Exhibition: The History of Walton Hall

Owners of Walton Hall: The Pinfolds

Fanny Maria Pinfold (1829-1901)

Fanny Maria Pinfold was the only child of Rev. Charles John Pinfold and his wife Anna Maria (née Seagrave). She was born in Lavendon in Buckinghamshire in 1829 and was baptised at Lavendon Church on 20 May 1829. Her father Charles John Pinfold (1800-1856) was Curate of Lavendon at the time so is likely to have carried out the baptism himself.

 

Fanny Maria attended Avonbank School on the outskirts of Stratford-upon-Avon. The boarding school for girls was opened in 1822 by the Byerley sisters and was later run by the Ainsworth sisters. In addition to the usual school subjects, the girls were taught French, Italian, music and dancing, deportment, and correct etiquette. In 1841, when Fanny Maria was 12 years old, the census lists 52 occupants of the school – 13 staff and 39 pupils, ranging from age 9 to 15 years of age. Another pupil attending the school in 1841 was 13 year old Euphemia ‘Effie’ Gray who would later marry the art critic John Ruskin and - after their divorce - the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais. The author Elizabeth Gaskell had also attended Avonbank School in the 1820s and her time there influenced some of her later writing.  

 

In 1851 Fanny was living with her parents at Bramshall in Staffordshire where her father Charles John Pinfold was the Rector. The family employed a coachman, servant, and a cook. Charles died in 1856 and a year later, Fanny Maria inherited her grandfather’s estate at Walton following his death on 28 August 1857. She was 28 years old.

 

It is likely that Fanny Maria resided at Walton Hall for a couple of years on inheriting the estate from her grandfather. In October 1857 Charles Frederick Moore, who had been a tenant at the Hall for a few years, made plans to leave by auctioning some stock and crops: “Seventy fat sheep, 18 head of cattle, pigs, 84 fleeces of wool, 2 Ricks of Capital hay (about 85 tons to go off), 60 acres of excellent grass keeping up to Lady-day 1858, and four first-class hunters (two of them winners of steeple-chases in Ireland).”

 

In January 1860 Fanny Maria was referenced in a newspaper article in the ‘Bucks Herald’ regarding theft from the Hall by a servant: “Agnes White was charged with stealing a ham, some cheese, and other articles, from Walton Hall, the property of Miss Pinfold, on the 21^st of January. It appeared from the evidence adduced, that the defendant had lately been in the service of Miss Pinfold as cook. She left her situation on Saturday morning, the 21^st instant, and after she had left some articles were missing. Mr Bragg, the superintendent of police, followed her to her home at Leicester, the same day, and found in her possession the articles produced by him consisting of a ham, a piece of cheese, a pudding-mould, two plum puddings, and some raisins and currants… She pleaded guilty of stealing the cheese but denied stealing the other articles. Sentenced to six months imprisonment.”

 

In the years following her inheritance it seems that Fanny Maria funded work on both the church and Walton Hall. In 1861 St Michael’s Church underwent a complete restoration, during which time the vestry was most likely added to the building. Two years later a bell was cast by John Warner & Sons of London and hung in a bell tower on the roof of Walton Hall. The bell was used to call farm workers back to the hall for their meals. Incidentally John Warner & Sons cast the original ‘Big Ben’ bell in 1856. The first bell cracked and was recast by a different foundry in 1858 but the four smaller quarter bells still used today are the Warner originals.

 

A photograph of the bell tower taken in 1985 can be seen on this page. In the second photograph, taken in 2023, you can see the position of the bell tower on the roof of the front part of Walton Hall.