St John Street
Number 21
No. 1 St John Street
No. 1A St John Street
No. 3 St John Street
No. 5 St John Street
No. 7 St John Street
No. 9 St John Street
No. 11 St John Street
No. 13 St John Street
No. 15 St John Street
No. 17 St John Street
No. 19 St John Street
No. 21 St John Street
No. 23 St John Street
No. 2 St John Street
No. 4 St John Street
No. 6 St John Street
No. 8 St John Street
Since 2001, 21 St John Street has been combined with number 19 to form one house and this is called 'Willow Cottage'. The above photographs show its present day appearance with new doors and windows, and how it looked in 1971 (without a porch over the front door).
We are fortunate to have found a bundle of deeds relating to this property in Thornbury Museum. These provide a very good history of the ownership of the property and refer to various tenants of the property which help us tie in with census and other records.
The house was built by James Withers around 1800. In 1796, James bought the garden ground on which he was to build the house and the adjoining house (later referred to as number 19 St John Street). Thomas Rolph, a major landowner in these parts of Thornbury, had sold the ground. This is confirmed in a later indenture dated 1812.
It is interesting to note that only two of the eleven owners of the house up until modern times ever lived in the house. It was mainly used as an investment for rental income. Thus we have two distinct histories of the house; the OWNERS and the OCCUPIERS. Click on each of these links to see the details of the various people associated with the house.
This page was last updated: 13/01/2008