I recently spent a weekend in Winchester, and took the opportunity to try to solve a mystery in the life of Emilia Vincent, the subject of my first book. Emilia spent the first half of her long life in Westminster, and most of the second half in Reading, except for two short periods.
The reason for moving to Clevedon, Somerset, in about 1901, is easily deduced. Her one remaining brother, the Reverend Thomas Vincent, had retired there. Thomas had been an important support to her during the years of running her nursing home in Reading. Now that the last two of the seven original siblings were in their 80s, it's not surprising that they might want to spend some time together.
Shortly after Thomas died in March 1908, Emilia moved to Winchester, and this is where the mystery begins. She apparently did not intend to stay there; she stayed for long enough to write a codicil to her will, where her address is described as temporary. It seems that her plan was to return to Reading.
So why would a woman in her 80s, not in the best of health, decide to spend a few months of 1908 in Winchester?
That was the mystery I set out to solve, and the first task was to locate the house where she lived, using the only piece of evidence available; in 1908 she added a codicil to her will. It gave her address; 12 Highfield Villas, Saint Cross Road, and stated it to be temporary. The Saint Cross Road part was easy; it's still a major road that leads to (or from) the centre of Winchester. My AirBNB room was conveniently in that street, so all I had to do was walk along until I found --- no, there was more to it than that.
Although I had Emilia's address, at the time she lived there, most of the houses of Saint Cross Road had names. The Highfield Villas were a group of 16 numbered houses within Saint Cross Road. At some point in the intervening century the addresses of the Highfield Villas were merged into Saint Cross Road, and the houses now all have numbers.
Of course these days, one starts with an internet search and a stroll down the road on Google maps; and I can't emphasize enough that I could not have found the house without the preliminary internet research.
From the internet search, I found a helpful clue in an estate agent's listing; a house in Saint Cross Road was for sale, and the estate agent's detail mentioned that it was in a group of houses known as the Highfield Villas. From Google Streetview, I could get a visual impression - a handsome row of three-storey, semi-detached houses, quite distinctive looking. I already knew there were 16 villas; the next question was, which end to start counting from? There is a general principle that house numbering usually starts from the end nearer to the town centre. But that word USUALLY means not guaranteed.
From there, I paid a visit to the 1901 census, and the "Description of Enumeration District," a helpful document which I hoped would show which way the enumerator was walking. His name is also on that page - Mr. Albert Richard Roberts, thank you for your clear and neat writing! Mr. Roberts described the district of the Municipal Ward of St. John; and the West side of Saint Cross Road from Mr. Hutt's to Mr. Burnell's.
I printed out the census pages and took them with me on my walk down Saint Cross Road; hoping that at least some the houses there had not changed names in 124 years.
I didn't find Montrose, Mr. Hutt's house. Or the next house in the census, Glenlyn. But a few houses down, I was very excited to find Drayton Lodge, which in 1901 was occupied by the Lascelles family and 3 servants.
A few houses down from there, I was excited to find Rosenhaim and finally Kenellan at number 50, just a few houses away from the first of the Highfield Villas, which was listed as no. 16. I was right not to trust the custom of numbering from the end nearest the town centre. I'm now as confident as I can be that no. 68 Saint Cross Road can be identified as the 12 Highfield Villas in which Emilia stayed.
So far, though, I have failed to discover just why Emilia would move to Winchester for a few months, then move back to Reading, where she lived until the end of her life in 1913.
She once had family in this part of the world; her cousins, the Bonnetts had lived in the rectory at Avington and the Terrys a little further away at Dummer. But they had long gone and the younger generation had moved elsewhere.
It's more than likely that she had friends I don't know about - working from the ten-yearly snapshots of the censuses, I inevitably have great chunks of her life missing. Perhaps she simply liked Winchester, and wanted to see it again before she died. And why not? It's a very interesting place. Perhaps I'll be back if I find another clue to work on.
Add comment
Comments