Tiptofts, Station Road
John Roadley
Past land ownership
The Inclosure map of 1799 shows much of land around Baggot Hall was owned by William Whitchurch, although the adjacent plot Nos 63 & 64 were owned by Thomas Pale Hankin.
By the time of William Whitchurch’s and his son’s death in April 1850 he owned the land in Harston shown on the map to right. By Mar 1851 his widow Jane Whitchurch had married Walter William Dubisson & she had taken over Baggot Hall and all the lands of Whitchurches. Some of the 8 acre 1 rood 32 perches plot to the east, part of Baggot Wood, copyhold Manor of Abbotsbury (Lord Douglas Crossman of Cokenach, Royston), was sold to the railway around 1850.
After the death of Jane Dubisson Sep 1867, the previous tenant Edmund Alfred Willson and William Hurrell reached an agreement. The land was settled solely on Henry Hurrell (William’s son) by Aug 1869. Henry Hurrell gave it to his son Arthur in 1899 and 1901-4 made payments to obtain the freehold from the Manors of Tiptoft and of Abbotsbury.
Building of 1930s house, ‘Birnam’
Ernest Trevor Moore of Greenways, Harston paid £175 in Feb 1939 for approx. 3 acres of land, previously woodland. Land had a frontage of 222 feet on Harston to Newton Road and depth of 345 ft, bounded on the southeast by property of London & North Eastern Railway and on the other side by that of the vendor, Arthur Hurrell.
The land and house was a wedding present for Mr & Mrs Moore. They helped clear some of the wooded plot to build the house as shown in photos. The house was called Birnam, after Birnam Wood in Dunsinane (as in Macbeth), where the family (they had three daughters) spent part of the war when Mr Moore’s school, The Leys, in Cambridge, was evacuated to Pitlochry in Perthshire.
The aerial photo shows Tiptofts in 1990s with disused tennis court to right of house. In 2001 a barn style garage was built on it with the rest of the area later grassed over.
One of the old station lights was located along Tiptofts driveway.
1990s change to ‘Tiptofts’
The Moran family bought the house in December 1998 but didn’t move in until Feb 1999 following the completion of some building work. They didn’t like the name Birnam and found out the house was built on land originally owned by the Manors of Tiptofts and Abbotsbury. Abbotsbury House sounded like it would be a bit long winded, so they renamed it Tiptofts. Tiptofts, however, has proved very difficult to say over the phone and they do get some very funny spellings on letters and parcels! The shield for Tiptofts Manor is actually on the wall in the stained glass window at Wimpole Church.
The Morans say “we built the barn style double garage in 2001 where the old tennis court was located and had the rest of the tennis court removed and turfed in 2006 (in time fortheir daughter’s wedding in 2007 where there was a large marquee). Other than putting in the borders in the rear garden and the gravel garden and building the garden room in 2005 we haven’t really changed the layout of the house or garden. We have updated the kitchen and bathroom (twice)! It did have the old fashioned bell switches in the rooms to call the maid (including one over the bath) but we had the wiring for that removed when it was all rewired in 1998. We still have the old bell box in the kitchen with Helen’s name and the old tiled fireplace is still in the maid’s room.” The Garden Room was added to the left of the Maid’s Room and Loggia shown on 1939 architect’s plans. What was designed as the garage became a utility room.
It does have solar panels and new windows (2012) as the old ones were the single glazed Crittal type (called Hope style) and very cold although it took us 13 years to get around to doing that! We removed the old tiled fireplace in the lounge and installed a multifuel fire. The oil tank used to be inside the utility room – the old garage- so we had it moved outside!
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