abandoned his two sons John and William in Marlow.  There is no mention of their mother. John and William were together in the Marlow parish workhouse at the time of the 1841 census. They were both said to be 8. Could be twins but ages on censuses can be hazy and were rounded up and down. After the boys were beyond the age of being his legal responsibility Richard still found himself regularly before the courts for absconding from the Wycombe Union Workhouse. 

Talking of not taking responsibilities seriously - as the years went by properties in Hayes Place were not kept up to standard by their owner. In 1901 their sanitary condition was considered by Marlow Urban Council's medical officer as being likely to injure the health of the tenants with poor quality drains and cess pits too close to the homes.

Not enough had been done to remedy the situation by 1910 when drain water had seeped through the floor of the scullery of one cottage. Five other cottages [from other sources numbers 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6] shared two improperly built cess pits. The yard soil at the back of the cottages there was badly contaminated by waste water. It was decided that some of the outhouses had to be rebuilt and all the drains replaced plus the yard properly surfaced. It seems that this work took several years to actually happen.

In 1913 the council again inspected the area and found that five of the eight cottages were not in a fit state for human inhabitation.  At last action was properly taken. All 8 had their sculleries rebuilt on the order of the council because they were damp and unsanitary. The same year the residents had three wash houses built for them to share. This was for the common use of all 8 households. The yard was paved, cesspits removed, and new drains put in. 

It needs to be pointed out that the owner of these cottages was the very wealthy Sir William Clayton who had more than enough means to remedy the situation for his tenants but it took years of asking him and his agents for him to do so.

The road itself, originally a private road, was taken over by the council in 1906 / 07 and paved for the first time.

Given the conditions it is not surprising that some residents of the Place dreamed of moving far away. Robert and Edward White Shaw [Aka just Shaw or just White] who lived in Hayes Place with their widowed 45 year old mother Marion [AKA Mary Ann] in 1901 did just that, emigrating to Canada. Marion worked as a chair caner in 1901. She died at Hayes Place the next year. 

*In 1830 the their two year old daughter Patience junior died. The Reading Mercury of 26th July that year described how the child's father was away on an excursion in the country when little Patience became ill. She died swiftly leaving her mother "inconsolable with grief" and unable to tell her husband about their loss because she had no address for him. Married butler's usually lived in with their employers while their family lived in a nearby cottage. There is a reasonable probability given that George Ward worked for the Claytons in nearby Oxford Lane.

 

*****

*To read about Victorian Hayes Place residents Charles and Charlotte Flint (he an embroider) and Charles' family see this post here. I don't want to repeat myself by dealing with them here when I have already done a post featuring them.

To find posts about other historic Marlow addresses see the "Specific Shops, Streets...Etc" index here.

All mentions of a person on this blog can be found on the Person Index on the top drop down menu. 

Researched by both Charlotte Day and Kathryn Day. Pic by Kathryn, words by Charlotte.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this research or image for family or local history purposes if you credit this blog and link here.

Sources: 

1833 parochial assessment working notebooks, in custody of our family, transcribed by Charlotte.

Census transcribed from microfilm by Charlotte. Census information always remains Crown copyright.

London Gazette, Volume 3, 1845. Published by T Neuman and digitized by Google.

Buckinghamshire Council Report for 1913. 

South Bucks Standard 7th June 1901, April 8th 1910 and 8th May 1913 British Library Archives via the BNA.

Death certifications, GRO.