French Gardens Lane

French Gardens Lane gets its name from the market gardens further up the lane. There were nurseries or kitchen gardens behind the Wellesley Arms throughout the 1800s and 1900s. They were run by Henry Harris in the 1920s and by Eric Gardener from around 1940. On the corner of the High Street and French Gardens Lane is an Estate House, Nos 12 / 14 High Street. The old 1808 map shows this corner, when there were several women as heads of their respective families. Mrs Bond was the tenant of No 218, ‘a house and carpenter’s shop’; Mary Miles was the tenant of No 219, ‘a house and smith’s shop’. At No 224, Elizabeth Hancock was the tenant farmer at Manor Farm. There had been a wheelwright’s / carpenter’s at this same location throughout the 1700s; a number of documents in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre archives refer to the property as ‘the wheeler’s’ – an old name for a wheelwright’s. The Innkeeper at Nos 215 & 216 in 1808 was Thomas Hulbert; the Inn was known at that time as The Tylney Long Arms Public House.