The History of Portland, Cranworth and Windsor Houses

Portland, Cranworth and Windsor Houses are all currently occupied by Newmarket Open Door and form part of a range of buildings in the High Street on the western approaches to the town. Their origins date back at least to the mid eighteenth century and stand in St. Mary’s parish, on the Suffolk side of what was once the county boundary with Cambridgeshire. All three are protected as Grade II listed buildings and situated in the Newmarket Town Conservation Area. The individual entries are recorded in the appendix. The buildings are themselves evidence of an historic past but it is people who develop property and communities that create places. Research into the owners and occupiers, their family structure and occupations provides a fuller comprehension of the current built form. All three houses have their own individual history but they are part of a range, with some surprising connections, in the high street of a market town with national recognition as the home of horse racing.

Portland House
The first evidence of a structure on this site is the illustration on the 1768 map of Newmarket by John Chapman. This indicates that the building’s origin may be older than the nineteenth century as given in the listing.	Newmarket - 1787 (click to enlarge)
The Enclosure Award of 1821 is the earliest record relating to the occupants: Albertus Pars Junior owned Portland House and his namesake Albertus Pars, presumably his father, owned Cranworth House next door. Little is known of the Pars family at the time of occupation but by 1841 Albertus Pars junior was the keeper of the Jockey Club Rooms in the High Street and he was listed at the ‘News room’ in the local trade directories. In 1851 he and his family were living with his daughter, innkeeper of the Bull at Barton Mills and he died in 1860. His widow eventually moved to live in Exning until her death in 1881 aged 93.
By the time of the 1841 census a carpenter aged 40, James Hammond was residing at Portland with his wife Letitia and infant son Francis. James and his descendants were to remain there until 1973.
James Hammond was originally from Mildenhall, the son of Francis Hammond, himself a carpenter. James was served a maintenance order in 1826 for an illegitimate child but in1831 a warrant was issued for his apprehension in Newmarket for non-payment. He was an executor at the death of his father in 1851, one of the beneficiaries being his sister, Clemence Hammond. She is registered in the census of the same year as a nurse for the nine-month-old daughter of a Robert Bryant, maltster, who may have been recorded as an owner of Portland House.
Unfortunately the 1851 census for Newmarket St. Mary has been lost but by 1861 James Hammond described himself as a Master Carpenter employing 3 men including his son Francis, a carpenter journeyman. Francis married in 1864 and moved out to live at no. 11 Bath Terrace, Exning Road in 1871. Ten years later he had moved to no. 6 but by 1883 with the death of his father at over 80 years of age he inherited the business. He moved back into his family home, describing himself as a carpenter, joiner and undertaker. The 1891 census records his wife and three children, including the eldest son, Francis Ernest who was already working alongside his father.
The building that James Hammond first occupied by 1841 was probably quite different to the Portland House of today. The 1768 map clearly show a break in what is now a terrace with Cranworth House. By the time of the 1886 Ordnance Survey the gap had been eliminated with the creation of the covered entranceway with two floors above. Further clues are revealed in the changes in exterior brickwork, differing roofs and a rearranged front door as evidenced by a new step cut into the old and the once external wall now in the lobby. The main interior feature of the house is the fine plaster ceiling in the ground floor room that also dates from this period. The second feature is the staircase, currently hidden by the stud walling, a requirement for fire regulation at the time of the conversion in 1998. This woodwork is almost certainly a product of the Hammond’s own labours.
The reconstruction and enlargement at the end of the nineteenth century was a common characteristic of Newmarket at this period. For over a hundred years Portland House had stood on the outskirts of the town with only two or three houses and stables between it and open countryside. There was now a number of new buildings to the street frontage as well as the addition of new stories.
The house frontage is of stuccoed walls and it is possible that this hides an extensive reconstruction, as with so many other Newmarket town houses that were given additional floors. Certainly from James Hammond’s household size there was only ever one child and one residential servant so they would not have required a large property. Not until the arrival of Francis Hammond and his four children by 1883 would there have been pressure on accommodation that may have promoted the remodelling.
