174 High Street Elstow

174 High Street February 2012

174 High Street was listed by the former Ministry of Public Buildings and Works in July 1964 as Grade II, of special interest. The house dates from the 16th century and is timber-framed and is rendered, partly in roughcast, partly in pebbledash. It has a clay tiled roof and comprises two storeys; the first storey is jettied, that is, it overhangs the ground floor. There is a two storey block at the rear

The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed to determine its rateable value. The valuer visiting the property [DV1/H48/4] found that it, like most of the parish, was owned by Lord of the Manor Samuel Howard Whitbread and was a house and smallholding.

The tenant was market gardener John William Usher. The rent for the house and garden was £20. The valuer commented that the smallholding was “very scattered”. It is unclear from the notebook what the extent of the holding was but at least seven acres seem to have been rented from Bedfordshire County Council at £3/17/6 per annum, the other land seems to have been 9 acres, 2 roods leased at £4 and 8 acres on Wilstead Road at £13. The later two pieces of land were presumably leased from Samuel Howard Whitbread. This makes a total of 24 acres, 2 roods and a total rent of £40/17/6 per annum with the house.

The house comprised a living room, a parlour, a kitchen, a scullery, a dairy and a pantry with five bedrooms upstairs and a privy outside. Drainage was to filter beds. The farm buildings comprised: a corn store, stable and barn; a two bay open hovel; a pig box and yard; a loose box and chaff barn; two fowl houses; two pig boxes and yards; a poultry house, two calf boxes; an onion loft; two loose boxes; a hen house; a trap house; a mixing place; a two bay trap and implement shelter; a lean-to implement shelter and a calf box in the rickyard.