13 Bedford Road Aspley Guise

Bedford Road looking west from Number 15 [Z1306/3a/9/4]

Today 13 Bedford Road is called Ashton House and is a private residence. It has not always been so. The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed as to its rateable value. Aspley Guise was assessed in 1927. The valuer visiting 13 Bedford Road discovered that it was owned and occupied by butcher Frederick Denton [DV1/C138/46]. The valuer noted: "Was rented some years before war at £21 rent".

The brick and tiled detached premises comprised a shop measuring 12 feet by 13 feet, two living rooms measuring 11 feet 6 inches by 10 feet and 16 feet by 11 feet 6 inches respectively, a kitchen measuring 13 feet 6 inches by 12 feet and a scullery with four bedrooms and a bathroom above. Outside stood a brick and tile range comprising a slaughter house, fasting pen, stable for two horses and hovel along with a timber and corrugated iron cow house for six beasts and a brick and tile range comprising a stable, coach house and coal barn.

The valuer noted that mains water and drainage were laid on and that the premises was gas lit. The 1871, 1881 and 1891 censuses suggest that the property was then a butcher's shop and occupied by John Watkins Steers, who came originally from Woburn. He is last listed in a directory in Kelly's Directory for Bedfordshire of 1898. Frederick Denton is first listed as a butcher in Aspley Guise in Kelly's Directory for Bedfordshire of 1914. He was still listed in the last Kelly's for the county of 1940. The property was still a butcher's shop in the 1970s, though then owned by a family named Matthewson.

13 Bedford Road July 2010