Donkey Lane Community Orchard - INHABITANTS CENSUS 1861 – read all about it!!!

In 1861 it appears that only 4 of the Cottages in the Donkey Lane “Orchard” were occupied and the name of the Lane, in the Census, had reverted from “Guntrip Lane” back to “Hollans Lane”. One of the families missing was the Guntrips themselves which may be the reason why the lane changed its name back to “Hollans or Hollands”. John Guntrip had died in 1854 leaving wife Elizabeth. She was residing there in 1859 Tithe Amendment records but died that year and was buried on the 22nd February 1859. The Stratford family had vacated and also the Wades but the Howlett family had returned to the Lane.

The Howletts had rejoined the families who were there a decade earlier: the Marriotts, the Bishops and the Folleys.

In 1859 a Lucy Biggs had been residing but she had moved out before 1861 and had moved to live with a Jonah Britnell as a housekeeper in his house at Crowell Hill.

The returning Howletts were now represented by Maria Howlett, 3 children and a lodger Ann Styles. Two decades earlier she had lived in the Lane with her husband Edward, moving thence to a lower part of Chinnor and then to Wainhill. Edward died in 1858 and the widowed Maria moved back into Hollands Lane with her two daughters, Maria junior and Ruth along with grandchild Jane Maria. The girls are recorded as lacemakers but Maria, without a husband’s income, is designated a pauper claiming on the parish for support. A small amount of income would have been received as rental from lodger Ann Styles, also a lacemaker. The household was reduced in 1861 when daughter Ruth moved out upon marriage to James Smith a labourer from Longwick. Three years later they had a baby who they named Maria. The household was further reduced, in the same year, when granddaughter Jane Maria married James Munday. Some mystery surrounds who was Jane Maria’s mother. Born in 1842 she was not baptised until 1855 by her grandparents, Edward and Maria. Interestingly when Jane Maria married the Church Register revealed that her father was stated to be a Richard Jones, labourer.

Tragedy struck a year later in 1862 when Maria junior died aged a mere 45 and poor widowed Maria herself passed away in 1865, aged 73, leaving an empty cottage inviting new residents. READ MORE...