Tag: Longford Villa

Martha Hall – Richard Jefferies’ auntie

As part of our Swindon Suffragette festival in 2018 I conducted a ‘women only’ walk at Christ Church.

The magnificent Celtic Cross (see below) marks the grave of Martha and William Hall. The Celtic Cross is an ancient Christian symbol dating back to the 9th century and is particularly associated with Ireland. Martha’s husband William Hall was born in Longford, Ireland in 1815 and named his property on The Sands, Longford Villa after his birthplace.

Martha and William Hall

Martha’s father John Luckett Jefferies had left Swindon as a young man and moved to London where he worked as a printer. He married Frances Ridger in 1809 and they had five children born in London. But in 1816 John was forced to the leave job, the home and the life he loved in London to return to Swindon where the family farm at Coate was failing.

Today the farm at Coate is better known as the birthplace of naturalist, journalist and poet Richard Jefferies, the son of James Luckett Jefferies, Martha’s brother.

Martha was born on July 12, 1818, the first of the couple’s children to be born back home in Wiltshire. She was baptised at the old parish church of Holy Rood and married William there on June 30, 1849.

William Hall died on August 30, 1898 and Martha on January 22, 1902.

William and Martha Hall also have a stained glass window dedicated to them in Christ Church.

William and Albertina Haynes

This magnificent Celtic Cross shouts wealth and must have been a pretty expensive monument in its time.

The Celtic Cross design combines the ancient Celtic circle symbol with the Christian cross, and was usually a free standing stone monument. In Ireland examples have been found dating back to the 7th century.

In the mid 19th century there was a Celtic Revival when monuments like this became extremely popular and the Celtic Cross has since become associated with graveyard memorials. The Celtic Cross on the Haynes grave includes the letters IHS symbolising the Greek spelling of Jesus Christ.

This is the final resting place of William and Albertina Haynes. In their retirement the couple lived at Longford Villa one of those impressive Victorian properties on Bath Road.  William died on September 17, 1922 and Albertina on January 30, 1931.

William had grown up in Fairford where his father worked as a confectioner.  He moved to Purton to begin an apprenticeship in Edward Kempster’s grocer’s shop, which is how he met his future wife.  Albertina was the daughter of Richard Newman who was a Beer House Keeper in Purton.

The couple married in the summer of 1879 and by the time of the 1881 census they were living at 5 Westcott Place where they ran a grocer’s shop.  William employed two assistants including his younger brother Hubert.

By 1891 the establishment had grown somewhat. The couple had six children and employed three grocery assistants and two domestic servants.

Researching the census returns I think the Haynes grocers shop was in the large premises on the corner of Westcott Place and Read Street, which has various signs outside today.

When William died in 1922 he left £65,473 9s 8d worth several million pounds today, an impressive amount of money for those post war times and more than enough to pay for this magnificent memorial.

You might like to visit Swindon Bottles for information about many other Swindon based firms.