The Bell 1780 - 1851

The Bell 1780 - 1851

The early days of the Bell
St Ives had a steady trade in cheap lodgings. The Monday livestock market, one of the largest in England, drew drovers from Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. After weeks on the road, often sleeping rough or in roadside inns, they stayed briefly in St Ives before heading home. Other customers included watermen, their fen lighters moored at the Waits with goods for market, and itinerant hawkers ready for Monday trade.

Built around 1780, the Bell may have been designed from the outset as a pub and lodging house. It looked very different then, with two storeys, a  mansard roof, and a row of Elizabethan cottages running at right angles behind. The tiles below come from those cottages, thought to indicate the trades carried out in each.

First called the White Swan, by 1787 it was the Blue Bell. The Bell name endured, with variations such as the Old Bell.

In the early 1800s the building was enlarged; a third storey was added and the mansard roof replaced. A panel on the chimney stack is inscribed with the dates 1800 and 1837, the latter likely marking the major alterations.

First known occupant

Without the deeds, it's hard to be certain about early owners or occupants, so the Bell's first fifty years are lost in the mists of time.

The earliest identified occupant is Staffurth Clark. In 1841, he was the Bell’s publican, aged 56, living with his wife Jane (47) and sons Staffurth (14) and John (10). He had likely been at the Bell for ten years.

Born at Warboys in 1785 and given his grandmother’s maiden name, Staffurth was not the first of that name. His elder brother had died in infancy, and the new child that arrived within months was given the same name, a common practice to keep alive the memory of the dead child, especially where the child's name was in honour of a relative.

Staffurth was a man with ambition. He married Jane Bull in 1816 and inherited the family farm, including farmhouse, stables, barn, outhouses, and 41 acres. But poor harvests, labour unrest, and the Swing Riots made farming difficult. In 1831, he sold the farm.

By 1829, he had acquired rights to collect tolls at the Green End toll in St Ives, near today’s Seven Wives pub, along a major route to the Bullock Market. In 1825, for every drove of cattle passing through that toll gate there was a charge of ten pennies per score. That's the equivalent of £80 today. Every Monday the livestock market handled 12,000 cattle, sheep, pigs, horses etc. Every animal and human was charged a toll.

The toll gate meant a steady income, receiving a percentage of the tolls. Staffurth probably  employed someone to man the tolls. St Ives was surrounded with toll gates, owned by the Duke of Manchester and auctioned to agents. In 1817, local toll gate auctions raised £556, equivalent to £50,000 today.

By 1841, Staffurth had become the Bell’s publican. It’s likely the major alterations to the building in 1837 occurred during his occupancy. St Ives’ population had jumped from 2,099 in 1801 to 3,514 in 1841, a 67% increase, creating a prime opportunity for Staffurth.

He lived at the Bell with his wife and two sons. Boarding with them were Thomas Smith, a corn cutter, his wife and two-year-old son. Behind the Bell lived John Chapman, a blacksmith, with his wife and six children. The Bell Yard housed three more households, totalling ten occupants.

Staffurth had left the Bell by 1851. He remained a toll gate keeper, living in the Green End toll house with his wife. He died in 1863, aged 79.

To read more instalments about this house, click the Bell. To view stories of other interesting houses and their residents in St Ives in the style of David Olusoga's BBC television programme, click A House Through Time. To access more topics on the social history of St Ives, its resident and the surrounding area, click St Ives 100 Years Ago.