Furthermore, there may have been two residences on the site or the house may have been sub-divided. The 1841 census reveals that in the sequence of dwellings there was another household between the Hammonds’ dwelling and what is now Cranworth House. The occupier was Eliza Pavis, a 28-year-old widower of independent means with her two young children with one servant. Further evidence comes in a mortgage deed of 1898 when Francis Hammond borrowed £700, perhaps for the remodelling at the turn of the century and the purchase of adjacent land to the rear. This described Portland House as ‘formerly in occupation of Arthur Pavis and Eliza Pavis afterwards of Robert Bryant and now and for many years past the said Francis Hammond’. Arthur Pavis died in 1838 and Eliza moved away and became a housekeeper in London. Robert Bryant may have been one of two people; a maltster of some scale who employed 23 men or a banker living at Rockingham House in the High Street. This evidence is hearsay from a third party fifty to sixty years after the event so there may be some inaccuracies and there is no record of either Bryant living on site.	High Street - 1909
Francis Hammond took out the mortgage with Emily Blanche Hammond, the spinster head of the banking family of the same name. There is no evidence of any family connection. At Emily Hammond’s death in 1930 the mortgage was finally repaid.
Francis died in 1921 and bequeathed the business to his son and daughter Francis Ernest Hammond and Martha Helen Hammond. Francis Ernest died in 1934. Martha bought out her sister Letitia in 1935, and her brother Edwin James Hammond died in 1946 leaving a one sixth share to his daughter Edwina Nesta Hammond. Martha Helen Hammond died in 1952 leaving her share to Edwina, who had married a local accountant Andrew Dutton in 1948. It was Edwina who was the last Hammond to leave Portland House in 1973 when it was sold over one hundred and thirty two years after James Hammond first crossed the threshold.
After the cessation of the Hammond family involvement in Portland House the property passed through several owners who made a number of internal and external alterations. Maceyre Ltd who bought Portland House for £14,750 in 1973 sold to an antique dealer four years later for £6,000. It is possible that they also sold off Cranworth House and the rear plot separately for the creation of the restaurant car park. The property further changed hands again in 1979 for £19,000 and £54,000 in 1986. Planning approval was given to use the front living room for the sale of antiques but this expressly omitted a shop front. Failed attempts were also made to convert to office, guesthouse and use the kitchen roof for a sitting area.
Portland House was probably of mixed residential and business use for most of its life although there were premises off site. In 1886 Francis Hammond had leased what became known as Hammonds Workshops from the Queensbury Estate across the High Street and this was followed with the right to use a footpath almost opposite the house for £1 per year. In 1905 a conveyance records that Francis Hammond purchased part of the site of the Black Bear Inn (now the Fountain restaurant) from the Star Brewery, Cambridge. The exact area of the site is a little uncertain but it included land to the rear of the neighbouring Windsor and Cranworth Houses and by 1911 Francis Hammond was recorded as the owner of the latter.
Various outbuildings, including stables, were subsequently reconstructed to the rear of Portland with extensions to the rear of the house. The back has since been extensively remodelled by the removal of much of the rear building as evidenced by the chopping of the bricks on the corners during the construction of a gable end.
In 1997 a Churches Together initiative, ‘Building Bridges’ was searching for a house to provide supported accommodation for the young homeless. The wife of a local pastor, Kevan Crane, spotted what was then a fourteen-bedroom house in a rundown condition that had been on the market for over a year. With the support of Forest Heath District Council through a Social Housing Grant ownership was passed to Suffolk Housing Society who undertook the conversion. The newly formed charity and company, Newmarket Open Door, were appointed the managing agents. The purchase price was £130,000 with conversion costs of £122,000.
The name of Portland House was first recorded in the 1891 census. At the time of the sale to Suffolk Housing Society in 1997 it was conjectured that this was a town house named after its owner, Lord Portland, who was said to have used it for visits to Newmarket Races. Edward VII was believed to have dined regularly as a guest of Lord Portland for the playing of cards in the company of Lily Langtree. Charming though this story is there has probably been some confusion with another residence with a similar name. It is also unlikely that a member of the royal family would have consorted with his mistress in the house of a carpenter and undertaker.

