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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Cheshire => Topic started by: Pat13 on Saturday 01 August 09 19:41 BST (UK)

Title: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Saturday 01 August 09 19:41 BST (UK)
Is anyone well up on Gawsworth history? An ancestor of mine is shown on the 1851 and 1861 census returns as living at Gawsworth Gardens. He farmed 145 acres and his will was quite extensive so he seemed quite well to do. I have been trying to track down just where Gawsworth Gardens was and the closest I could come to it from studying census returns was what is now known as The Garden House. I have spoken to the present residents of The Garden House but they say when they bought the place it was just two small cottages and they had never heard of Gawsworth Gardens, they thought the old name for where they were living was Apollo Gardens. However no trace of Apollo Gardens on census returns. Can anyone shed any light on Gawsworth Gardens please?
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: danuslave on Saturday 01 August 09 20:51 BST (UK)
Can you give us the census references - it might help.

Linda
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: kimhulme on Saturday 01 August 09 20:56 BST (UK)
Hi pat13
I would have thought that the Gawsworth near Macclesfiled didn't cover 145 acres and as 'he' farmed the acreage I would have thiought that he lived in/at a farm?  How about a name or two?
KimH
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: kimhulme on Saturday 01 August 09 22:06 BST (UK)
I've just looked at a 1909 map and a Gardenhouse Farm is northwest of the crossroads at 886702 on O.S. Explorer 282 (revised 2000)and  gives the name as Lane Ends Farm.
If you ancestor 's initals were W A and he died  1 Feb 1842, you might be lucky!!! - say-no-more!!!
KimH
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Saturday 01 August 09 22:28 BST (UK)
Evidently there is a book or pamphlet entitled 'A Tour Round Apollo Gardens in Gawsworth,near Macclesfield' which was published in 1802 which is held in an Australian library. If there was an Apollo Gardens in 1802 it is possible it changed it's name to Gawsworth Gardens at a later date and whatever building was there was demolished leaving just a couple of cottages.
Following the enumerators route it does lead to The Garden House. The 1851 reference is HO107/2161,page 3 and the 1861 is RG9/2586, page 14.Apologies about the acreage, it was another ancestor who farmed 145 acres, he only farmed 5. Name was Joseph Leah. He owned quite a few houses in Macclesfield and the contents of his will leads me to believe that he certainly did not live in a small farming cottage. I have his life all sorted but just wanted to confirm where and what Gawsworth Gardens was.
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: kimhulme on Saturday 01 August 09 22:55 BST (UK)
Hi pat13,
Also on the map I referred to(and not easy to navigate the disc) there was a Garden Wood at The Grange  (and Bell Farm on current OS map.)quite near the railway line.
The info will be around somewhere!!!
KimH
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Sunday 02 August 09 09:20 BST (UK)
Hi KimH,
The only map I have of the area is an AA Street by Street map. I've found The Grange on it but it is rather outside of the area I want. Farms mentioned on the census close to this Gawsworth Gardens are Brownhills and Deans Farm which are right in the area where the present Garden House is. I can only assume that I have got the right area but the current owners of The Garden House don't know the full history of their land. I was just hoping I might be able to find someone who knew something about the local history of the area. I tried Macclesfield Library but the young ladt there was foreign and didn't seem to know a lot about the area. I'll just have to keep searching.
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: verity2 on Wednesday 16 February 11 18:47 GMT (UK)
Hi Pat13
Thomas Hammond,baptised 1748 Gawsworth,died 20/3/1828 ran a place caled Apollo Gardens or Gawsworth Gardens,north of Gawsworth near the Dale House.
Obituary of him in Macclesdfield Courier 22/3/1828 said"...many years proprietor of Gawsworth Gardens,near this town,.He was a very eccentric character,and will be long remembered for his representation of the Hermit,with which he usually entertained his visitors,and for his recitals of various addresses in that character"
One of his sons,another Thomas, was convicted of fraud and was transported to Australia for 7 years. He stayed there, made good,and I have been in touch with one of his descendants there. Hope this of some help. verity2
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Wednesday 16 February 11 20:47 GMT (UK)
Verity you are truly fantastic! I got a copy of the pamphlet from Australia and couldn't make sense of it, all about hermits and wild men. Now it all fits into place. I had found out the owner at the time was a Hammond but didn't get any further on him but if his son stayed in Australia that could explain the pamphlet being in an Australian library when there seemed to be no trace of a copy in England. Macclesfield Library couldn't help at all.
