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This tenement was originally created by the partition of what eventually became Stepney Farm. Two smaller tenements were created by the partition; the barn became The Royal Oak, the other this tenement. In common with other of these small tenements at the Cross and elsewhere, the dwellings served for a time as poor houses before returning to private ownership when they were purchased first by John Holroyd and later Ann Adams. Still consisting of three cottages and gardens in 1840 the site was developed with the construction of Gladstone Buildings by 1873. A whole series of small tenements gradually acquired by the Adams family at the cross made them significant landowners in the developing village. Some of the individual tenements are difficult to identify with certainty but the identification of the sites owned by the family on the tithe map is largely correct. William Adams was acting as executor of the will of Ann Adams in 1840 and the tithe commissioners recorded him as owner of several tenements which he held in that capacity at that precise moment. Most of those tenements were purchased from the estate by other members of the family shortly afterwards. Because of that anomaly the tithe apportionment and the manor court books often identify different owners. The family was influential in the parish. The patriarch John Adams was a miller. George was the landlord at the Royal Oak while Henry was the owner of the non-conformist chapel that was then situated at the Cross, while other sources reveal that Elizabeth Adams was a shop owner at Barcombe Cross in 1839. These tenements demonstrate the continual partition and occasional reunification of holdings that characterizes the developments at Barcombe Cross in the 18th and 19th centuries. Clearly the Adams family was influential in the development of the settlement that now forms the heart of the community. Some of their property was later purchased by the Grantham family and redeveloped. |
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