The Manse
In February 1850 there was a disastrous fire in this part of Ashwell and the Manse was built in the next few years, along with various other Victorian buildings nearby. There is a conveyance dated 1875, by which a parcel of land on ‘Limekiln Lane and Baldock Road’ was transferred from one group of trustees of the Ashwell Meeting House to another, and we assume the house was built at around this time.
The original building would have been more or less square, with a hipped roof, early extensions having been built on the South and East elevations, followed by a much more recent extension, added to accommodate some modern accoutrements.
The house is not grandiose in style – the fireplaces are of wood rather than marble – perhaps befitting its ecclesiastical links; but two servants bells remain in the kitchen.
For many years the Manse was home to the Minister or Pastor of the Ashwell Meeting House or Congregational Chapel (more recently having become the United Reformed Church), sited at the junction with the High Street. In 1875 the resident was Revd. James Buckley Millsom. The last Pastor to live here left in 1959 and the house lay empty until 1969, when it was sold by the Hertfordshire Congregational Union Incorporated to the Moynihan family. Since then it has been lived in by the Granvilles, the Boys and, from 1996, the Turner family.
Curiosities include the disused well, which is reputed to be concealed somewhere in the garden, and the small adjacent dwelling known as ‘the Maid’s house’.
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