Category: Prior Park

More Combe Down cousins

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Following last month’s movers and shakers post I have discovered more Combe Down cousins for that link them to other families who lived in the ‘big houses’. Those are the Allen, Atherton, Bennett, Bryan, Cruttwell, Daubeney, Disney, Falkner, Fortt, Gabriel, Gore, Hope, Howard, Maude, Morley, Richardson, Vivian and Wingrove families who are mentioned on this site in numerous places This post is probably best read with last month’s post open in another tab for easy Read More …

Movers and shakers

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I have been convinced for a while that the “movers and shakers” who built and lived on Combe Down from the time of Ralph Allen to the early 1900s were probably related – albeit distantly. By movers and shakers I mean the Allen, Atherton, Bennett, Bryan, Cruttwell, Daubeney, Disney, Falkner, Fortt, Gabriel, Gore, Hope, Howard, Maude, Read More …

Benjamin Wingrove

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In another tenuous coincidence I have discovered that Benjamin Wingrove (1773 – 1840), who has his own page on this site, and was an attorney, land speculator, agriculturalist and road builder is the 1st cousin 1x removed of the wife of the husband of the 7th great-aunt of our son-in-law. I said it was tenuous! The Read More …

More pages and infills about Combe Down

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I have added more pages and infills about Combe Down by filling in some obvious gaps. There’s some old adverts mentioning Combe Down or Monkton Combe – none very exciting it has to be said, but hopefully further research will find some that are. Having said that, even if the adverts themselves don’t excite they can Read More …

Combe Down, Monkton Combe and Prior Park photos

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I have long wanted to add galleries of Combe Down, Monkton Combe and Prior Park photos but never really felt I had enough to warrant it. Now I do, though I’d dearly love more photos to add to the galleries, so, if you have any that you’d be willing to let me publish then please do let Read More …

John Thomas – the forgotten man of Prior Park

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One of the owners of Prior Park has been almost forgotten. Ralph Allen, Gertrude Tucker, Viscount Hawarden and Bishop Baines are all reasonably well known, but John Thomas (1752 – 1827) is not. Yet he was a Quaker who owned Prior Park for over 15 years between 1809 and 1827 and certainly deserves to be Read More …

Particulars of Prior Park sale in 1808

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I just love old handbills and maps. Bath Record Office has a small treasure trove of them. Here are some prepared for the Prior Park sale in 1808 before John Thomas bought in in 1809.  The language is wonderful. “A capital mansion, seated on an eminence, erected, in the most substantial manner, about the Year Read More …

Prior Park sale

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When Gertrude Stafford Smith (née Tucker, previously Warburton), Ralph Allen’s niece and heir died in 1796, the estate passed to Cornwallis Maude, 1st Viscount Hawarden by reason of his marriage to Mary Allen, another niece of Ralph Allen, even though she had died in 1775, as they had a son Thomas Ralph Maude. I indicated previously that Read More …