By Don Maddox
John
Freeman
Riding to its rescue, at a very reasonable price,
came John Freeman, Merchant of Bristol. Originally,
he was a local lad from Bishop's Frome - if that can
be called local to Letton - and of 'good yeoman stock'.
He'd made an excellent living out of Bristol's 'Triangular
Trade' - brassware and trinkets to the Gambia, slaves
to the Carolinas and rum and sugar back to Bristol.
As was the fashion at the time, he wanted to settle
his son, John Junior, with a good, country estate.
In this case Letton.
The son had energy. He expanded the
Estate by buying land as far down as Stowe farm. He
improved agriculture by draining the area of Letton
Lake and straightening and deepening the meandering
Letton Brook. Not that it stopped flooding but it
did remove all the marshland, scrub and swamp that
characterised the area. As a result more workers were
needed to farm it. Instead of 'ticking over' it became
prosperous. There is a strong rumour that the present
pulpit was moved here from a Bristol church.
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JOHN
FREEMAN
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One of his other civil engineering jobs
was to divert the old road through Letton. This had
run from the corner of the Bredwardine road, behind
the present houses and the Swan Inn and just south
of the graveyard. After all, how would you like it
if, when you were munching your morning 'Wheatibangs'
you had a group of toothless peasants grinning at
you through the window ? In a spanking new house too
that had replaced the black and white Elizabethan
rubbish ? That road was too near and had to go. He
replaced it with the present one. The bridge over
Letton Brook has his initials and the date 1756
He also built a new Rectory on the corner
of Kinnersley Lane to replace the black and white
Elizabethan one (the present Gardener's Cottage, next
to the churchyard).
John Jnr. married twice. The first to
the daughter of his cousin, another John Freeman,
ended at the death of his wife and all three daughters.
His second marriage was to Jane Hobhouse, a daughter
of the foremost 'Triangular Trade' families in the
country, let alone Bristol. Again there were three
daughters. Two of them married into the church. Family
relationships could be really complicated. One of
his sons-in-law, The Revd. Lilly, was the son of the
sister of his first wife and not only his son-in-law
but also his cousin.
His daughter Elizabeth, and heiress,
married Joseph Blisset. This was another family complication
because Joseph's father had married John Freeman Senior's
sister. Joseph was John Junior's first cousin. It
was an advantageous marriage not only because Joseph
had copper and brass foundries in the Swansea Valley
and Bristol, which helped "The Trade', but because
they do genuinely appear to have loved each other.
But again the writing was on the wall.
)