A HISTORY OF CLAPHAM

BY

GEORGE COLE

The area of Gloucester, ( Kingsholm St Mary ) partly and colloquially known as Clapham can not be divorced from the ancient geographical and administrative district of Kingsholm. Briefly, Kingsholm was established by the Romans as their first base at Gloucester between A.D. 45 - A.D. 50 as a fortress to guard the river Severn and as a springboard for their campaigns in Wales by A.D. 100. The area was converted into a " colonia " for retired soldiers, Kingsholm became part of a large cemetrey and eventually included a " Royal Manor or Palace.

 

But leaping forward to the early 1800's we arrive at George Worral Counsel who was actually born on 6th July 1758 in the parish of Holy Trinity Gloucester. He was the son of Joshua Counsel surgeon of Gloucester and grandson of Joshua Counsel of Wells Someset.

 

G. W. Counsel was an attorney and also a local Historian. Robert Raikes editor of the Gloucester Journal records in his " The Gloucester New Guide 1802 " that Counsel was an attorney living in Lower West St. Gloucester. Although with regard to Counsel history of Gloucester written in 1829 the victoria history quotes that " Counsel's anxiety to stress the orderly and efficient government of the city and its favourable economic prospects presumably reflected that the fact that he was then its leading property developer ".

 

New building was prompted in part by the building of Worcester St. in 1822 as a new entrance for the Tewkesbury Rd. replacing the narrow Hare Lane. It was promoted by John Phillpots and carried out under the powers of the Tewkesbury Rd turnpike trustees. At the same period George Worral Counsel began laying out an estate of several hundred artisans houses on his land called Monk Leighton Grounds lying between Worcester St. the London Rd. and bounded by Alvin St. ( formerley Fete Lane/Onhyat Lane ).

 

The building up of Alvin St. Sherborne St. and Oxford St. was under way between 1823 and 1825 when a building slump temporarily halted the development and left many of the contractors in financial difficulties. Building began again by 1829 when Sweetbriar St. was underway. Columbia St. was begun in 1831 and Union St. in 1833. Most of the area was developed in plots by a variety of small contractors, plasterers,carpenters and blacksmiths. The area of course was one which Counsel had surveyed in archaeological observations looking for Roman and pre-roman artefacts and burials so it was an area he knew well.

 

Arthur Caustons map of Gloucester surveyed in 1843 records in the Hamlet of Kingsholm St. Mary Alvin St. Sweetbriar St. ( including the Kingsholm Foundry ), Columbia St. Sherborne St. Oxford St. Suffolk St. Promenade Villas, St Johns Villas a proposed site for a church ( St Marks ) and Wheelers Nursery. By 1835 the area adjacent to Sweetbriar St. was classified as the Least Sanitary District in the whole of Gloucester due to raw sewage and poor drainage which led to outbreaks of diseases notably Cholera when over a hundred people perished the city was in a poor state due to the sanitation problems and leading to the Smallpox epidemic in the late 1800's as recorded by Dr. Hadwen.

 

However, mention must be made of the Kingsholm Iron Foundry founded by Jackman Cooke and Butt eventually being taken over by John Michael Butt. Butt was the son of a soap boiler and he lived in the Bijou in Kingsholm Rd. The Foundry holds a unique position having been chosen by Anthony Trollope, the author and post office surveyor of the Western Districts to produce pillar boxes. The oldest pillar box on the UK mainland and which is still in service was cast in 1854 at Butts Kingsholm Foundry and is still receiving letters every day at Barns Cross in Dorset.

 

J. M. Butt cast nearly a hundred boxes at the Kingsholm Foundry which were sited throughout South West England only three ( but possibly a fourth ) now remain, Barnes Cross post office archives and in a private collection. Butt boxes were installed in Gloucester at the Magdalan Hospital in London Rd. and in Worcester St. at the junction of Alvin St. but now gone as is the Foundry now the site of Kingsholm School. Butt produced many items, railway wagons ( before the wagon works did ), guttering, down pipes, cellar and drain covers. ( Nearly 100 how now been discovered to date still in working order around Gloucester ).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Alvin Iron works ran along the site bi-secting S. W. Railway line and Alvin St. to as far as what is now the present site of the county archive office in Alvin St. and number 2 branch of the Co-operative Soc. in Alvin St. opened in 1884, still there but no longer a Co-op site. In 1874 H. S. Crump was producing wrought iron cattle and calf cribs, sheep racks and troughs, wheel barrows, water butts, sack trucks, tanks, cisterns, field and entrance gates, tomb railings, iron hurdles, fencing and galvanised corrugated iron roofs.

 

The area colloquially known as Clapham was of course re-developed in the 1950's with the eleven storey block named Clapham Court in 1963 but I wonder if the city fathers really knew what the name Clapham actually meant. My mother was born in Union St. in 1899 ( nee Drage ) but she never knew what Clapham really stood for.

 

The front gate of the Cemetry Grounds in Tredworth Rd Gloucester was made by H. S Crump approximately 100 hundred years ago today.

 

H. S. Crump's premises extended from London Rd ( by the Railway Bridge ) down to Clarence Row ( Alvin St. ) and what is now the Records Office but use to be Kingsholm School. 

 

 

 

   

 

 

The Alvin Street Iron Works

 

          ( H. S. Crump )