Pullins Green

1841 Tithe Map - Plot 319

The houses that became 15 to 25 Pullins Green were built on the land shown as Plot 319 on the Tithe map of 1841.  In 1841 this piece of land was described as a garden used by John Screen and owned by Hector Maclaine.

The deeds of Crispin House contain a description of the land in 1773 which partially explains the interesting shape of the plot. The deeds say that the gardens of  the houses in Crispin Lane (formerly Mutton Lane) - 227, 228 and 229 on this plan - are adjoining  a paddock or close owned by William Osborne and by a lane leading to that close.  The narrow strip at the top right hand corner of 319 used to be a lane.

Hector Maclaine seems to have been an interesting man, as can be seen by the monumental Inscription in St Mary's Churchyard, which describes in detail his military career in the Peninsula War, North America and in France. Hector Maclaine was a considerable landowner originally from the Isle of Mull, who lived at Kington, where his wife Martha, the daughter of William Osborne, was brought up.  Although Hector owned Kyneton House, we have been shown notes found in Thornbury Museum which explain that he had a "town house" on the Plain in premises which eventually became Dorothy Gubbins' sweet shop.  This house at that time apparently extended to the corner of the Plain and the High St where the florist shop is now.  A town house was presumably necessary because of the state of the muddy roads in winter.

Martha Maclaine died in 1841 and Hector died a few years later in 1847 aged 62.

Ownership of the land then apparently passed to their son William Osborne Maclaine.  The deeds of 19 Pullins Green show that it was he who sold the land to George Hodges on April 9th 1860 for the sum of £200.

The document says that houses and outhouses and fences were "assured or intended so to be belonging or appertaining " to this plot.  As there were no buildings on the land, we have taken this to mean that the land was bought with the intention of building the said houses and outhouses.  However,  it is not clear from the  1871 Census whether all the houses had yet been built. There could well have been two houses, one empty and one occupied by Elizabeth Hawkins a stay maker and her family, and there may have been more houses.  At this point it is not until the 1881 census that we can be sure that all the houses were built and inhabited.  We will continue to look for more information.

This page was last updated: 25/03/2008