Cranworth House
Cranworth House is a Grade II listed building and described as a nineteenth century structure concealing a probable eighteenth century core. As with Portland House, a building is present on the Chapman map of Newmarket of 1768 and this is likely to be an accurate portrayal of the building footprint of the current historic frontage along with Windsor House and the eighteenth century Black Bear Inn on the corner which was replaced at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Black Bear Public House - c1910	The Enclosure Award of 1821 denotes Albertus Pars as the owner, presumably, as stated earlier, the father of the owner of Portland House. No further records have been discovered to date.
	The 1841 census records the occupier as Christopher Stephenson, training groom, his wife Mary, who he married in 1820 and four children aged between 12 and 20. This was probably no more than a two up two down cottage, which at that time held six people. At the rear of the house were stables that according to Chapman’s Map trained the horses of Mr Stamford. Two other Stephensons also operated as training grooms on the other side of Portland House from a yard where a Mr. Adams had kept his horses in 1768. Matthew Stephenson lived in one dwelling with ten stable lads next door to Robert Matthew Stephenson with his wife Mary and two relatives. This yard still operates today.
No records exist for the 1851 census as it was lost some years ago but by 1861 Charles the eldest son of Christopher Stephenson occupied the house with his wife, three children and one servant. Charles had become a Master Baker, employing one man and one boy and operated the bakery from outbuildings at the rear. His own son, also named Charles, followed his father into the business but he had left by 1881 to start a family and run the Carpenters Arms in Lower Station Road. Two years later in 1893 Charles died but his wife Eliza continued with the support of her son-in-law, William Leivermore, breadmaker and baker, and daughter Alice. Her younger son Henry, a horse dealer, also came to live at home. She died in 1901 aged 71 but the business was still listed in the trade directories until 1904. However, by the time of the Land Values Duties Register in 1911 the Stephenson family had made way for W D Beer occupying what was still listed as a house and bakery. The only connecting record relates to a William D Beer living at Upper Station Road in 1901 and working with his two sons as carvers and gilders.
The Register also reveals the owner – F E Hammond, perhaps Francis Ernest Hammond. As noted previously, a Francis Hammond had purchased land from the Black Bear Inn to the rear of the site that would appear to include the rear of Cranworth and possibly Windsor. The accompanying plan show that what was considered to be Portland House abutted the Black Bear Inn. This may have been a scribe’s error but may also show the extent of the Hammond family holdings.
Newmarket High Street - 1926 (click to enlarge)	Unfortunately later records have yet to be discovered and the property deeds are no longer in existence. What was once a small eighteenth century terraced cottage had once stood on a larger site and the rear yard had contained a number of buildings associated with the bakery. These were illustrated on the Ordnance Survey Maps of 1886, 1901 and 1927. However, the rear boundary was realigned at sometime similar to that of neighbouring Windsor House, perhaps with the creation of a car park for the corner restaurant, reuniting the former Black Bear with land sold in 1905. All traces of the bakery have been removed.
	In 1984 planning approved the conversion from residential to office use and three years later a rear extension. Hereward Housing Association purchased Cranworth ten years later from a racing blood stock company for use as a neighbourhood office. Planning approval was given for internal and external alterations to create an open plan office on the first floor with an office and reception at ground floor level. By 2004 Hereward found that the offices were surplus to requirements and moved the function to Ely. Open Door moved in on a temporary licence pending the completion of negotiations over the future of the house.
	The name Cranworth has no definitive origin but there may have been an association with racing. The first record to date of the name is in the 1937 Tindall’s Directory for Newmarket, listing ‘Cranworth’ (without the term house), with Mrs Harriet Taylor as the occupier.

Windsor House
Windsor House is a Grade II listed building and described as early 19th century painted brick on a rendered plinth. However, a structure is shown on site on Chapman’s map of Newmarket of 1768. The name of Windsor first appears on the 1911 Land Values Duties Register and therefore precludes any royal connections, as the monarch did not change the family name until the First World War.
