Ewelme Terrace South Mills

Ewelme Terrace October 2009

Ewelme 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. Ewelme Terrace looks similar to Chalton Terrace which adjoins it to the south. Ewelme Terrace, however, is thirty six years younger, having been built, according to a date on the exterior, in 1904.

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/C208/5-10] 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 40 to 50 Blunham Road. The valuer noted that each dwelling comprised a parlour, living room and scullery downstairs with three bedrooms above and a washhouse outside. Each house stood in around 0.175 of an acre. The valuer commented: "Well Built Terrace. Good, Near Station". Water for each came from a tap in the yard. The individual occupiers, who had each paid 4/3 per week rent since 1920, were as follows:

• 40: W. Sims;
• 42: W. E. Pitts;
• 44: T.Lovell - who also had a wood and corrugated iron pigstye, calf box and hen roost, all described as "very poor" and his own property;
• 46: A. Buckle;
• 48: H. Jeeves;
• 50: W. Pitts.