Crispin Lane

Number 2 - Crispin House

The Crispin House has a particularly interesting and varied history.  So far we  have found that at different stages of its life it has been a home to a shoemaker, used by a blacksmith who burned it to the ground,  an orchard called fittingly enough "The Burnt House Orchard", the new house built by the Hodges family, a pub called The Crispin or The Jolly Crispin and a laundry before it became home to the Fishers, and more recently the Blake's and the Harris's.

We are grateful to the present owners who let us see the deeds.  In the earliest deed dated 1683, the property is described as a 'messuage or tenement .... situate in the town or borough of Thornbury neare unto a place called or known by the name of St John's Crosse or neare unto as place where St John's Crosse heretofore stood, amounting in the whole to half a burgage."  A burgage was an area of land in a town consisting of a dwelling house or houses with gardens and lands attached.  

The reference to 'St John's Crosse' is significant in that implies that there was an ancient cross on or near Pullins Green and this was removed - most likely with living memory at the time that the deed was written.  It may have been destroyed because of the Puritan's rejection of such symbols, during or after the Civil War.  We hope to learn more about this.

The earliest document of these deeds refers to the fact that the property was owned by John Dymory and sold to Henry Yeeds on a date unspecified.  At Henry Yeed's death, the property was divided between his daughters and co-heiresses, Alice and Anne.  There is a record of Alice, now known as Alice French, paying rent of 6d for half a burgage in 1670.  This portion was eventually transferred to John French a shoemaker, Alice's son, and he subsequently bought out the half belonging to Anne and her husband, Thomas Aldridge.

In 1683 the property was sold by John French, shoemaker, to George Pearce, turner, for the sum of £38.  George was born in Olveston in 1659 and married Ann Gayner of Thornbury in 1680.  By the time he bought the property he had two children, Betty and George, and another child, Joshua, was born in 1683.  He did not live in the house long because he sold the house in 1684 to John Gayner, blacksmith of Thornbury, for £55 in a conveyance dated 28th July in the 36th year of the reign of Charles ll (1684). 

George had sold the property because he was emigrating  to America. He settled in Chester County, Pennsylvania.  The fact that his wife came from Thornbury seems to be the reason why the township where he settled became known as Thornbury, Pennsylvania.  George Pearce was a Quaker and during the reign of Charles II (1660-1685) 13,562 Quakers were imprisoned in England and 338 died in prison or were killed in the assaults on their meetings.  We don't know what particular event triggered his departure.  He bought a house only a year before so it may have been a fairly sudden decision. I don't know if it was a factor but William Penn returned to England in 1684 to negotiate with the English governor about the boundaries of Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Click here to read the next part of the story "The Burnt House Orchard."

This page was last updated: 03/08/2007