My Joseph Leah lived there on the 1851 census when, presumably, the gardens were long gone but maybe the house was left.
I was rather puzzled as the current owners said there were just two cottages on the site when they bought the place but from Joseph Leah's will he was obviously quite affluent and this didn't fit in with two small cottages. One day I'll find the whole story but your information has explained such a lot and I can't thank you enough.
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Birtle on Monday 28 March 11 17:40 BST (UK)
Hi Pat13,
From Joseph Leah's will I've just confirmed his place in my family tree, so your post about Gawsworth has become of some considerable interest to me! I don't know if it takes what you've found out much further, but the County series OS map 1:2500 of 1871 locates 'Gardens' (no more, no less) directly south of 'Brownels'; it's also thus named on an 1897 map. Both maps (though 1871 is a bit indistinct) seem to show nothing more than two buildings side by side, and they're small when compared to the footprints of those at Brownhills and Dalehouse. Gawsworth itself is due south of Gardens. I don't have access to any earlier maps.
Kind regards,
Birtle
PS I've just taken another squint at the 1871 map. It's possible that there was just the one property at the time, but its footprint is apparently identical to that in 1897. However, in 1897 there is clearly a line midway through indicating division into two dwellings.
Trounble is, in 1871 there is a plot number partially obscuring my (myopic) view. :)
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Tuesday 29 March 11 08:56 BST (UK)
Hello Birtles....nice to meet you! If you have a copy of Joseph's will you will see what I mean about him seeming quite affluent and not the sort to be living in a small cottage. I can only assume that at one time there was a substantial house there which was demolished at some time.Going through the census returns there are usually two or three families living at Gawsworth Gardens so there must have been more than one property there. We went to see the current house which was supposedly built to replace two cottages which had been on the site but looking through the front door the inside seemed to be a lot older. Unfortunately the present owners were not very forthcoming!
The Leahs were far from rich and I am wondering if the money came from Joseph's second wife.
Where do you fit into the Leah line?
Pat
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: carol8353 on Tuesday 29 March 11 09:28 BST (UK)
Try the Family History Society of Cheshire for Macc and Gawsworth info and their research rooms at Alderley Edge.

http://www.fhsc.org.uk/

Carol
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Birtle on Tuesday 29 March 11 14:43 BST (UK)
Hello Pat,
I know very little about Joseph Leah at the mo (let alone his ancestors) as I'd been red-herringed for ages by the 1851 census record for Mary and hubby James, in whose household was a 'niece' Ann Leah aged 16 etc etc. In taking that for gospel I just could not see where Mary fitted into any Leah family. But having at last splashed out on his will :P it's clear that she was his dtr. That then leads me to believe that Ann was her younger sister, and 'niece' in 1851 was an archaism for 'young sister-in-law' to James.
Quote
The Leahs were far from rich and I am wondering if the money came from Joseph's second wife
As for where the money came from, Mary and James were living in Pierce St in 1838 if not before, and I imagine they might have occupied one of Joseph's properties. If so, and if I'm not mistaken (?) that would be during the lifetime of his first wife. So perhaps he was a man of (some) property even then? But that's all speculation on my part.
Quote
Where do you fit into the Leah line
I'm descended from Joseph through the female side.
Kind regards,
Birtle
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Thursday 31 March 11 11:44 BST (UK)
I must admit I haven't done a lot of work on Joseph either as he isn't my direct line. I got more intrigued with the house actually and the mystery of where he got his money! I'll have to have a proper look at his family and see if it throws up any clues.
He is buried in Gawsworth churchyard with one of his daughters (forget which one, would have to look it up). I suppose there could be more people in the grave but they are the only ones on the headstone.
