Charities

Saunders House

This house is mentioned in the “Reports of the Commissioners to Inquire Concerning Charities and Education of the Poor in England and Wales 1815-1839”. It was a house and garden of 9 perches tenanted by a ‘poor person’. The Parish had purchased the house, from a mason who had built it on some waste ground, for £13 with the monies from some lost charity.

On the Enclosure map of 1787 the house is shown in a field opposite the junction of Tisbury Road and Mary Barter’s Lane. Although this field was known as Workhouse Ground, the house, which stood upon it, Saunders House, was not a Workhouse. The house, the property of the Parish, was used for charitable purposes, which is probably why it came to be called the Poor House.

By 1839 the Charity Commissioners reported that the Poor House was in a very dilapidated condition. According to the late Doctor Clay, Stephen Brown, the miller of that period, demolished the house, and the stones were used to build three cottages, west of the former Poor House, at right angles to the Tisbury Road.

Additional information recently acquired.

1873–98

Parochial non-endowed charities and church offertory book. Includes some accounts for Fovant National School.

1896–1919

Parochial club subscription book

1898–1923

Parochial clothing subscription account book

1910–29

Clothing club subscription account book

All these documents are held at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre at Chippenham.

See also the Poor’s Money in the Local government page

M.A.M. after R.C.C.C.
Dec 2003