1624 – 2024  – The 400 year history of The Weedons Almshouse Charity

Credit: The Weedon Almshouses (weedon-almshouses.org.uk)

Four hundred years ago, on 6 September 1624, just five days before his death, a draper, Thomas Weedon of St Clement Danes, had his last will and testament drawn up and executed.

As Thomas was unmarried he had made bequests to his three sisters and members of his household, as well as “two mourning cloaks of my best black cloth” to friends. However the main item was a provision to establish in “the Parish of Chesham where I was born the summe of five hundred pounds of lawful English money … upon the building of an Almshouse in the said Parish for four poor Almspeople and to purchase a proportion of Lands of the value of thirty pounds a yeare at least for the Maintenance of the said Almspeople for ever”.

Thomas was promptly buried in the town on 23 September, but it was several years before his bequest got underway.

His Will had stipulated that “twelve of the most honest and sufficient Freeholders” of the town should administer the bequest’s assets in perpetuity. This board of Feoffees, or Trustees, today still exists and administers the Charity’s affairs. By October 1629 the purchase deed was drawn up for a site in Waterside, beside the main road to Latimer, for the sum of £8.0.0.
Our knowledge of the first hundred years of the Charity is sadly incomplete but from the early eighteenth century a more detailed picture of the affairs of the almshouses is possible, thanks to the survival of the accounts and minutes books that are contained in a splendid box dating from 1759. The box was kept “in the Great Chest in the Church [St Mary’s] for security”.

From these records we learn all manner of things about these four little almshouses set behind their high retaining wall, away from public scrutiny. We learn for instance the trustees provided “a vault or necessary house erected in some convenient place … for the use of the poor people inhabiting therein”. The privy was built by John Turner and Lias Darvill, and Humfrey Osbon and his assistant “excavated the pit and carried ye stuff out”.

In 1720 the trustees felt that the gateway leading to the almshouses should be “beautified” and the original inscription “now almost worn out and defaced by time, should now be engraved on a fair stone in gratitude to the memory of the Donor”. The new inscription in black marble survives to this day — the accounts show that the stone cost 14/- [70 pence], and a Mr Deley’s charge for cutting the 418 letters “all at a penny a letter” was £1.14.10. [£1.74].

The residents — or “inmates” as they were then called — were men as well as women, widowers and widows, bachelors and spinsters.

Some were in only their early-fifties, others in their late-eighties. There were only two conditions for becoming an ‘inmate’ — that they must possess no assets, or means of supporting themselves; and that they must originate from the Parish of Chesham or its eight hamlets. Length of tenure varied considerably. Widow Darvill occupied one of the cottages from 1719 to 1741, while in 1771 George Lion remained in residence for only a few months. The ‘inmates’ received a weekly allowance; in 1711 it was 2/- [10p] but a century later, this had increased to 5/-.

The twelve trustees traditionally met, appropriately enough, on St Thomas’ Day, 21 December, at least until 1752-53 when the new calendar was adopted. They consisted of many trades and professions, including ironmongers, clergymen, attorneys and grocers. Chesham’s notables were well represented too, and many retained their trusteeships for life. Meetings were held in hired rooms in several of the local hostelries including The Crown, The Red Lion and The Swan though, from the end of the eighteenth century until 1894, they invariably met at The George & Dragon. Throughout the eighteenth century and until 1848, the Trustees entertained lavishly on meeting days, if the bills from “The George” were anything go by. The all-important box containing the paperwork was present at these meetings but until 1848 there was no indication of how it got there. After this date whoever carried it to the inn appeared in the accounts, being paid 2/- for the task.

Of course the primary object of the charity was, as it is to this day, the practical welfare of the inmates, or residents. Until recent times the Trustees ensured that they had sufficient fuel. Originally this was wood with 400 faggots being provided on a regular basis. From 1862 bills for coal from Hodgkinson & Son of Waterside start appearing in the accounts. An accounts entry in 1779 lists “paid the poor people in the almshouse one pound” which was a Christmas box of five shillings per person. Remittances, or tips, were given on other special occasions, such as for the marriages of Queen Victoria in 1840 and the Prince of Wales in 1863. From 1848 the inmates received money for beer at Christmas and, also from that year, Christmas beef from local suppliers.

The residents’ weekly allowance tended to fluctuate over the centuries, depending on the Charity’s own reserves. It increased from 4/- to 5/- in 1922, and to 6/- in 1933 which came with one ton of coal and a load of wood. Services fluctuated too — the Trustees terminated the free wireless in 1941, installed only ten years previously, and, after the end of the War, discontinued the coal. Electric light was installed, though, in 1953 using funds from the Chesham Soup Fund which had lately been wound up. The year was also significant in that residents no longer received an allowance, but instead were themselves required to make a contribution to the Charity for their accommodation.

Plumbing – or the lack of it – seems to have occupied a degree of trustees’ time as well as their coffers. In 1732 they installed for the inmates “a well … exactly by the frontispiece of the Almshouse, and a leaden pump put in as soon as possible for the use of the Poor People dwelling Therin: and also a shed should be made over the said pump to prevent all Filth or other things from falling into it”. Over the years there are a number of bills for the repair of the pump, but it’s still in situ, albeit no longer required for use. By 1889 items such as ballcocks and cisterns start to appear in the accounts, marking time for the privy, pump and well. The Public Health Act of 1875 prompted the Trustees to tender for the job of installing sewage disposal, the work going to W C Sears and costing £30.5.0.

Innumerable other jobs and repairs are listed over the years, both inside and out. In 1719 a “Dreaser” — presumably a dresser — was fitted in one of the cottages while, in 1835, water-table bricks were procured from Amersham for a damp-proof course. Regular outgoings included snow-clearing and weeding. In 1784 the first fire insurance costing 7/- [35p] was paid to the Sun Fire Office — the rather grand fire insurance plate still resides as new in the Charity’s box, seemingly never affixed to the almshouse’s exterior wall. As an added precaution against fire, chimneys were regularly swept from 1869 by a contractor named “Summerlin”.

Repairs are ongoing in a building as old as the almshouse cottages. As recently as 1966 the Trustees considered that they “would have to be demolished in the not too distant future” but the Council, aware no doubt of their special place in the heritage of the town, offered improvement grants for them to be fully modernised. In 1961 their shared roof had been repaired with the help of an appeal to the people of Chesham, and collected by various youth organisations. And in 2021 roof repairs are again urgently needed for which the Trustees are applying for funding from several sources.

Since 1918 Chesham Urban District Council appointed four of the trustees from its own ranks. It marked the start of a close association between Town Council and the Charity and serving Town Councillors have only stopped taking an active interest and involvement in the last five or so years. In 1950 Trustee W J Standring offered to allocate funds for new almshouses to be built in the communal garden grounds and a building committee consisting of several Councillors built four alms flats against all the odds which were completed in October 1955. Public-spirited Standring himself contributed £3,500 of his own money, while Councillor Andrew Patterson contributed £500; they are known as Standring Alms Flats as a mark of such magnanimity.

In the 21st century Weedon Almshouses Charity continues to provide accommodation for older, and more vulnerable members of the local community and the aim of the current Trustees is to continue indefinitely the work of their forebears four centuries ago.

We are indebted to Anna Thomas, Shirley Foxell and Arnold Baines’ excellent article, published in 1974 by Chess Valley Archaeological Society, to mark the Weedon Almshouses Charity’s 350th anniversary.