History of Banovallum House
Headquarters of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust
An outline history of Banovallum House and its occupants before purchase by the Trust as its headquarters.
The original two-storey three-bay house was built in 1790 on land forming part of the estate of Sir Joseph Banks of Revesby. Legend has it that the walnut tree, now tight up against the new garden wall, was planted by him.
In 1792 the house was occupied by William Simpson who was a linen and wool draper and mercer, and when advertised in 1802 it was described as having a garden and one-acre orchard. The property was bounded on the south by the Horncastle Navigation canal which opened in September that year.
A warehouse and wharf were constructed on the canal and a long low malthouse on the other side of what is not the driveway and extending in front of the house; the footings are still there under the gravel and grass. Benjamin Gilliat had taken tenancy of the house by 1805; he was a sloop owner operating between Horncastle and Wakefield, and a coal dealer.
In 1837 he was succeeded by his son George, listed as a coal, corn and timber merchant and wharfinger, and later also as a brewer and maltster, the warehouse by the canal wharf having been extended into another malthouse. He also farmed 530 acres at Thimbleby, employing 17 labourers and five boys, and owned the Black Horse inn and brewery (now the Banovallum Suite in the Market Place). His family was extensive with four boys and four girls; the 1851 census recorded a cook, housemaids also two nursemaids also living in the house.
It seems likely therefore that the third storey, the bay window, library wing and pantiled rear extensions with the present staircase were added to the house just before the middle of the century. The building materials of brick and pantiles came from one of the two brickyards in Horncastle, and the York Stone flags for the hallway came by canal. There was also an earth mound at the west end to give access at first floor level to another wing of the house. This was taken down and the earth levelled early this century.
The Gilliats had left by about 1870 and Alfred Healey and his family occupied the house. He was also a brewer and maltster, and coal, coke, spirit and artificial manure merchant; in addition he ran a water carrier service to Lincoln and Boston from his wharf on the canal. However, coal traffic on the canal ceased in 1876 because of competition from the railway (opened 1855), and two years later the canal closed. The rotted remains of the last barge could still be seen by the ruins of the Manor House Street wharf sixty years later.
In the 1880s Healey's sons joined the brewing and malting business, and Alfred acted as agent for the Threlfall Brewery Company's large maltings at the railway station. When he died about 1896 his son Sydney lived in the house for a short time. Then at the turn of the century Threlfalls took over the maltings in Manor House Street, and a new agent, George Speed JP, came to Banovallum House. The annual rent in 1919 was £1,000.
The malting opposite the house was taken down before the First World War and between the wars the house was occupied by doctors, first William Parkinson for a short time and then John Buchanan. He also served as medical officer of health for the Horncastle RDC, as public vaccinator, and as medical officer to the Horncastle Guardians Committee. The telephone number of the house in the 1930s was '42'. When the house was later tenanted by Thomas Williams, he bought it from the estate of Lady Beryl Groves in 1956 for £1,500.
When Sir Joseph Banks had died in 1820, he left his estates to two aunts. The land which included Banovallum House then passed to James Banks Stanhope (he built the present Revesby Abbey) who passed it to his cousin the Hon. Edward Stanhope, MP for Mid-Lincolnshire and Minister of War, whose memorial is in Horncastle Market Place. The property passed to his son Richard who married Lady Beryl Franziska Kathleen Bianca Le Poer-Trench in 1914, but he was killed in France two years later, the estates having been conveyed to his wife. She remarried, was divorced and married again to become Lady Beryl Groves.
Mr Williams sold Banovallum House in 1968 to David Hart. In 1977 the line of the garden wall was altered and some of the land sold to accommodate Horncastle's inner relief road, Jubilee Way. The same year the house was bought by Paul and Rosemary Branagan who lived there until 1981 when Peter and Margaret Ross purchased the property and for a time ran a garden centre.
