Living Quarters

 

Living Quarters : Additional Information

In 1978, the Devon & Cornwall Record Society published a volume of 18th century fire insurance records from Devon - including several relating to Crediton.*

In 1744, Samuel Melhuish, a Crediton sergemaker and maltster, insured a dwellinghouse valued at £70; household goods and stock-in-trade therein (£25); a woodhouse with a warping shop above it behind the house; (£10); a brewhouse adjacent (£10); A nearby millhouse and malthouse under one roof (£60); Utensils and stock-in-trade held there (£75); five tenements under one roof (£60); a house tenanted by a peruke-maker and two others (£70); a house in two tenements occupied by John Carterbrook and Robert Farsman, both weavers (£40); a tenement not finished (£20); a tenement occupied by William Flood, a weaver (£20); and a house and brewhouse tenanted by a victualler (£60). All of these premises were built in cob and stone, and were thatched.    

It does not say if the named individuals were sole occupants, or if they lived there with their families.

Note that this insurance policy is from the year after the Great Fire. The properties shown as held by "Mr Melhuish" in this map extract lie on the north side of the High Street, east of the area destroyed in the fire. 

Note also that some of the tenements were very poor – insured for much the same value as outbuildings.

*Stanley D. Chapman, The Devon Cloth Industry In The Eighteenth Century (Devon & Cornwall Record Society, 1978)