Cambridge Terrace

Another "Lost Road" near All Saints' Church - and a "lost" pub!

by Allan Palmer

There were 22 houses in Cambridge Terrace. By 1901 (the year before the first All Saints’ church was erected) there were 117 people listed as residents in the Census. This number shrank to 92 in 1911, rose to 107 in 1921 and reduced to 73 in 1939. Looking in more detail, in 1921 the largest household was that of Edward and Eva Bruce who shared their home with their 12 children (ages ranging from 1 year old to 19 years).

Another large household in 1921 is that of Selby Gouldstone. I was intrigued by this one because Selby’s birthplace is shown as Spitalfields in London, his wife (Mary) was born in Ireland, and their eldest son, Reuben’s place of birth is Rawalpindi, India. Some research into available records showed that Selby had enlisted in the 10th Royal Hussars in 1889 and served in various locations including Tipperary where he met and married his wife in 1894, in the Anglo-Boer campaign of 1899-1902, and subsequently in India where their son was born. Selby was discharged from the Army in 1916 after the completion of an extended term of service.

Nine members of the Attwood family lived at number 13 Cambridge Terrace in 1901 – nearly all of whom were employed in the tailoring industry.

In 1881, Cambridge Terrace was the home of George W Willis, a watchmaker and jeweller. It was his son (also George W) who was the driving force behind the establishment of a Basingstoke museum in 1931 in the Mechanics institute building, before it was relocated to the old Town Hall in Market Place in 1984.

Looking at the photograph, I wonder if it was actually taken on Southern Road, with the Foresters Arms on the corner of Cambridge Terrace. That street being the roadway that can be made out behind the sleeping dog on the pavement, while James Butler’s smithy is across Cambridge Terrace from the pub and facing onto Southern Road, where today 3 houses stand. The maps below may clarify this. 

The 1871 map shows Cambridge Terrace not yet fully built on, with open space on its corner with Southern Road. On the west side of this street is the outline of a building which would appear to be the location of James Butler’s smithy shown in the photograph above. At this time Oxford Terrace has not been built and the area on which All Saints’ Church will be built is empty. Comparing this map to the 1894 extract, it is seen that by that date the 9 original houses of Oxford Terrace have been built, as well as houses on Southern Road – three replacing what I believe to be the 1871 smithy, as well as others going east from the corner of Cambridge Terrace. The larger building at the bottom of that street being the Foresters Arms.

The Foresters Arms appears to have been in business from some point in the 1870s (based upon the date given for the photograph and the 1871 map), and James Butler, referred to in the photo’s caption, may have been its first licensee, hoping to supplement his income as a blacksmith. He appears to have died by the time of the 1881 Census as his wife, Sarah, is recorded as a widow and head of the household at the Foresters Arms – her occupation is given as “smith and beer house keeper”.

By late 1881, Sarah Butler had remarried and transferred the pub’s licence to her new husband, James Heath. In early 1882, the licence was transferred again when James and Sarah moved to the Cattle Market Inn. George Cook the new landlord of the Foresters Arms only stayed there until July 1883 when Richard Walters took over.  Richard was succeeded by his son, Charles, and between them they held the tenancy of the Foresters Arms for fifty-six years until Charles retired in late 1939. I have not been able to identify who took the tenancy after that. 

The colour photograph above (courtesy of Andrew Watten and his Basingstoke Wiki 1960s Photos Project) is from a collection dated in the 1960s. It shows a view looking west along Southern Road towards All Saints’ Church. On the right you can see a row of houses, now demolished. There appear to be two pub signs hanging from the last visible building. The line of sight of the photograph means that the 3 houses still standing today between Oxford and Cambridge Terraces cannot be seen.

I mentioned above that James Heath and Sarah Butler had moved to the Cattle Market Inn in 1882. This hostelry was built in the 1830s to serve dealers and drovers attending Basingstoke’s cattle market. Originally held in Market Place, the cattle market had by then moved to land east of the cricket ground. The pub was renamed in 1the 1950s as The Bounty, which still stands diagonally opposite All Saints’ Church at the junction of Southern Road, Victoria Street, Bounty Road and Council Road. On the “Friends of the Willis Museum” website (https://www.friendsofthewillis.org.uk) there is an article by Bob Clarke describing the early years of the Cattle Market/Bounty Inn, including what happened to James Heath.