Blackmore's Grove 33, "Tyre Cottage"
Road: Blackmore's Grove
Property: 33, "Tyre Cottage"
This is a detached 2-storey stock brick house with rubbed brick arches, slate roof. There are three sash windows on the first floor with a recessed front door to the left hand side and two sash windows on the ground floor.
This house is shown on the 1863 Ordnance Survey map. Until 1960 the garden extended to Field Lane, when the land was sold and another house built. Tyre Cottage had a well in the garden and there survives an old apple tree which could possibly be part of R.D. Blackmore's orchard.
Unfortunately the census returns for this part of Teddington are missing for the year 1861 and the earliest record of the house is the 1863 Ordnance Survey map. It is called Tiark Cottage in the 1871 census, but changed to Tyre Cottage in the 1881 census. In the 1865 London Post Office Directory a Mr. David Smith is listed as living in Tiark Cottage. By 1871, William John Taylor, an auctioneer and estate agent with an office in Victoria Road, was living there with his wife and servant and, according to trade directories, lived in the cottage until at least 1885. Other occupants were Mr. F. Oakley, Mrs. Burnwell, Mr. H. Haywood, and Mrs. Parkes and her son J. Parkes, who apparently died in 1953.
Blackmore died in 1900 and the house was left to his nieces. Part of the garden was sold off and in 1904 the Edwardian houses on both sides of Blackmore's Grove were built and the road made up. The road then became Blackmore's Grove. Gomer House was auctioned in 1938 and the house subsequently demolished and maisonettes built in its place, together with the houses in Station Road, Teddington.
This page is part of the Directory of Buildings of Townscape Merit (BTMs) and Listed Buildings in Teddington assembled by the Planning and History Groups of The Teddington Society. Click on any photo for a higher resolution version. Copyright for the material on this page rests with the contributor.