67 Prestbury Road (previously 3 Selkirk Parade)

This listing gives information on owners and occupants until 1945: ownership information is shown in green.

1847-50 The earliest known occupant was Harriet Belson (although in 1848 the occupant was briefly given as a Mrs Blome). Harriet Belson and her two sisters were teachers who had previously run a girls’ boarding school in Worcester.

1851 The occupants were Charles Elliott, aged 27, a marble polisher, his wife Ann, aged 38 and his daughter Mary, aged 3.

1853–62 The property was “in Chancery” from c 1853 – c 1862. It was one of three Cheltenham properties which had been given as security for a debt owed by George Fenner Hughes, who died intestate. In 1853 it was described as “sometime unoccupied”.

1854 The occupant was Rev. J. Dixon.

1855-8 The occupants are variously described as Mrs B. L. Bamber or the Misses Bamber. The rent was £30 per annum.

1858 The house was inherited by Arnold Francis Galen Hughes of 177 Maida Hill, Paddington, then a minor. It was described as “long unoccupied but recently let to a Tenant [Mr Bamber] from year to year at £30 per annum.” Arnold Hughes was apprenticed to an apothecary in 1862, but in 1866 he was declared to be “of unsound mind”.

1859 The occupant was Dr Hartford.

1860 The occupant was Mrs Leigh.

1861 The occupants were Edwin Tovey, aged 27, a plasterer, and his wife Eliza, aged 31.

1862-70 During this period the occupant was Mrs Pottinger, who paid £30 a year. She was the first long-term occupant, staying for eight years. During 1867-70 the Misses Hill are also shown as living with her.

1865 The house was put up for sale by auction, together with no 4 Selkirk Parade, but did not sell. It was described as follows:

A Freehold Dwelling House with a Garden at the Back thereof
and a Small Garden in Front … in the occupation of Mrs. Pottinger,
a tenant from year to year, at £30 per annum. The House contains –
On the Basement Floor – Kitchen, Back ditto, Coal Cellar,
Larder, Water Closet.

On the Ground Floor – Entrance Hall, Dining Room and Drawing Room
communicating with folding doors, Breakfast Room.

On the First Floor – Three Bed Rooms and Dressing Room.

There is a small Garden at front and at the back thereof.
1866 Having failed to sell at auction the previous year, the property was eventually sold in 1866 to Mrs Ann Maria Wood for £380. (65 Prestbury Road, then 4 Selkirk Parade, was sold to George Nicholson Lailey for the same price.)

1871 The occupants were George Blakemore Bayfield John Roberts, aged 23, an Oxford undergraduate at Oriel College, and his wife Ida Catherine Villiers Roberts, aged 24, with their baby daughter Ida, aged 1 month. George Roberts later became a clergyman and was Vicar of Uckington. His wife Ida (née Law) was the eldest of three illegitimate daughters of the Earl of Ellenborough. She and George had married in 1869. Also living in the house was their nursemaid Mary Gibbons, aged 47, their servant Hannah Tribble, aged 57, and Hannah’s husband Richard, an unemployed coachman.

1872-4 George Roberts continued to live at the property for three years.

1874-86 In 1874 Mrs Ann Maria Wood let the house to Miss Caroline Frances Lawson of 9 Pittville Villas (on the other side of the street), a lady of independent means, for seven years. She actually stayed for twelve years, until 1886. For at least part of this time her adopted niece Julia Beal was living with her.

1881 The occupants were Caroline Lawson, aged 60, living on a private income; Julia Beal, aged 39, her adopted niece; Jemima Pritchard, aged 65, her cook; Elizabeth Spragg, aged 21, her housemaid; and Marianne Keeling, age 58, a visitor.

1882 The owner, Mrs Ann Maria Wood, died and ownership of the house passed to her son Frederick Wood, a chemist.

1887-90 The occupant was Miss Whitehouse.

1891 The occupants were Catherine Abrahall, aged 71, another lady with a private income; her stepdaughter Louisa Abrahall, aged 47, described as a Mildmay Deaconess; her daughter Dora Abrahall, aged 20; a servant, Alice McCoy, aged 25; and Amelia Webb, a cook, aged 38, who was visiting.

A missionary training school for women was established at Mildmay Road,
Islington, in the 1860s. The trainees were known as Mildmay Deaconesses.
These women worked as missionaries and social workers, both with the poor
of London and abroad. They also acted as nurses and ran evening classes
and other groups.
1892 Frederick Wood, who had owned the house for 10 years, sold it to Mr John Barra Buckwell, a furnishing warehouseman, who took out a mortgage with the Cheltenham & Gloucestershire Permanent Mutual Benefit Building Society.

1892-8 The occupant continued to be Mrs Abrahall, who occupied the house for seven years in total.

1895 John Buckwell sold the house to Mr. Richard Staite, a cab proprietor, of Berkeley House Stables.

1900 The occupant was Mr R. Wood.

1901 The occupants were Robert Wood, aged 66, a commercial traveller; his wife Elizabeth, aged 66; his daughter-in-law Florence Wood, aged 37; and his granddaughters Gwendoline, aged 12, and Dorothy, aged 10.

1903 The house was sold at auction to Mrs Louisa Gill of Hinton Lodge, St Georges Road, for £405.

Let at £28 per annum (nett), and containing on the Ground Floor, Entrance Hall, Drawing Room, communicating by folding doors with Dining Room, Study, opening into Conservatory with steps to Garden; on the Top Floor and Half-Space, Three Bedrooms and w.c.; and in the Semi-Basement, Housekeeper’s Room, Kitchen, Pantry, Scullery, and other offices, paved area in rear. There is a Flower Garden in front and long Garden in rear, with back entrance from good road. Gas and Corporation Water laid on. This house is in an excellent state of decorative and substantial repair, and the sanitation is modern.
1903 The occupant was Miss W. S. Boys Smith. The rent at this time (£28 per annum) was lower than it had been forty years earlier in the 1860s.

1911 The occupants were Elizabeth Waghorne, aged 70, a widow of independent means, and her three unmarried daughters, Susannah (aged 41), Caroline (aged 38), described as a grocer’s clerk, and Georgina (aged 37).

1928 The house was bought by Annie Morris, wife of John Morris of 6 Bayshill Terrace, a schoolmaster, for £455.

1938 The house was bought by William Goddard (a retired Insurance Superintendent) for £550. It was now known as 67 Prestbury Road.

1939 At the outbreak of the Second World War the house was occupied by William and Jessie Goddard. William, aged 61, had bought the house in the previous year, possibly on his retirement. He is described as a retired Superintendent of an Assurance Company and Jessie, aged 58, is a housewife. This appears to be the first time that the house was owner-occupied.

1940 The house was bought by Miss Daisy Barnfield of ‘Landour’, 136 Hewlett Road, for £600.

1945 The house passed on Miss Barnfield’s death to her brother, Alfred Barnfield, a nurseryman.