Some more random notes regarding the Ford Family of Stone and Marble Masons - 18th Century Builders of Bath.

 

Very low resolution and almost unreadable image of a plan at Bath Record Office.

Showing the plots of the houses in Gay Street and the first houses to be built in the Circus.

..........................

William Ford, Stephen Ford.

https://historyofbath.org/images/ProceedingsPDFs/PROCEEDINGS%2007%202018-19.pdf

On 26 February 1755 Charles Hayne, a descendant and heir of Thomas Hayne, sold to Thomas Omer,Gentleman, and Thomas Jelly, carpenter, "All that close of meadow or pasture ground called the Winniards containing by estimate 5 acres being in the parish of Walcot and adjoining to the city of Bath". Omer and Jelly were among the leading developers of Georgian Bath, Omer the financier and Jelly the architect and builder.

Other parts of Winniards (Vinyards) were being laid out for building at this time in a rather piecemeal fashion. To the south on the same day, 21 December 1756, Omer and Jelly conveyed to John Hutchins of Bath, plasterer, the plot on which now stand 10 Vineyards and the houses behind. Hutchins in turn conveyed the plot to John Hensley of Bath, carpenter, on 25 September 1760. 

By that time the adjoining plot had been acquired by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. The Huntingdon Chapel was completed in 1765 as the home for her strict Methodist sect, the Connexion. 

By a deed of 26 February 1761, Omer and Jelly conveyed the 20 Vineyards plot to William Sainsbury and John Mann.

Omer and Jelly conveyed the plot containing 18 and 19 Vineyards to Biggs and Prynn by deeds of 16 and 17 April 1765. By a deed of 19 April 1765, Biggs and Prynn conveyed a plot extending "123 feet backwards towards the west" to two other Bath builders, John Hensley (who had built No.10) and William Davis, who then built the houses which are now 18 and 19 Vineyards and sold them to the Reverend Edward Sheppard (is this Dr Shepherd of Chatham Row).

The plots on which 1 to 6 Vineyards stand were conveyed on 22 February 1764 by Omer and Jelly to a number of builders:

• Henry Gibbs of Bath carpenter and James Allen of Bath baker

• John Latty of Bath carpenter and Richard Lingers of Bath mason.

• William Davis of Bath tyler and plasterer and Samuel Rundell of Bath barber.

• Jasper Davis of Bath painter and Samuel Rundell of Bath barber.

• William Ford of Bath mason and Stephen Ford of Bath master builder (5 & 6).

7 Vineyards must already have been built by then, as the builders were required to erect a 'good and substantial messuage in such a form as the tenement erected by Benjamin Chilton in the same row'. Chilton, a plumber, had the plot immediately to the north. 

The line dividing these plots from Belmont was marked by a trench cut in the ground.

These names and occupations speak of a great local entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone seems to have been getting in on the development act. We also see the same combination of artisan and financier as with Jelly and Omer.

13 and 15 Vineyards are similar in design. They were complete by about 1770, but curiously there was a 20' gap between them. In 1771 the Chronicle carried an advertisement by Mr Walter Bennett, who occupied No.13, offering his "well-built brick dwelling house" for sale together with a 20 foot plot "on which another house might be erected, having the walls on both sides, from the Roofing quite down to the Kitchen Floor, already built". The house and vacant plot were still being offered for sale in September 1774 but the space had been filled with a new house by 1779, cleverly linking the two earlier houses.