Holly Bank Eversholt

 
Holly Bank September 2016

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 found that it was owned and occupied by G J Inns. The house (“double-front villa-type” according to the valuer) contained two living rooms, a kitchen, a scullery and four bedrooms. Outside were a wood barn and earth closet, a garden and a small orchard as well as a hay shed, two stables, a calf shed and an implement house. Inns also had a 2.427 acres grass field adjoining the property.

There was also a weather-boarded and tiled blacksmith’s shop and forge. Kelly’s Directory for 1924 and for 1928 gives the blacksmith at Witts End as being Ernest Biles, so he presumably leased the blacksmith’s shop and forge from Inns, an arrangement not picked up by the valuer.

Holly Bank was for sale in 2009. The particulars [Z449/4/38] list, on the ground floor: an entrance porch; a snug; a dining room; a sitting room; a garden room; a breakfast room; a kitchen; a cloakroom and a rear lobby. On the first floor were two bathrooms and four bedrooms with an en-suite bedroom on the second floor. There was also an annexe comprising a sitting room, kitchen and en-suite bedroom. This description of the main part of the house shows that it must have been considerably extended and altered since the 1920s.