Generally speaking, the further back in time you go, the harder it becomes to find reliable evidence upon which to base conclusions about a building’s history. In our book we presented only documented facts, but here we’re made a few assumptions about the building's early history which, while not made without supporting evidence, remain unverified.
The land now occupied by the Fountain Inn was once part of a large royal enclosure called Whitemead Park. In 1651 reference is made to one farmhouse and eight cottages on the park, but the cottages were deemed to be illegal encroachments and, reportedly, only the farmhouse was in use by the early-1700s. The location of the cottages is now unknown.
The earliest documented evidence for our own building’s existence dates it to c1767, but our sub-basement is certainly older than this (discussed later). As there's no record of any other dwellings existing in the locality between the time of the eight cottages and the earliest confirmed date for our own building, we have concluded that our sub-basement is the remains of one of the mid-1600s dwellings built on Whitemead Park.​
We were given a copy of this 1725 church record, written in Latin. Sadly the corner is missing, but it relates to a child of Guil and Anna Budden, of ‘Park-End’.
The reference to Guil and Anna Budden is one of several which occur between 1717 and 1725, and refer to the family as living in Parkend. A clearance of illegal settlers had taken place in 1680 and, for around 60 years, the only residences in Parkend were York Lodge, the main lodge at Whitemead Park, and possibly the cottage near Parkend Bridge, which went on to be incorporated into the Fountain inn. Although it isn’t known exactly where the Budden family lived, we like to think these may be people who lived in our house.
An early incarnation of our building features on this 1776 map of Whitemead Park, in the plot IV. It is specifically referred to in the schedule as being part of Whitemead Park, and described as a ‘cottage, garden and mead’ (meadow).
We also have an unbroken chain of deeds, demonstrating that the building has been in private ownership since at least 1785. This raises a dilemma as, theoretically, encroachment plots could not have been purchased from the Crown before Parliament passed the Dean Forest (Encroachments) Act in 1838, allowing this to happen. We’ve tried to investigate how the property could have passed into private hands by 1785, but have not been able to do so.
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The building also features in the Driver Brothers’ survey of 1787, which describes it as being 20 years old. We have therefore taken c1767 to be the earliest demonstrable date of construction.