73 Hillfoot Road Shillington

73 Hillfoot Road July 2015

73 Hillfoot Road used to be a bakery. 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 [DV1/C74/49] found the owner-occupier was Mrs G Ashton and the property no longer a bakery. Her accommodation comprised a living room, a kitchen, a scullery, a small room ("was shop") and four bedrooms. Outside were a washhouse, a wood and corrugated iron shed, two piggeries, three loose boxes, a wood and tiled cart shed, a wood and slate granary, a stable and a barn as well as the bakehouse and oven, which had a capacity of ten bushels.

The Ashtons were a prolific family of bakers. Directories for Bedfordshire were not published every year but every few years from the early to mid-19th century until 1940. The following Ashtons are listed as bakers in Shillington, sadly no addresses are given for any entries:

• James Ashton: 1877, 1885, 1890;
• John Ashton: 1877, 1885, 1894, 1898, 1903, 1906;
• Thomas Ashton: 1877, 1885;
• William Ashton: 1885, 1890, 1894, 1898, 1903;
• Arthur Ashton: 1894;
• William James Ashton: 1910, 1914;
• Alfred Ashton: 1910, 1914;
• Mrs Alfred Ashton: 1920;
• Ernest Arthur Ashton: 1920, 1924, 1928, 1931, 1936, 1940.