In this blog we tend to focus on the less famous and/ or wealthy residents of Marlow past in order to represent the majority of people living here in days gone by. But this post is about some of the fancier residences in town and what the fashionable locals were seeking or would expect to have in their ideal homes prior to 1850. For many, the choice of where to live was about finding somewhere affordable and hopefully warm and well maintained. Unfortunately affordability and comfort did not necessarily go together!
The earliest home I will deal with is Marlow's manor house, at the time of the death of Constance Le Despenser in 1416. Her husband Thomas was executed in 1400 but Constance managed to keep her customary widow's or dower portion of the estate, one third of the manor. When she died, an inquisition post mortem was held. This was a customary examination of what property someone held at their death, of who it was held etc, in order to facilitate it passing to the correct heirs, and to protect the interests the Crown. The inquisitions were supposed to be thorough and accurate but it's amusing how often they come with incomplete or inaccurate information- in particular what right someone had to land or when they were granted it. But Constance's one third of the manor included "two rooms in the site of the manor, built above and below at the end of the great chamber, the deyhous [dairy] and cow-house at the entrance to the court of the granary there" as well as one bay of the great barn. She of course also received various pieces of land and woodland, rent from the mill farm, and a third of the manor money spinners such as tolls from the market and fairs, court fines, and the "view of the frankpledge", that is the money forfeited by a group of people within the manor if one of their member committed a crime. These cow houses and barns might seem rustic accessories for the home of a granddaughter of a king, but they were essential for the running of the household. We do not know how much time, if any, Constance herself actually spent at the manor here as she had other property to choose from.
One of Marlow's West Street homes.
These type of agricultural outbuildings were still a selling point for large and expensive Marlow homes into the early 19th century. Some were relics of a farming past for the property, others proudly modern. Remnantz had a dairy for example and the 9 bedroom home known as The Cottage (later Quoitings, not the same as Oxford Cottage) still had both a dairy, an extensive cow house and a granary in 1846. Almost all the larger houses of West Street in particular could boast of some kind of barn, piggery or cow house prior to 1820, and they were not considered incompatible with genteel living when situated a suitable distance from the house.
Above, the dairy at Remnantz as seen from West Street. Cow name plaques were still on display inside in the 1990's including, yes, a Daisy.
In the 1600's and 1700s in particular, one of the chief features of a property advertised is access to a private well. This was essential to a large household before mains water could be relied upon. Aware that not all wells are created equal in terms of reliability and cleanliness, the property advertiser's usually specify that the properties well is truly good or "sweet". Drainage was a contentious issue. Even Lady Queensbury, renting the Deanery in St Peters Street in 1879, encountered the problem of evil smelling odours wafting into her otherwise pleasant home. She described these as being so overwhelming that she was unable to use some of the rooms, including her own bedroom. Her daughter went further and said the odour was reminiscent of a fitting human body she had encountered while travelling in Patagonia! The cesspits were moved from under the house to a further distance, but apparently still caused a nuisance.
A separate brewhouse was a standard feature of the better houses in the same period.
Still outside, the actual planting of a garden in terms of flowers rarely gets mentioned. The wow factor in Georgian and Regency Marlow was all about the tastefully planted shrubberies, gravel walks, and in the largest gardens, mature or "forest trees" in the "pleasure garden" -as opposed to the kitchen garden which was ideally walled to provide shelter for crops. Garden fashions came and went, and what is promoted by Marlow house sellers isn't necessarily what London buyers would have considered the last word on garden design. Lawns feature more as a desirable aspect after the 1840's. Greenhouses were also desirable as they could help the family enjoy a much wider range of fruit and flowers at the tail end of the growing season. The largest Marlow homes boasted more than one greenhouse or glasshouse, designed to cater for plants preferring different temperatures or humidity. Few could compete with the huge orchard house (glasshouse for fruit trees) of Court Garden. Orchards as a whole, some quite small, were much more common however.
Stabling was taken for granted in those larger properties. Marlow Place could accommodate 10 horses in 1834 and Thames Bank between 6-8 in 1812. A double coach house was something to aspire to, perhaps a smaller chaise or gig house too, and a carthouse for the more practical. Paddocks for the horses are not often mentioned although many of the houses in Marlow did come with meadow land. In reality there was no shortage of grazing in the town centre and the tenants of these "closes" or pieces of enclosed land behind the High Street for example were often not the occupiers of the house or business attached to it.
A "brick and tile" house description showed the potential purchaser they would not be buying an old fashioned thatched or timber framed residence. "Sashed" is often added to this description to show the property had modern sash windows. Bow windows followed these as a feature of note, and continued to be specifically mentioned as a selling point into the 1850's here.
