Another interesting article by local historian Hilary Sutcliffe, which first appeared in the May 2021 Parish News.
A fine house was built on a piece of land called Greenhill in Broadhempston in 1850. It’s on the hill not far from the old Vicarage and has a wonderful view. It was built by William Lovecraft, a tailor. He died in 1858 and his son, also William, sold the house on 2 February 1864 to Elizabeth Wills.
It was a substantial property, with a coach house, stables, outbuildings and a green house. She paid £1,100 for it and changed its name to Sneydhurst. She was 55yrs. old, single and she lived here for the rest of her life with one servant. She died in 1899 aged 90yrs. leaving an estate valued at £ 1,938.10.2 (approx. £260,000 today).
Elizabeth Wills came from South Milton, near Kingsbridge. She was the daughter of a village shop keeper and his wife, the fourth of twelve children and she did not marry. Her parents and siblings, male and female, worked for their livings, mostly as drapers, and yet in a number of censuses Elizabeth Wills is described as an ‘annuitant’ and as a ‘landowner’; it seems odd that her financial situation should have been so very different from that of her siblings. Where did her money come from?
Searching, reading and pondering led along fascinating byways, and the change of house name gives the clue – Elizabeth Wills received an inheritance from Charles Sneyd Edgeworth, and his wife was named Henrica Broadhurst, thus Sneydhurst. Charles Sneyd Edgeworth (1789-1864) came from a most interesting family in Ireland, from Edgeworthtown, County Longford. Sneyd’s father, Richard Lovell Edgeworth was married four times, was widowed three times, and had 22 children. Sneyd was number ten and his mother was the third wife of his father, named Elizabeth nee Sneyd. One of his half-sisters was Maria Edgeworth, well-known writer of novels, letters and diaries. The family were wealthy, living off rents from their Irish estate, intelligent, well read and well connected and with scientists amongst them. They mixed, travelled and stayed with English people of a similar or higher class, often titled, and were very conscious of their own and other people’s social standing. (Snobbish, just like the characters of Jane Austen, especially Pride and Prejudice). Elizabeth Wills may have been employed by the Edgeworths; she was present at the death of Henrica in 1846 and it was she who registered the death.
An interesting, unexpected village connection but how did it come about? More research needed.
We’d love to hear from you if you have any further information which would help in this research…
BROADHEMPSTON ARCHIVE & LOCAL HISTORY 