23 Park Lane, Henlow
Information taken from CRT130HEN9: Notes re. 23 Park Lane and property near the vicarage and catalogue listing of documents relating to Henlow.
In 1807, a piece of land with a frontage to Back Lane was bought by the parish of Henlow 'to be used for the lodging, keeping and employing of all such poor people as should require relief'. When this land was no longer needed, it was sold off in small parcels and John Ell acquired 15 1/2 perches in 1874 for £50 and sold it the next year to William Charles Bygraves, a builder of Clifton, for £58. One of the articles of agreement on the sale was that no chapel or other place of worship was to be erected on the land, without John Ell's consent.
William Charles Bygraves immediately started building on the land and borrowed £100 from Mrs Eliza Lambert, a widow of Silsoe, in May 1975 on the security of the land and buildings in the course of erection. However, he managed to pay off the loan very quickly and to sell the land with 2 cottages on it, to John Dear on 9th November 1875, for the sum of £165.
In October 1876 John Dear borrowed £250 from John Gurney, a farmer of Henlow and offered as security the 2 cottages built on the 15 1/2 percges land, and also a cottage built on part of some land left him by William Payne in 1863 (and the building of which cottage he had financed by loans from the 3rd East Bedfordshire Benefit Building Society).
In 1882 John Dear mortgaged one of his cottages to William Payne (presumably a descendant of the William Payne who left him land in 1863) to secure a further £110.
The mortgage for £250 was transferred in 1895 to Joseph Spufford of Meppershall and secured on both the freehold land (15 1/2p) and the cottages built on it, and also on John Dear's copyhold cottage. He seems to have defaulted on this mortgage because in 1902, Joseph Spufford's executor sold the 15 1/2p and the 2 cottages erected on it, to Elizabeth Payne Cooper, the wife of George Cooper, of Manor Farm, Henlow.
On Mrs Cooper's death in 1905 the property passed to her husband, and on his death, which occurred in 1930, to his daughter Florence Elizabeth Cooper. He had erected a cottage on the land which was sold in 1935 to Minnie Legate for £120 [13 Park Lane]. Mrs Legate had also bought the next door cottages (nos. 15 and 17] from George Cooper, in 1926. 15 and 17 were sold off in 1958.
In 1964 Frederick Legate died and letters of administration of his estate were granted to his daughter, Mrs Joyce Marjorie Major.
In 1965 13 Park Lane was renumbered as 23. In the same year Mrs Major vested it to her children. In 1972 Martin Major sold [his share in ] the property to his sister.