HISTORY OF VICARAGE LANE BAKERY

1799- John Loke, Baker. of Leighton Buzzard (spelled Leighton Buzsard) buys property in Wing from George Deverill.

1826-His widow, Elizabeth sells copyhold to Emmanuel Mallet for £120 and he pays George, Earl of Chesterfield, Lord of the manor, one shilling a year rent and £7 fine. At time of sale the properties were occupied by Thomas Fryer, John Reeve, Thomas White and John Clarke – by 1828 when documents of transfer draw up they were occupied by Emmanuel.

1841- Emmanuel buys copyhold of land described as 4 dwellings with outhouses, barns, stables, gardens and orchards for £150 from William Start, farmer, who inherited land from his grandfather John Start in 1813. The property is described as having been inhabited by John Burrows, Robert Clarke, William Willis and John Jolly and afterwards by ? Simmons, Samuel Bell, Joan Sathwell and Thomas Green. Emmanuel pays one shilling a year rent plus a fine of £9 to the Lord of the manor Samuel Lloyd (Lord Overstone) who bought Manor of Wing from Earl of Chesterfield in 1839, died in 1883 leaving the estate to Harriet, Baroness Wantage .The trustees of his estate were Harriet, Sir Robert James (Baron Wantage), William James Lloyd, and Charles Lloyd Norman. By 1914 when Thomas Mallet bought the freehold of property in Vicarage Lane Wing, all except Harriet were dead. The trustees of Baron Wantage’s estate were Archie Kirkman Lloyd, Edward Henry Lloyd and Guy Holford Benson and it was to them that Thomas paid the £65 for the freehold of the land previously occupied by Emmanuel, then by Thomas himself and now by William James Mallett.

For the first time there is a plan of the property showing it to comprise the house and garden now known as 17 Vicarage Lane, together with outbuildings and the land now occupied by 15a and b Vicarage Lane. The Property on the Church Walk side is owned by Thomas and that on the High St side by Mr C Pease.

. Thomas Mallett died in1925 having made a will in1891 naming his 3 sons; John Wood Mallett, William James Mallett and Robert Thomas Mallett as trustees stating that they should not sell the property in his wife’s (Mary Ann) lifetime without her written permission and that, when sold, it should be offered to William James Mallett at a valuation agreed between 2 valuers, one appointed by William James and one by other trustees. As Mary Ann had died in1911, on Thomas’s death, William James exercised his right and paid the trustees £600 for the property.

The plans show the property as before but with additional outbuildings behind no 17. The land on the Church Walk side is shown as belonging to the executors of T Mallett, on the High St side to Mr C Oakley and behind ( where 6 and 8 Church Walk now stand) to Mr W Mallett

In 1931 William James Mallett , described as retired baker, sold the property to Ronald Aubrey Mallett, grocer of 2 Albany rd Leighton Buzzard for an annuity of £52 per yr to be paid by £1 weekly instalments to him for life and to his wife Laura should she outlive him. Attached to the conveyance document is a certificate to show that the land had been registered by the land registry on 4.8.1931

In 1946 Ronal Aubrey Mallett (now of 21 Bridge St) sold the property now described as The Lane Bakery, Wing to William Ernest Evans (who appears to have been already living there) for £800.

In 1951 William Ernest Evans (baker) sold what is for the first time described as 17 Vicarage Lane to Nancy Joan Harris (spinster) of 10 Vicarage Lane for £1400. Miss Harris sold the plot with the house but not the garden plot where 15 a and b now stand to Richard and Evelyn Woodford in 1979 and they sold it to us in1987 It was the Wood fords who recently discovered these documents and very kindly passed them on to us.
The outbuilding have all been demolished except the stable which is now a garage and the granary which can be seen at the Chiltern Open Air Museum in Chalfont St Giles.

We would like to appeal to anyone who might know what was on the site before the present house was built and if we are correct in our supposition that it was built about 1840.

Carol and Peter Axten