St John Street

Number 4 - The Bakers

The house once known as number 4 St John Street has long since gone, having been demolished in the late 1970's to make way for Quaker Court sheltered housing complex.  We have two photos of the house being demolished taken by Nick Large who kindly gave us permission to use them: click on the thumbnails to see a larger image.

In the absence of any deeds, we are not sure when the house was built and know very little about its early history.  We know from the 1840 Tithe survey that there was a dwelling on the site owned by Thomas Osborne Wetmore and occupied by Jeremiah Price.  When the property was put up for sale at auction in 1859 it was described as : 'All that substantially built freehold dwelling house with the courtyard behind the same situated on the south-west side of St John Street in the town of Thornbury and now in the occupation of Aaron Tidman.  The above house comprised two front sitting rooms, kitchen and back kitchen, five bedrooms and a good cellar'.  From the wording of the advertisement it would appear that the owner of the property at the time was John Crowther Gwynn.

The Rate Books of 1876 and 1880 show that J C Gwynn owned the property.  At that period it was described as a house and yard.  The property was rented to George Thomas who in the 1877 Trade directory was a baker.  The 1861 census shows that George Thomas was living in St John Street and operating as a baker at that time.  Thus it would appear that he was the first baker to operate from the premises which continued as a baker for over 100 years.

By 1885 the owners of the property were described as the "Trustees of the late J C Gwynn".  This continued until 1899 when the owner becomes Thomas English who also occupied the property at that time.

  Click here to read more about the occupants 

 This page was last updated: 19/04/2010