No 7 Church Street formerly No 1 Stag Villas

Wall of Stag Villas visible. One portion between No 5 and No 7 remains

Sales document from 1893 Harston Estate sale

No 7 Church St Stag Villas gets a garage

(Deacon)

The land upon which Nos 7 & 9 Church Street stand was part of William Long’s ‘Harston Estate’ which was auctioned off in 1893 after his death. The sales document stated ‘ Freehold property comprising pasture field of building or accommodation land containing 1 acre, 0roods & 36 poles (more or less). With extensive frontage to the Haslingfield Road in the occupation Mr J Ashby, a yearly tenant at £4 per annum. Bounded on the North East by the Haslingfield Road, on the South East by Lot 11( now Dormer Cottage), on the South West by property of Mr Northfield and on the North West by property of Mr Ives’.

The plot was purchased by Mr C J Ives for £130 and sold to William George Jude, builder of Haslingfield in 1902. The semi-detached villas were built in 1904, apparently so named because when  being built a stag was seen close by. It was shot and for many years the head was mounted in the living room.

We do not know the earliest occupiers but the 1911 Census has the sole occupier as Ida Helena Holben, a music teacher. In The Cambridge Daily News of 1 May 1919 it was reported:

A ‘shell-shocked, blind and sick’ soldier (Sidney Dean Hart), a tenant of Stag Villa, Harston, is claiming £20 from his landlord, William George Jude of Quarry Farm, Haslingfield, for alleged ‘trespass’ and for (unjustly) demanding that he leave, and for destroying the contents of the garden at Stag Villa. The plaintiff (Hart) ‘had found it impossible to find another cottage in Harston’. The defendant (Judd) had said ‘You discharged soldiers are a nuisance to the community at large, and are a lot of cadgers’. Case adjourned (and re-adjourned on 29 May); £10 damages offered but declined (but later accepted).

In 1921 George Ivatt Farrington had retired from the police force and bought 1 Stag Villas  where he lived with his wife Elizabeth and children Ida (born 17th Sept 1896 Orwell), Frederick (born 12th Sept 1897}} and Bernard William (born 24 Nov 1900).  George died in 1960 and Elizabeth in 1955. In addition to looking after her parents,  Ida was a music teacher for many of Harston’s children. This supplemented her income. Ida continued to live at 1 Stag Villa (by now 7 Church Street) until her death on 26th April 1990. See more about Ida here Ida Elizabeth Farrington