Chalton Terrace South Mills

Chalton Terrace October 2009

Chalton Terrace stands in Blunham Road between the junctions with Station Road, Blunham, to the west and The Ridgeway to the east and closer to South Mills than to the village of Chalton. Chalton Terrace looks similar to Ewelme Terrace which adjoins it to the north. Chalton Terrace, however, is thirty six years older, having been built, according to a date on the exterior, in 1868 and the houses are smaller than those in Ewelme Terrace.

The Rating and Valuation Act of 1925 specified that every piece of land and building in the country had to be assessed to determine the rates to be paid on it. Mogerhanger, Chalton and South Mills were valued in 1927 and the valuer visiting Ewelme Terrace [DV1/C208/11-16] discovered that it was owned by Beeson Brothers, the fertilizer manufacturers and horse slaughterers who operated South Mills. It seems a reasonable bet that the terrace was built for the mill workers and probably still housed a good number of them.

The terrace is numbered, west to east, as 52 to 62 Blunham Road. The valuer noted that each dwelling comprised a parlour and living room downstairs with two bedrooms above and a washhouse outside. Each house stood in around 0.125 of an acre. The valuer commented: "Well Built. Near Station". Water for each came from a tap in the yard. The individual occupiers, who had each paid three shillings per week rent since 1920, were as follows:

• 52: A. Hall who also had a barn ("tenant's erection"!);
• 54: Mrs. E. Breed, who also had a hen roost she had erected herself;
• 56: H. Pitts, who also had a timber and corrugated iron barn, two pigstyes and stable for one horse, which were his own property;
• 58: Walter Pitts: who also had eight timber and corrugated iron pigstyes and a barn of his own;
• 60: Mrs. K. M. Barker;
• 62: G. H. Pitts.