Spotlight on Chesterton House

In ‘Loughboroughin 50 Buildings’ I wrote about Chesterton House, situated at No.2 Rectory Place, but more information has come to light since I wrote the book, which I thought I might share here with you. 

Here’s what I said at the time:

“The tiny, pedestrianised walkway, Rectory Place, leading from Fennel Street - now part of the town’s inner relief road - to the leafy junction of Steeple Row and the longer Rectory Place, is aptly named, the view from Fennel Street along this walkway being of the Old Rectory.

Built in 1802 for a local hosier, Thomas Barfoot Oliver, whose manufactory was at one time on Mill Street (now Market Street), the house is an impressive and imposing four-storeys, part of a group of three properties, and has recently been refurbished.

The plaque adorning the front of this Georgian building tells of the building’s importance: in 1850 it was here that the first girls’ grammar school in the country began. The Headmistress, Miss Ellen Charnock, came from a seminary in Bootham, bringing with her four or five boarders who wished to finish their education under her tutelage.

The school was successful, but the building began to suffer through lack of funds to maintain it, and eventually it re-located to the Grammar School on Leicester Road. The building passed through the hands of Woolley, a local land agent and surveyor, and Warner, a local hosier, and has been occupied by the Chesterton House Group since 1991.”

Since then, information has been uncovered by the owners of the property – Chesterton House, financial planning, Ltd. – when they recently undertook some repairs to the roof of the building. Originally, it seemed that the house had been built for Thomas Barfoot Oliver, around 1802, shortly after he had married a Miss Morris in 1800, [1] and shortly before he married an Ann Middleton in 1805, [2] and long before he married Augusta Burnaby in 1825![3] However, on closer examination of the structure of the building, and some of the features found within (like the door hinges), the building was estimated to have actually been built around 1725. Who might have lived there between 1725 and the early 1800s is as yet unknown.

A very early map (1735)  is difficult to interpret, and the building might be listed as a ‘homested’, surrounded by land indicated as belonging to Mrs Warner on one side, Dr Butler on another, Lammas Close on another, and the Rushes Brook on another. Alternatively, it could be that the property does not appear, but would show up later, perhaps in the area marked as Mrs Warner. I only say that because it is so difficult to match up what appears on this map with how the roads and properties are laid out on a more recent map.

So, at some point, and certainly by the appearance of the 1837 map of Loughborough, the buildings were named ‘Darby’s Buildings’. This was after Thomas Barfoot Oliver had moved away from the house: in 1827 he appears to be living in Belgrave Gate, Leicester, but in an 1832 poll book, he is registered to vote on account of him having a property on Fennel Street in Loughborough. This latter fact is one of interest, because today we think of Chesterton House as being on the short pedestrianised bit of Rectory Place, as the front door is here. However, the garden of Chesterton House, which is towards the rear of the property, also has an exit onto Fennel Street, via a carriageway arch, which I believe is sited between what are now numbers 16 and 15 [4] Fennel Street, so it’s quite possible that the property was deemed to be on Fennel Street.

It is thought that a member of the Burnaby family lived in the property around the 1830s, which is possible because, as we saw above, Thomas Barfoot Oliver had married Augusta Burnaby, daughter of the Reverend Thomas Burnaby, of Leicester. However, we can be sure from the census returns, that in 1841, it was Charles Sherrard Burnaby, an attorney at law - son of John Dick Burnaby (who in 1846 was a Colonel in the Army), and born in Rotherly Hall - who was living in the house, where the head of the household was either a Dorothy Hurst, or Dorothy Hunt (can't quite make out the writing). I'll be honest and say I haven't yet had time to establish what exactly is the connection between Augusta and Charles Burnaby. Some time ago I wrote about the connection between the crest of the Burnaby family from Baggrave Hall, and Robert Burnaby with the Blackboy Pub, now the Blacksmith's Arms, so there really are a lot of Burnaby's to be sorted! 

So, the 1851 census return shows Charles Sherrard Burnaby is at Ordsall Hall, which seems to fit with the dates, as we know, by 1850 the building on Rectory Place had become a girls’ grammar school. When the school moved out, the building was occupied by William Edward Woolley. Ironically, the firm of Woolley and Beardsley, is now part of the Chesterton House financial group.

Office of Woolley, Beardsley, and Bosworth

Later inhabitants of Chesterton house were councillor William Warner, a local hosier, who was responsible for re-naming the property from Darby’s Building to Chesterton House, after an uncle, Thomas Chesterton, who was at one time the licensed victualler at the Prince of Wales pub on Church Gate, but who later emigrated. This information was conveyed to the 'Loughborough Echo' back in 1989 by a Mrs White, who was a descendant of William Warner. 

When Ralph Ward took over ownership of Chesterton House, he converted the property into bedsits, which were used as accommodation for some of the Brush apprentices. The current owners of the building took it over from Mr and Mrs Foreman, who bought the property in 1987. During the pandemic of 2020, the roof of Chesterton House was repaired.

I've mentioned Mrs White, above: do please pop back to this blog in the coming weeks, as Mrs White will be sharing with us the story of the shop on the corner of Fennel Street, known locally as Warner's corner!

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Notes 

[1] As reported in the ‘Nottingham and Newark Mercury’ - Friday 11 September 1840, pg 8 

[2] According to a marriage record found on Ancestry

[3] As reported in the ‘Nottingham and Newark Mercury’ - Friday 11 September 1840, pg 8

[4] As we know, the numbering of the properties along Fennel Street has been amended through the years  

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posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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Dyer, Lynne (2023). Spotlight on Chesterton House. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/02/spotlight-on-chesterton-house.html [Accessed 5 February 2023]

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