PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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Known as either the Corporation Almshouses or the "Old Church Twelve's", they stood by the side of the Church in what then Catherine Lane (presently Catherine Street). The houses were to accommodate 12 poor widows and a nurse. The almshouses were well endowed. When the Wardens were paying their rental of 2s 4d, the Prysten House was paying only 2s 1d and St Andrew's only 6d. Certainly they were left small piece of land off Buckwell Street, which may have been the land given by a Mr William Randall in September 1561. Just a few months later, one Johanna Lake left the remainder of her land and 'Mother Hacker' gave some land at 'Crosse Downe', at what is now Greenbank, after the death of Thomas Clowter. Clowter himself left the reversion of his house at Briton Side. It seems that the site of the almshouses was quite extensive and included a herb garden, orchard, fields, barn and even a chapel, which was licensed by Bishop Lacy in 1450. It is recorded in a lease granted in 1602 that one Robert Trelawny built two houses on part of their garden, for which he duly paid rent. When in 1708 the Board of Guardians was formed, all the public almshouses in the Borough were supposed to have been handed over to them but the Corporation retained them, as Worth describes: 'as the sole remnant of their charitable trusts'. These almshouses were cleared away in 1868 in preparation for the erection of the new Guildhall and Municipal Offices and the New Church Almshouses in Green Street were rebuilt and enlarged to take up the accommodation. FOWNES'S ALMSHOUSE A deed dated 1628 records that Mr Thomas Fownes had just erected an almshouse containing thirteen rooms on land between Bedford and Basket Streets, opposite St Andrew's Church. It accommodated twenty-four 'decayed and aged people' and in September 1656 was being supported by an endowment of £100, plus interest, from a Mr Timothy Alsop. The almshouse passed into the hands of the Board of Guardians in 1708 but exactly a century later it was pulled down, having been allowed to become dilapidated due, it was claimed, to a lack of an endowment. The ground was sold to the Corporation for £500 as portion of a site for the erection of a hotel and theatre, the money being put into the Workhouse. MILLER'S ALMSHOUSE In about 1655 Alice Miller paid for an almshouse to be erected in the churchyard of St Andrew's. It consisted of ten rooms and would accommodate twenty people. In 1660 she endowed it with £10 a year from her 22-acre estate at Broadley, which was then let for £25 per year. By her Will, dated August 30th 1664, she left the estate to her cousin, Mr Richard Burdwood, who in turn passed it on to his son, James. By March 1681 this financial support was already in arrears and as a consequence the almshouse was 'for the most part waste and unoccupied, and encumbered beyond the value of the inheritance', James Burdwood conveyed the estate to the Mayor and Commonalty, who in 1720 were renting it out for only £6 per year. Miller's Almshouse was sold, along with Fowne's and Prynne's, in around 1803. NEW CHURCH or LANYON'S ALMSHOUSES Charles Church had only been completed in 1658, albeit without its spire, so it was very much the "New Church" when, in September 1674, John Lanyon bequeathed £300 for the use of the poor people of the new parish and for building an almshouse. In October 1678 the site in Green Street, right opposite the Church, was conveyed by Mr John Trelawny the elder to Mr John Martyn and others, acting for the Corporation, for the sum of £50 3s. When the buildings were completed in 1680, they were conveyed by Martyn and his partners to the Corporation, who held them until they were forced to hand them over to the Board of Guardians in 1708.
Lanyon's Almhouses were in the shadow of Lanyon's bequest eventually proved insufficient to maintain the properties so some other bequests, including £100 left by Mr John Gubbs, was added to the fund. Following the demolition of the "Old Church Twelve's" in 1868, these almshouses were rebuilt the following year with enlarged accommodation. They remain on the same site opposite the remains of Charles Church, although now fronting the Charles Cross roundabout rather than in the peace and quiet formerly enjoyed when they were in Green Street. COLONEL JORY'S ALMSHOUSES This was a range of quaint and picturesque cottages in what is now Sutton Road, Coxside, opposite where the Shipwright's Arms Public House now stands. There were founded in 1703 by Colonel Joseph Jory, who was a native of the Town, for twelve poor widows. It was endowed with the income from 16 houses in the Parish of St Andrew's and a farm of 30½ acres at Modbury, let for about £250 per year in the 1870s, when each of the inmates received an allowance of £1 10s per calendar month. PRYNNE'S ALMSHOUSES These, along with Fowne's and Miller's Almshouses, were sold by the guardians of the poor in about 1803 and demolished for the improvement of the Town. They fetched £600. R T SPEARMAN'S ALMSHOUSE Location not known. It is recorded that in 1824 Mr R T Spearman left £12,000 to be applied, after the death of certain parties, in found an almshouse for poor women above the age of 60, and who were members of the Established Church. FOX'S ALMSHOUSES In 1834 Mr Francis Fox established almshouses for twelve aged women. Fox's Cottages were on the northern side of Windsor Street opposite the Windsor Arms Public House. VICTORIA ALMSHOUSES Victoria Cottages in Victoria Street, Plymouth, between Portland Square and James Street, were purchased in 1834 by Mrs Mary Granville Hodson. By a deed dated February 2nd 1844 she endowed them with £500-worth of 3% consols and they became almshouses for twelve poor women of the parishes of St Andrew's and Charles. GOOSEWELL ALMSHOUSES, PLYMSTOCK Sir Christopher Harris Kt, of Radford, founded almshouses at Plymstock in 1617. They accommodated five poor persons and were in Goosewell Road, opposite Higher Goosewell Farm and just to the north of Jew's Wood. They were eventually sold in 1933 for £270 but were not demolished until comparatively recently. BURGOYNE'S ALMSHOUSE, PLYMPTON Burgoyne's Almshouse stood on the eastern corner at the bottom of Dark Street Lane, Underwood, Plympton. It had fallen in to a ruinous condition between 1729 and 1759. HELE'S ALMSHOUSES, PRINCE ROCK When Mr Anthony Richard Lethbridge was elected to the chair of the Charity Trusts Committee of the Plymouth Guardians of the Poor in about 1892, he introduced a scheme for the provision of cottage almshouses, as he liked to call them. After inspecting sites at Mannamead, Middle Mutley, and Prince Rock the latter site was chosen. The owner was Mr Bewes, who offered to sell them the whole field rather than the half that they wanted or could afford to purchase. As a result, Mr Lethbridge bought the field and allowed the Guardians to select either the top of bottom half for half the cost, namely £1,855. This was funded from income from land at Plympton, Brixton and Yealmpton bequeathed in 1632 by Mr Elize Hele. A design competition was held and the plans of Messrs Wiblin and de Boinville were selected, upon the recommendation of local architects, Messrs Hine and Odgers. The plans of Messrs B Priestley Shires were placed second. The tender of Mr W G Goad was accepted for the erection of the houses, in the sum of £3,190. On the afternoon of Thursday October 14th 1897 Mr Lethbridge laid the foundation stone, in the presence of the Mayor of Plymouth, Alderman C H Radford. The Deputy Governor, Mr W J Stanbury, presided over the proceedings in the absence of the Governor, Mr H S Willcocks. The inscribed silver trowel used was supplied by Messrs G E Searle & Sons, of Bedford Street, Plymouth. It was stated at the time that it was not intended that the almshouses should be occupied by persons in receipt of parochial relief but by those who, formerly held fairly good positions in life and of guaranteed respectability, were entitled from their lack of means to have the payment of rent eased for them. Six properties were to be initially erected. These were to be two-storey, each with a bedroom and sitting-room for two persons. Others would be added in due course.
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