Newark Rd before the 19th Century
Although there must have been a track leading over Beacon Hill to Newark from Coddington's foundation, one of the earliest references we know about is a 1615 indictment against the parish of Newark concerning the "Kingsway between Newark and Coddington" (reported in Hampton Copnall's Nottinghamshire county records , 17th Century). Curiously neither of the main Civil War Newark siegeplans shows this road.
According to 1964 survey of the siegeworks, the 17th Century road/track didn't have the distinctive dog-leg recorded on later maps at Catch-em Inn Corner. This was presumably introduced when the turnpike road was built from Mansfield to Sleaford. This road made a double bend, ran past the drive to Beaconfield House (the future Coddington Hall), up Brownlow's Hill to the junction of Balderton Lane, then along Main St until it veered right (by the Plough) towards Sleaford.
Aerial photo of Newark Rd - A1 area, taken around 1999 from getmapping.com (insert link}
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{If possible insert extract of Chapman?s Map} |
Chapman's 1774 map of Nottinghamshire shows the village about a decade after its medieval fields had been enclosed. There is a building at the double bend (which an 1835 map of Newark labels as "Catch-em Inn"). The only detail shown on Newark Rd is this building and a milestone, Beaconfield House/Hall, its farm and tracks are absent or not marked. The Church and village buildings are shown strung along Main St from the junction of Balderton Lane to Drove Lane corner, perhaps a schematic rather than an accurate plan of individual buildings.
One of the earliest owners of land in the area was Mr William Bell, who in 1698 left his daughter Mary Taylor (and granddaughter Elizabeth Birkitts of Balderton) a farm with croft, land, meadows and five cottages (three ancient and two new). He also left a bequest that £2 should be paid annually out of land on Beacon Field to the poor of Coddington, a sum still being paid by the owners of the land as late as 1950. Another charitable bequest to the village was that Joseph Birche, who in 1738 left his 98 acre farm to the village poor the twelfth largest holding in the village enclosure award of 1762.
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{insert portion of the enclosure award map} |
The field boundaries existing today are largely those of 1762 enclosure award. Although we don't have the original enclosure map, someone has copied the holdings on to the 1900 Ordinance Survey Map either from the award descriptions or from the lost map. A large parcel of land north of Newark road (Beaconfields, where the hall once stood) was held freehold by Thomas and Elizabeth Heron - who had both sold their holdings by 1780. The fields south were held by a number of people, and a large field near the first corner of the double bend was held freehold by Christopher Neville Snr.
The Beaconfield holdings may have been bought in the 1780s by the Colclough family. We don't know when a large house was first built there. A memorial in the bell tower of the church records the deaths of Charles Colclough's son Sampson Christopher Colclough late of Beaconfield in this parish who died 7th September 1805 aged 46 years and that of Sampson's wife Ann in 1804. It also lists the names of their children: -They left issue Caesar Christopher, Captn in the 82d Regiment, John in the Royal Navy, Mary Anne, Gladwyn Sampson Christopher and Catherine.
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{possibly insert fragment of 1820s landholdings survey from Vernon's photocopy} |
There was a survey for rating of Coddington in the 1820s which gives landholdings and mentions the land on which the Catch-em Inn then stood. At some time Beaconfields passed into the hands of Thomas and James Fisher, but they seem to have rented the house out. Thomas Spragging Godfrey was living there in 1832 (a stone in the floor of Coddington church commemorates the earlier death of his wife Jane on 6.7.1827 aged 23). A partner in Newark Bank and Mayor in 1936, he was probably renting Beaconfield Hall whilst building Balderton New Hall which was completed in 1840.
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The story continues in:
Victorian Times, The Thorpes and a New Parsonage
An 1885 Saunter along Newark Rd
1918 Estate Sale - Newark Rd Lots
Newark Rd after the 1918 Estate Sale