The Cotswold House B&B in Summertown is a nice looking building with 8 bedrooms. Its claim to fame is that Room 1, the 'Morse Room', was featured in an Inspector Morse novel. I'd expected to see a couple running the place but there was only a manager around in the daytime, and a younger fellow on in the evenings. I never did find out who actually owned the place and dubbed it the 'You're on Your Own B&B' for its stand-offish atmosphere.
Cotswold House B&B
Top right: I put one suitcase on the countertop over the small fridge. Bathroom was tiny too. Shower, no tub.
Bottom left: Staircase down to main floor.
Bottom right: Breakfast room. I aimed to get down for breakfast at 7:30 the next morning. On weekends though, it didn't start until 8:00.
It wasn't raining in Oxford, so I decided to go exploring. It was cold though! I wanted to walk to Oxford to pass by my great-great-grandparents' house, which is a street over and a mile closer to town.
This house, like the rectory in Addington, was being renovated, inside and out. There was scaffolding all over, so it was difficult to see what the building really looked like. A worker happened to be out by the sidewalk as I stopped to take a picture. Told him my ancestors lived there. "Oh, do you want to talk to the owner?" he asked. And just like that he was leading me over the muddy driveway to the front door. I don't know what the owner must have thought but he graciously invited me in and told me a little about the house, most of which went over my head. Freehold, leasehold, whatever. Apparently one man owned all these properties and people leased the houses but eventually they essentially owned them... I think. He said it's difficult to tell ownership because sometimes houses were leased out, which might explain why this address is listed in the probate for Mary even though someone else apparently lived there. He talked about a time when it was cheaper for people to stay in the houses rather than rent somewhere else, so there were old ladies in many of the houses.
In 1890 (though it says from April 5, 1889) - the house was leased for 99 years to Percy, Ida and Sally Stevens. This was a shocking revelation - I'd expected it to be in the parents names. 'Ha,' I chuckled, 'Those three were always together.' Well, not always but a lot of the time. Percy was supposedly deaf so maybe the sisters helped.
But the 1891 census shows my great-great-grandfather Thomas Jones Stevens (retired) as the head of the household. He is there with Mary Maddick Stevens and three of their children Sallie (Sally), Ida and Percy, all in their 30's, and also four of their grandchildren: grandma, Kate, Arthur and Edward, ages 4-11. Maybe it was some family arrangement that the house was put in the children's names so they would have something when the parents passed on.
Ten years later, in 1901, Thomas and Mary were living in Waldon (Aylesbury), along with Sallie, while Percy and Ida were at Iffley Road. Iffley Road is in the south part of Oxford. I didn't go there.
This paper shows the house on Woodstock Road as being subleased in 1901; yet when Mary Stevens died in 1904, it was the address given for her. Percy, Ida and Sally assigned the lease to someone else in 1912. I had no idea the family was involved with the house that long.
It shows their address as being on Warnborough Road when they took on the lease, which is not far away so I planned to check that out the next day.
These buildings are typical of the area
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