Two elements would have been essential for the success of the development\u00a0 \u2013 access to the Prior Park Carriage way and an adequate supply of fresh water. The existence of springs in the hillside above the plots it meant that the houses would potentially have access to fresh water.\u00a0 In order to ensure access to the road Harris secured the right of access\u00a0 at the same time that he bought the plots of land. The next stage would have been to draw up plans and undertake preparatory work such as the canalisation of the stream, the construction of the Lane behind the buildings\u00a0 and making provision for the supply of water and sewerage. It was then necessary to find partners who would take on the responsibility for the construction of the houses and share in the financial risk. The Canalisation of the stream would have\u00a0 needed the agreement of the owner of the Mill in Widcombe who owned the rights to the water in the stream.<\/p>\n
Most of the houses were built by groups of people who partnered together in order to build 2 or 3 houses. Generally adjoining but sometimes not. Some houses were the responsibility of only one person. However the common factor was that all the people involved were from the building trade.<\/p>\n
Given the spread of trades it seems plausible that tradesmen would have worked on each others houses. The supply of suitable stone and the availability of competent masons would have been essential for the success of the project. So it is interesting that one of the masons was\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>also a foreman that the local stone quarry.<\/p>\n Early on in\u00a0 the construction\u00a0 of Buildings,\u00a0 a substantial retaining had to be built along the rear of the houses. A water pipe was then laid behind this wall to provide water<\/p>\n It is most likely that the cottages were started from the top (No11) and built downwards finishing\u00a0 above the stream (what is now No 3 but then No 1). The cottages below the stream (Nos 1 &2) were constructed later. The Buildings would have been\u00a0 built in sequence from No 1 to No 19. However at the time the names and numbering were different from what they are now. The Buildings were called Prior Park Row and the Cottages were called Prior Park Buildings. Also\u00a0 the Buildings ran from No 2 to No19. It was not until about 1830 that the naming and numbering were changed to what they are now.<\/p>\n The shells of the houses would have needed to have been built as quickly as possible as they would have to have been built in sequence. Although the fitting out and completion would have taken longer and not necessarily in sequence.<\/p>\n It is possible that some of the houses were sold before completion as the developers would have been keen to recover their costs as soon as possible. By 1822 it seems that some of the houses had been sold.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until about 1823\/24 that the builders reached the end of the buildings (No 19). In 1828 the trustees of William Gould advertised for sale two houses in the Buildings \u2013 Nos 3 and 13. No 13 was advertised as \u201cunfinished\u201d<\/p>\n When the houses were build there was no pavement along the front houses. In about 1870 the Council forced the house owners to pay for the laying of paving slabs which at the time would have been natural stone.<\/p>\n In about 1970 the council signed agreements with all the residents of the Buildings to maintain the stream and the bank opposite under the 1901 \u201cOpen Spaces Act\u201d. One of the first acts\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>of maintenance undertaken by the council was the removal of all the natural stone paving slabs and their replacement by concrete slabs, and the removal of the railing around the bank. It is understood that the paving slabs were used to repair the pavement in George Street.<\/p>\n A survey of the deeds shows that the following people were involved with the construction of the houses:-<\/p>\n Soloman Manley \u2013 Tailor<\/p>\n Thomas Briscoe \u2013Hatter and undertaker<\/p>\n James Pearce \u2013 Carpenter<\/p>\n William Hoare \u2013 Plumber<\/p>\n James May- Plumber<\/p>\n Abel Vivian \u2013 Brightsmith<\/p>\n Courtney Babbage \u2013 Builder and Carpenter<\/p>\n William Cripps \u2013 Mason<\/p>\n William Gould \u2013 Mason<\/p>\n John Brown \u2013 Carpenter<\/p>\n William Terry \u2013 Ironmonger<\/p>\n John Terry \u2013 Ironmonger<\/p>\n Thomas Greenway \u2013 Tiler and Plasterer<\/p>\n John Pittard \u2013 Builder<\/p>\n Edmund Miller \u2013 Carpenter<\/p>\n John Burgess \u2013 Quarryman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two elements would have been essential for the success of the development\u00a0 \u2013 access to the Prior Park Carriage way and an adequate supply of fresh water. The existence of springs in the hillside above the plots it meant that the houses would potentially have access to fresh water.\u00a0 In order to ensure access to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-82","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/priorparkbuildingsandcottages.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/priorparkbuildingsandcottages.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/priorparkbuildingsandcottages.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/priorparkbuildingsandcottages.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/priorparkbuildingsandcottages.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/priorparkbuildingsandcottages.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/priorparkbuildingsandcottages.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/priorparkbuildingsandcottages.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}