For nearly one hundred years, throughout most of the nineteenth century, the house was in the ownership of another Hammond family, the bankers. The name of Charles Hammond Esq. records the owner on the Enclosure Award of 1821. The 1911 Land Values Duties Register registers another C. Hammond as the owner. Charles Hammond, probably the son of the owner, lived at his bank on the High Street next to the ‘Bull. Later in the century the firm adopted the name of Hammond & Co – the Newmarket Bank to illustrate their local origins over Foster’s Bank nearby which originated from Cambridge. The bank later became part of Barclays. Although they had the same surname as the owners of Portland House it is very unlikely that they were closely related; as tradesmen the other Hammonds were of a different social strata and originated in Mildenhall. The banking Hammonds were from Newmarket and even had their own footman!
The 1841 census records the occupier to be an Ebenezer Frost with Elizabeth Taylor aged 15. Unfortunately this is the only census that does not give family relationships and little else is known.
By 1861 the occupier was Richard Arber, stonemason journeyman, with his wife and two children and they were still resident in 1871. Richard’s father, Philip Arber, himself a stonemason, had also run the White Lion from at least 1839 to 1855. This was situated just along the High Street on the outskirts of the town where a pub of the same name still stands today.
Evidence of commercial activity at Windsor House is not conclusive. There were out buildings that extended over a larger area than the present garden into what is now a restaurant car park but the trade directories only give Richard Arber’s address as the High Street, which probably pertained to his father’s stone yard next to the White Lion. In 1871 Richard Arber described himself as a mason and builder and his eldest son at aged 15 was described as an architect. Richard and his wife Anna were now living with nine children and two servants in what was a relatively small three-storey house. By 1881 he had moved back to his childhood home after the death of his father Philip, and he continued to run the business until his own death in 1896. However, he didn’t take all his family with him as three of the children went to live with their uncle, Thomas Stephenson, a retired trainer and widower living next door but one to Portland House.	High Street at corner of Black Bear Lane - c1985
Changes in occupiers were thereafter more frequent. By 1881 John White, retired at the age of 70 from the Black Bear Inn next door and moved into Windsor House with a housekeeper and her two children. In 1891 George Cooper, writer and grainer, occupied the house with his wife and three children. Like many others in our three houses, he was also self-employed as he had an entry in Tindall’s 1891 directory as a painter etc. His own son was apprenticed to a plumber, the trade of his Isleham grandfather along with glazier and beer seller.
By 1901 the house was occupied by Robert Pettit, a bank clerk. His grandfather was a racehorse trainer and his father, also Robert, a jockey. He had made sufficient from racing for his widow to live on an annuity and reside at Cornwell House next to All Saints Passage. It would be a reasonable speculation that Robert worked at the bank of his landlord, C Hammond. He was unmarried and shared Windsor House with his sister-in-law, Alice Bartholomew and her two children.
By 1911 yet another change of occupier had occurred with the entry of a Miss Channel in the Land Values Duties Register. Little will be known of this lady until the release of the 1911 census although the 1901 reveals a Benjamin Chennell, a retired brewer at Foley House, Newmarket, with two spinster daughters.
Later records are patchier as the property deeds have been lost. However, the Tindall’s 1937 Newmarket Directory reveals an advertisement for the Newmarket Transport Co run by James Foreman at Windsor House (Tel: 528).
In the nineteen eighties the rear of the house was extensively remodelled by the then owner Mrs Scrivens, with the removal of a single storey structure and its replacement with a new ground-floor lounge with bathroom above. However, the interior of the house does reveal its original construction with exposed beams across the kitchen and brick fireplace. The conversion to office use of two ground floor rooms in 1989 involved little or no construction work and it was soon returned to residential use. After the property changed hands a number of times Newmarket Open Door was fortunate to be in a position to purchase in November 2005.	High Street Terrace End
One final record relates to elections. In 1868 the newly enfranchised voters of this section of the High Street, namely Francis Hammond, James Hammond, John Holmes (retired master butcher of Wallis House, next to Portland), Charles Stephenson, Robert Stephenson and Richard Arbon, all independent tradesmen, all voted Conservative!
Like its counterparts in Cranworth and Portland, apart from speculative racing connections the origin of the name of Windsor House is also obscure. It was first recorded in the Land Values Duty Register of 1911.

Appendix

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