This year, the Society of One Place Studies has invited everyone to take part in their Blogging Prompts 2021. I am looking forward to taking part. So what are the blogging prompts that have been set for the first six months of 2021...
So, January 2021 is focused on #OnePlaceLandmarks. In my first blog post, I considered the possible landmarks that were in my One Place Study of The Crescent in Taunton and looked at those listed on the Historic England's Listed Buildings website. There were 6 listed buildings. I have decided to focus on one of these and have chosen Unison House.
Unison House is on the East side of The Crescent in Taunton, Somerset, England, was where the regional offices for UNISON Somerset were based. UNISON is a trade union, based in the United Kingdom, open to members who are mainly employees in public services. They represent their paying membership, negotiating and bargaining on their behalf as well as campaigning for better working conditions and pay for public services workers. UNISON moved out of Unison House in Summer 2017, after signing a 10 year lease for offices in Tangier Central, Taunton [1], which is just a 10 minute walk from where it was located on The Crescent in Taunton.
In April 2018, Windsor Properties (Taunton) applied for planning permission for a change of use to the building from being office space to become residential [2]. Conditional planning permission was approved on 11 June 2019 by Somerset West and Taunton Council [3]. I have found it really interesting to look through the planning application [4] that Windsor Properties (Taunton) made to Somerset West and Taunton Council as it gives detailed survey drawings of the building along with proposed plans for changing the building into residential apartments. As UNISON House is on the Historic England's Listed Buildings, there are rules around what can be changed to a building which is listed. It is noted that the list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 14 September 2018 [5].
Next time, I will look further back in time into the history of Unison House, on The Crescent in Taunton. It would be wonderful to hear from you via the comments section on this blog or via my Facebook page if you have any information regarding Unison House and its history or on any residents of The Crescent. This study is also part of the Society of One Place Studies and the One Place Studies Directory.
[1] Somerset County Gazette, 6 March 2017 (https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/15136346.eden-brown-and-unison-sign-ten-year-leases-for-offices-at-tangier-central-in-taunton/)
[2] Somerset County Gazette, 23 April 2018 (https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/16177640.flats-built-ex-unison-hq-tauntons-crescent/)
[3] Somerset County Gazette, 14 June 2019 (https://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/17707198.plans-turn-former-union-hq-housing-get-green-light/)
[4] Somerset West and Taunton Council - Planning Application 38/18/0068 (https://www2.somersetwestandtaunton.gov.uk/asp/webpages/plan/PlAppDets.asp?casefullref=38/18/0068)
[5] Historic England's Listed Buildings, UNISON House, The Crescent, Taunton, Somerset - List Entry Number: 1060042 - (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1060042)
In the Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1886 the building is calls Shrapnels (https://maps.nls.uk/view/106023749). It seemed to have been built for or by John Henry Biddulph Pinchard (1832-98), a Taunton lawyer from a line of lawyers. (A John Pinchard was recorded as an attorney in about 1795 (Universal British Directory for 1791, but Taunton section not before 1796) and maybe before.) It may have been built about 1869, as the earliest reference that I can find to “Shrapnels” is 1872 (Taunton Courier, 28 February) It may have been built on the site of an earlier Crescent Cottage of whose location I am not sure.
ReplyDeleteJHBP moved in to Shrapnels with his family between 1868 and 1870. (From the record of daughter’s (Sybil Tregenna Biddulph Pinchard) baptism, the family was living at The Mount, Taunton in 1867, and also in the 1861 census.) The next child was born in 1870 at Shrapnels. He was christened Robert Shrapnel Biddulph Pinchard. Shrapnel may have been a family name - I remember the Manchester Guardian’s parliamentary sketches were written by a Norman Shrapnel - or possibly, but less likely, the child was named after the house!
JHBP’s wife, Laura Elizabeth (née Arnold), died there aged 35 on March 9, 1872, just after giving birth to a son. (Taunton Courier, 13 March 1872). Some eighteen months later, JHBP married Mary Jane Welsh in Wells; her brother was the senior curate at Sr, Mary Magdalene in Taunton (Wells Journal, 20 November 1873). They continued to live at Shrapnels until about 1888 when they moved to Windsor Lodge, Haines Hill. (The last mention I have found of their living at Shrapnels was a report in the Taunton Courier of 9 November 1887 concerning the marriage of their daughter, Laura Biddulph Pinchard.
Two years later, John Currie, MD was living there, as the West Somerset Free Press reported on 9 November 1889. The same paper reported Dr. Currie’s death on 2 September 1893. Another doctor, Charles Edward Abbot, MRCS then moved in. (see St. Thomas's Hospital Reports, 1896, p. 75.
After its brief period as a doctor’s office, the Shrapnels next lease of life seems to have been as a school. The Calendar for the Year 1900 of the College of Preceptors lists a Mme. Crease at The Crescent School, Shrapnels, Taunton (p. 173). The 1901 census shows the other personnel at the school. The Taunton Courier of 20 March 1901 reports that she was teaching French. However, the next year, her husband, Mr. Frederick Crease, an accountant, was selling the furniture since he was about to leave the neighbourhood (Taunton Courier, 7 May 1902).
The next resident seems to have been Charles Farrant, another doctor, who is reported to be making some alterations in 1905 (Somerset Archives, D/B/ta/24/1/34/321). He was married in 1909 according to the Western Daily Press of 16 June 1909, and his bride’s father, Col Channer of Bishops Hull gave his daughter “a collection of four panther skins and six tiger skulls, shot by himself in India.” The Farrants lived at Shrapnels until at least 1912, when Mrs. Farrant was looking for a Plain Cook, but a good one. aged about 24 and to be paid £20. (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 1 March 1912).
The Taunton Courier of 10 November 1915 reported that a Robert Henry, an “illusionist” was living at Shrapnels. He doesn’t seem to have been a very good illusionist, as PC Hill booked him for riding a motor-cycle in East Reach without a light.”
By 1919, the house was in the hands of the Wright family. Wright and Sons used the place as their office for their pig dealing business until the end of the 1920s. In about 1930, the Somerset County Club took the building over and among other things constructed a squash court (Somerset Archives, D/B/ta/24/1/75/1558 ).