Moving inside, the most attention was always given to describing the entrance hall (first impressions count!) and rooms used for entertaining. If you relied on printed house advertisements from the 1700's and early 1800s you'd almost imagine no home in Marlow came with a kitchen. They are rarely considered worthy of a specific mention as they will "only" be the domain of the staff. However because the smooth running of the house was dependent on these practical features, a token description of the home having all the necessary "domestic offices" was usually added. These were of course not offices in the modern sense but the provision of facilities for running the household such as laundry rooms and stores. An outside detached wash house was a desirable feature here prior to around 1820 because it took the work away from the peace of the house. Prospect House at the junction of Wycombe and Little Marlow Road was especially proud of their "excellent" wash house around the late 1700s. Some homes were advertised with a specific "mangle room" later. (The older 'box mangles" were hefty pieces of kit, and needed a lot more room than the Victorian kind with rollers that we tend to think of) The traditional position of the kitchens changed over time, from basement accommodation and back extensions to a more central spot in the home. The cooks at Remnantz must have been glad indeed when the kitchens moved from the relatively gloomy cellar to the floor above, saving them tramping up a flight of stairs. Back kitchens which occasionally feature in Georgian house ads refer to what we would later call a scullery. Sometimes rooms specific to the upper servants use do get detailed, for example a housekeepers room, and a butler's or footman's pantry.
Bedrooms feature much less prominently in property advertising than they do now. We often mention the number of bedrooms first because it's an important search criteria for us. The exact number of bedrooms usually got left out in the 1700s advertisements, in favour of lengthier descriptions of the sort of rooms you would entertain visitors in. All homes had bedrooms, but not all could boast several reception rooms so the print space was given over to the those more distinguishing features. The scope of servant accommodation was also usually left fairly vague - usually just described as "ample" or "suitable" or a mention was made of attics, a traditional spot for a maid's bedroom. For comparison, Marlow Place had 10 bedrooms in 1834, The Cottage 9 in the same year and Court Garden 8 in 1848. Dressing rooms were a standard feature of these more substantial properties.
Around 1800 and for a period of about 10 years it was fashionable in Marlow to describe the dining room as an "eating room." The wealthy would expect at least a drawing room and breakfast room (otherwise morning room or morning parlour) in addition, if not a library. The most fashionable and modern houses between about 1810 - 1830 e.g Thames Bank and Spinfield, boasted of rooms separated by folding or French doors that would allow two or three rooms to be used together to form a large single space for dances. Wine cellars were frequently described, but some houses had a beer cellar too.
From the 1840's billiard rooms start becoming more of a promoted feature in Marlow, peaking in the 1890's. The Cottage had a newly built self contained billiards room on offer in 1846, a good solution if no existing space could be sacrificed. As time went on, the type of house offering a dedicated billiards room includes the less substantial properties more often.
Moving down the scale, a newly built 3 bedroom house in West Street in 1840 could offer 3 good bedrooms, a parlour, roomy kitchen, pantry, and a wash house with pump, stable, yard, and good gardens. The house was promoted as having a "passage entrance" which was the next best thing to a large entrance hall. This was important because this distinguished the house from a truly old fashioned or smaller scale one in which every room opened into each other, and the front one directly onto the street too.
Another forgotten type of home bonus was the lease of a home that came with a pew in the parish church. Less common was an icehouse, but Court Garden had one in 1848 as did Spinfield.
Last word goes to the location of our ancestors perfect home. Advertisements naturally extolled the delights of fine views, especially of Quarry Woods or the river. But there's much more focus on describing the healthy climate or excellent air that a particular spot enjoyed - or so they said. This is understandable given the number of diseases believed to be caused at the time by damp or unhealthy air. Even the type of soil the homes were built on was considered important, with heavy clay considered especially dangerous to health. Court Garden was advertised as sitting on chalk and gravel soil when up for rent in 1848. However as this soils chief advantage was supposed to be that it was well drained, and given the frequent basement flooding Court Garden suffered from, this seems to be a somewhat optimistic selling point!
Among the spots in Marlow praised for their healthy situation in the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian periods was Newtown Road (Little Marlow Rd end), Prospect House, Spinfield, Highfields, and Oxford Road. Amusingly, almost any home not located within either the High Street, that end of West Street or St. Peter's Street, gets described prior to 1840 as "near Marlow" rather than within it. Thames Bank, Oxford Cottage, Western House, Tylecotes and The Glade/Cedar House are amongst the properties so described.
I have compiled the above after reading and comparing a vast number of property descriptions and auction notices etc specific to Marlow.
Written and researched by Kathryn Day.
© Marlow Ancestors.
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