Wickhamford Lane was once the main route from Evesham and Bengeworth into Wickhamford. On the 1869 Estate plan of the village, it was marked as ‘Green Lane’. There were no houses by the road until John Pickup Lord, who owned the Wickhamford Estate, had a Lodge built at the point where the lane joins the Evesham to Broadway Road, opposite the present-day Castles Farm shop. From this point to Wickhamford, the lane is a little under one mile long and runs to the North of Longdon Hill. The boundary between the Parishes of Bengeworth and Wickhamford crosses the lane at about one third of its length from the Bengeworth end. The Lodge was built in 1872, but it was vacated a few years ago and has since been demolished and a new house built nearby. The only other houses along Wickhamford Lane are 1 and 2 Manor Cottages, which are on the West side of Badsey Brook where it passes through Wickhamford by the Manor and Church. Before they were built, the 1903 Ordnance Survey map shows their location as that of an old quarry.
Manor Cottages Description in 1915
A detailed description of this pair of semi-detached houses appears in the records of the National Valuation Survey that took place between 1910 and 1915. Each was reported on separately, in January 1915, but the details are almost identical. The semi-detached cottages were built about 6 years before the Survey was taken in the village, so ca 1909. The owner was George Crompton Lees-Milne who had bought Wickhamford Manor and its associated land in 1906, so it was he who had the cottages built. They were initially intended to house some of his staff who worked at the Manor.
Each cottage was built of concrete blocks, roughcast over and whitewashed and they had tile roofs. They had three bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, sitting room, scullery in a lean-to and were connected to the Broadway water supply. The occupier of one of the cottages, G. Hardiman, was recorded paying £11 14s rent per annum and F. Newman, in the other cottage, was paying no rent.
Occupants of Manor Cottages over the years 1911 to 1951
1911 Census: This took place on 2nd April and No. 1 Manor Cottages was occupied by 29-year-old George Higgins Hardiman, who had been born in Badsey. He was described as a labourer on a fruit farm and he was living with his wife, Emily Jane, a part-time fruit farm labourer and their daughter, Doris May, aged four. In No. 2 Manor Cottages, were Frederick Joseph Newman, also aged 29, who was a domestic coachman, his wife, Lizzie, and their three children, aged 2, 1 and 6-months. They had only been married three years. Also in the cottage was 66-year-old Jesse Newman, as a boarder. Both heads of the households would have worked for George Lees-Milne.
Frederick Newman enlisted in the Gloucestershire Regiment at the outbreak of the Great War and served in France from July 1915 and was discharged in October 1915, after fighting in the Battle of the Somme. It seems as if he had been going to lose his job at the end of the 1914 season at the Manor, because in early 1914, he had placed an advertisement in the Western Chronicle in March, looking for new position. He said that he was a good horseman with a knowledge of motors. As his family was paying no rent in 1915, is seems as if George Lees-Milne was providing assistance to the Newman family whilst Frederick was in the Army.
1921 Census: This was held on 19th June, two months after it was planned to be held, due to strikes. George Higgins Hardiman and his family were still living at 1 Manor Cottages. He and his wife now had two daughters, Enid Flora Mary having been born in 1912. George was now described as a market gardener on his own account, so was no longer directly employed by Lees-Milne. Frederick Newman had left No 2 Manor Cottages between the censuses and it was now occupied by Patrick O’Brien, a 33-year-old domestic groom, who had been born in Co Cork, Ireland. He was married to Mary, who had been born in Fifeshire, Scotland, and they had one child, an 8-month-old son, John, who had been born in Peterborough. It seems as if the family had only lived in the house for a very short while before the census. Although not required as census information, O’Brien had written on the form that he worked for Mr. Lees-Milne of Wickhamford Manor. The census enumerator had crossed out this detail as it was not required ! On the 1924 Electoral Register, Patrick “O’Brian” was still at his census address, but George Hardiman had left his. At No. 1 Manor Cottages, Sidney and Mary Fenwick were on the Electoral Register. They had had a daughter, Ivy Norah, baptised in mid-1922 in Wickhamford and the Badsey School Register shows that another daughter, Winifred Mary (b. 1917), had entered the school in May 1922 whilst living at that address. On the Baptism Register, Sidney had been recorded as a gardener, so may have worked at Wickhamford Manor. (Other entries for fathers in the Register in this period gave their occupations as “market gardener” or” gardener”.)
1939 Register: The 1931 Census records were destroyed during the Second World War, so the next information on the occupants of the Manor Cottages comes from the Register drawn up in late 1939, at the outbreak of War. No. 1 was occupied by Percival Dewey, aged 40, an analytical chemist and author, his wife, Elena, and daughter, Jane, born in October 1936, in the Stow-on-the-Wold Registration District. The family had left Wickhamford by 1941, as he had a son’s birth registered in the North Cotswold District in that year.
Living at No. 2 Manor Cottages, were Percy Teagle and his wife, Edna. He was recorded as a head gardener, so probably worked at Wickhamford Manor for George Lees-Milne. Percy Reginald Teagle also appeared on the 1939 Electoral Register, but there is no further information about his time in Wickhamford.
1951 Electoral Register: George Lees-Milne sold Wickhamford Manor in 1947 and he died in 1949. The Electoral Register for 1951, shows Thomas and Jessica Sheaf living at one of the cottages and Elizabeth Edmonds living in the other.
Thomas Cyril Sheaf had been living in Evesham in 1939, with his wife and son, and he was a bank manager at that time. He had been born in 1890, so may have retired to Wickhamford by 1951. Churchwarden, John Thornton Sheaf and his wife, Hilda were recorded in Smiths Directory of 1956 as living in Manor Cottages. Although they left the village in 1957, John continued as a Churchwarden for a while after the move, but gave up his role as Treasurer of the Parochial Church Council. John Sheaf was a nephew of Thomas Cyril Sheaf. (His father, also John Sheaf, was Thomas’ elder brother).
According to the Parish Magazine of March 1957, Mrs. Edmonds had just left Wickhamford to live in Berkhampstead. She had been a regular churchgoer and had always supported good causes. Her daughter, Capt. Christine Mary Edmonds, had died in April 1945, whilst doing War service in India. Records of her service state that her parents were living in Wickhamford at the time of her death. Her father, Frank Edmonds died in 1950 in Sutton Coldfield. Elizabeth Morley Edmonds died in Berkhampstead in 1969.
With the departure of the occupants of both cottages in 1957, this story ends, but life in them still continues.
Present Day: Wickhamford Lane is now blocked by gates at both the Evesham end and just beyond Manor Cottages at the Wickhamford end. The two cottages’ postal addresses are now referred to as ‘Manor Road, Wickhamford’.
Tom Locke – December 2025