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Birtle on Thursday 31 March 11 14:23 BST (UK)
Maria (Nixon) is the dtr mentioned on the gravestone. Ann is probably bur in Buxton; Mary in Wilmslow. I'm still working on the others, now that i know which line of Leahs to concentrate on.
 :)
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Sunday 03 April 11 11:48 BST (UK)
I've just unearthed the file so that I can see where I was up to with it. I have his children and seem to have followed them through to 1901. Martin and his children I followed through to 1911 so I will bring the others up to date. Martin's children all seemed to move over to the other side of Manchester, apart from Ernest Albert who moved to Blackpool. Anyway I'm probably teling you stuff you already know.
Are you in the area?
Pat
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Monday 04 April 11 10:44 BST (UK)
Now that I have had a look through the file I see that the 1841 Tithe map distinctly shows a large building and two smaller ones.
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Birtle on Monday 04 April 11 15:10 BST (UK)
Greetings from Oxfordshire, Pat. I've just looked at the tithe map and again at the 19thc maps. My mistake, there are indeed 2 small separate structures to the south of the larger structure in the 1871 parish view map. What may have prompted me to discount them previously is that this 1871 map seems to locate the 2 small structures in a separately numbered plot from that for the main structure, whereas the tithe map - now I've come to look at it -  lumps all three structures together within the one plot. The 1897 parish view map shows only the main structure (bisected with a line apparently indicating division into two properties) and just one small structure to its south; again they are located in differently numbered plots.
A shire map from the early 1880s also seems to show only 1 small structure (ie in addition to the large one), so presumably the other disappeared late 1870s-early1880s. Later maps confirm that only one of the smaller structures remained, and this seems possibly to have disappeared in the 1950s.
But what to make of Bryant's 1831 map which again seems to show the main structure divided in two, just as in 1897...  :-\
Btw (back to the tithe map and its apportionments) I see where you're coming from with regard to Joseph's perhaps coming into property through his second wife.
Birtle :)
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Pat13 on Monday 04 April 11 19:08 BST (UK)
Oxfordshire, right. I thought I may be telling you things that you were able to get to easier than I can.
Have you done any work on Joseph's second wife? I gather her maiden name was Clarke but don't know if she was a widow when she married Joseph or not. The only two marriages I can find are to a Mary Ann Webster 1849 and a Mary Ann Worthington 1848 but as they are both fairly common names it has been impossible to pinpoint either of those two women in 1841.
He was living in Broken Cross in 1841 but in Gawsworth Gardens by 1851 so things must have improved in that period....was this his second marriage or not. He may have lived in a large house in 1841, no way of tellingI was always rather peeved that the only person in the Leah family who seemed to have any assets didn't ensure the assets stayed in the family and when Mary Ann died she left everything to her own family, no mention of any Leahs in her will. However if it was her money in the first place then that would exonerate her a little!
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: Birtle on Monday 04 April 11 21:05 BST (UK)
Yeah, Oxfordshire's not at all handy for Cheshire or - for that matter - any of my other ancestors' stomping grounds!
Like you I dither between Webster and Worthington, though it seems to me significant from the tithe map apportionments  that a Mary Webster is occupying the GG plot... But, other than drawing a blank in the 1841 census,  I hadn't got any further along that track.
POSTSCRIPT Yes, her will identifies her brother as a Clarke, and LancsBMD indicates that a Joseph Leah m. Mary Webster/Clarke in 1849. Though if she was a widow...?
Title: Re: GAWSWORTH
Post by: marychap on Tuesday 20 February 24 10:06 GMT (UK)
I'm writing a book about the family of Chinese American author Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far) and her grandfather Edward Eaton and his wife Ellen McDonnell and her father Edward Jr and his siblings are “visitors” at Gawsworth Cottage (in the 1851 census). Others on the census are Joseph Leah 58 farmer, wife Mary Ann Leah 42 and daughter. I think THEY live at Gawsworth Farm and the Eatons are listed as living at "Gawsworth Cottage" or "Gawsworth Gardens"...Have you discovered more about them since you last posted?