Documents

Kemble Estate Maps – 1880’s

Maps Uploaded on September 20, 2022

These scans are from copies of maps in the possession of Mr Paul Gillett.
Dating Evidence
This is a scan of a photographed copy of an original index map for Kemble Estate and a set of 25 inch to the mile OS maps. The areas of the OS maps overlay and are numbered on the Index Map. There is no date for the Index Map but the following evidence is that it is between 1882 and 1887.
 The railway lines were completed after May 1845 when the railway line to Gloucester was opened. Construction began on the branch line to Tetbury in 1887.
 The Kemble Primary School was built in 1873.
 In 1882 the current station at Kemble was opened. At the same time a road was built to link the western entrance of the station to the Malmesbury Road by the entrance to the tunnel. That road and the road to the eastern entrance to the station were built in 1882. Both of these roads are on the map.
 In 1884/5 Michael Biddulph inherited the estate from Anna Gordon the previous owner. This might be the moment when it was decided that new estate maps were needed.
The Maps
The rectangles with numbers that overlay the map refer to the sheets of the 25 inch to the mile Ordnance Survey maps. There are some annotations on the OS maps, which are not always clear, but those that are provide some useful information e.g. on the Kemble Village Map you can see that the Marjorie Plantation between Kemble and Poole Keynes was originally planted in 1920 and 1921. 1921 is the last date I’ve found on the maps. There is no mention of the airfield which was built in 1938/9. These were working maps in an estate office. All the maps seem to have been fixed to card because the photographs show that the maps are edged with leather which is sewn on. These were probably stored flat in a map drawer.
19th Century Owners of the Kemble Estate :
1) 1809 – 1864, Robert Gordon who had married his cousin Elizabeth Anne Coxe. She had inherited the estate from her father Charles Westley Coxe in 1806.
2) 1865 – Dec 1884, Anna Gordon, only child of Robert and Elizabeth Anne Gordon, inherited the estate from her mother who died in March 1865.
3) 1884 – Michael Biddulph who became Lord Biddulph in 1903. He inherited the estate from Anna Gordon.

Chesterton Farm and Furzen Lease

Culkerton

Kemble village

Kemble Wood

Poole Keynes,

Kemble Wick

Somerford Keynes,

Kemble Mill

Trewsbury

Washburn Mill and Thames