New Town Fields and New Town Road

About New Town Fields and New Town Road

In 1842 a plot of land in Hamilton Road was owned by Benjamin Smith and his wife Sarah. This plot is now a cottage called Westward. They sold the plot of land to local landowner John Green Chamberlain (Senior), a ship agent who died in 1860. The land was left to his son, John Green Chamberlain, a ship owner and landowner.  John later sold the plot of land to Edward Harvey (yacht steward) of Anglesea Road for the sum of £22.00.

It was still then a plot of land on New Town Fields, the name by which this area was then known.  New Town Road was newly constructed in the 1880s which ran from its junction with Brook Street to the Great Eastern Railway line where there was once a platform servicing the train line. .

In 1893, Edward Harvey sold the plot to Edgar and Daniel Chapman who were local Wivenhoe builders. They then erected a house on the plot called Colne Cottage, which they sold to Lily May Husk who was the daughter of Nicholas James Husk (yacht builder) of the Quay at Wivenhoe.

In 1934, Lily May married George James Pettit at St. Martins in the Field, London,  When Lily died in 1969,  the Cottage was purchased by Charles Scofield who let it out to Ernie Vince.

To see more of New town Road see my other post Paget Halt.