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Numbers 152 - 158 High Street, New Brentford

Properties

Notes prepared for numbers 152, 154, 155, 156 and 158; also a list of photos, ephemera and maps

Number 152

The 1909/10 Valuation Records name the owners as The Royal Brewery Brentford Ltd and occupier as George Neal.The frontage to the High Street was 15’ 9”.

Number 154

Trade directories show no. 154 was later a cycle shop run by G Gleyze (1920 – 1940) – in 1928 the proprietor is Miss G Gleyze.

Number 155

Mrs Mary Elizabeth Robinson lived here at the time of the 1909/10 Valuations when the house was described as a double-fronted ‘house and workshops’ with ‘ basement cellars… often flooded’. The property had a frontage of 29’, about double the size of adjacent properties. It had a stone-flagged yard and the plan shows a conservatory or glasshouse in the rear yard, with a workshop occupying the end of the yard. ‘The workshop before mentioned is built over the passage way at the rear of no. 156 leading to the Ham. Easement say £10’.

Number 156

In 1881 the coffeehouse business continued, run by Harold Stoneleigh and his wife Emma. Harold’s descendant Dave Stoneleigh says ‘His marriage certificate for his marriage to Emma Cox in 1878 indicates that he was a widower (Emma was a widow) and he was working as a Tailor's Foreman. He presumably gave that up to run the coffee house at No.156. Frankly I know nothing about the role of a coffee house in that age, except that there seem to have been quite a number of boarders listed in the 1881 census, varying in trade from Blacksmith to Tailor, Garden Labourer to Servant.’

In 1891 the household at no. 156 was

• Emma Stoneleigh, head, wife, 52, licensed lodging house keeper, bn Hounslow
• Ann Cox, dau, 14, scholar, bn Hounslow
• Harrold Stoneleigh, son, 10, scholar, bn Brentford
• 12 lodgers, all male, all single, aged 20 - 71, including a sheep drover, 2 hawkers and a cooper, all born London or Middlesex

There were twelve boarders living here in 1901, all single males, eight of them being manual labourers (one with one leg); also two shoe blacks. Dave Stoneleigh says ‘By 1901, Harold junior’s step brother and sister had become a house painters labourer and barmaid respectively so I assume the coffee house had closed and it was just a boarding house presided over by Emma.’ He adds ‘Harold junior (by now a bank clerk) was still living at No.156 with his mother Emma at the time of the 1901 census and he got married four years later. Emma Stoneleigh died in 1913 by which time Harold junior had had two children, a boy and a girl. The former being my father!’

The 1909/10 Valuation Records describe the property as a ‘Small square & plain fronted house. Front entirely stuccoed. Two storeys with attics & basement cellars (often flooded)’. The property had 2 attics on the top floor, 2 rooms on the first floor and 2 rooms on the ground floor. There were wood steps to the yard, a cement path and corrugated WC. A workshop of no. 155 was built over the rear passage way for which an easement of £10 was paid. The frontage to the High Street was 14'. The owner was Mrs Mary Elizabeth Robinson, who owned and lived in no. 155, the occupier of no. 156 was S Johnson.

Number 158

Joseph Dale was listed 1861 – 1881 (in 1871 he employed 18 men, in 1881 15 men and 8 boys), then Mrs Eliza Dale 1891. See Brentford & Chiswick Local History Journal 2007 for more about the Dale family in the article ‘The Bargemen of Brentford’ by David Blomfield.

By 1913 the Grand Junction Canal Co is listed at 158, with Edward Ernest Hollyer as ‘collector’.

Photos/Ephemera/Maps

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