The entrance to the Museum, once the home of the National School, today stands in Beck’s Square. However, the Square is not found on old maps of the town, neither is it referred to in the early histories of Tiverton.

There is some evidence from a legal document held in our archives that the buildings, later to become Beck’s Square, were not in existence in 1841. The document gives the responsibility for the upkeep of a passageway from St Andrew Street through to what was then land belonging to the Dickinson family to ‘William Beck, his Heirs Appointees and Assigns’. This passageway, still running down one side of the Museum today, complete with the gate as stipulated in the document, now joins St Andrew Street to Beck’s Square.

 

The development of Beck’s Square, would appear to have happened quite quickly in the early 1840s. It appears on this map of 1843. It was built on the site of the garden which had belonged to Benjamin Dickinson. He built a ‘fine town house’ in 1783 where Boots the Chemist now is. After his death, the house was initially bought to be converted in to a hotel but in the end was demolished in 1823. The land was then divided up for developments including Beck’s Square.

 

In the 1841 census, there are 13 separate BECK households connected to the building trade living in Tiverton. Harding records James Beck being involved in the ‘lathing and plastering of a new mill’ in 1791. In his research for the ‘A History of Tiverton’, Mike Sampson found further references, now in the Devon Heritage Centre, to work undertaken by members of the Beck family. George and John Beck, masons, worked on the construction of the Workhouse in the 1830s and in 1844 ‘local builders’.

John and Charles Beck helped in the building of the ‘new prison in St Andrew Street’. In our archive collection, we have 5 pages of Beck baptisms and marriages covering the period from 1563-1792. The papers came to us from a solicitor’s office but there is no indication of who put the lists together. It’s not clear if all these events are in Tiverton but searching the registers just for St Peter’s show large numbers of Becks being baptised (244), married (56) and buried (149) between 1563 and 1900.

During the research for this post, it was found that the Tiverton Civic Society’s Newsletter 37 (September 1992) contained a short article by the editor entitled ‘Why ‘Beck’s’ Square? The article was based on a then recent, connection with a Beck family member and reported that the link between the family and the building trade went back at least as far as the late 17th century.

The 1881 map below shows clearly the buildings which were then present and still existed into the 1960s. The cottages built against the side of St George’s graveyard came in for severe criticism not long after they were built. The Rammell Report was a nationwide ‘inquiry into the state of public health’. In 1851, it says that the cottages ‘are rendered damp and offensive by the drainage of water from it’, the graveyard. Mr. Parkhouse, a former grave digger declared ‘he would not live in one of these houses for £1000’.

For many years, the Masonic Hall was in Beck’s Square. They moved from the Three Tuns in 1867 and rented the premises from Mr Physick. In 1925 they bought the building and adjoining cottages. In 1965 they sold the property to the Borough Council and the following year the new Masonic Hall in Castle Street was dedicated.

So, next time you visit the Museum, or drive up to the car park, just imagine that row of seven cottages against the wall of the churchyard which formed one side of the original Beck’s Square.

Written by Museum Volunteer, Sue B.

References

HARDING (1847), The History of Tiverton in the County of Devon, F Boyce, Tiverton and Whittaker & Co, London

National Library of Scotland, https://maps.nls.uk/  accessed 8 November 2024

SAMPSON Mike (2004), A History of Tiverton, Tiverton War Memorial Trust

Tiverton Baptisms and Burials  https://www.findmypast.co.uk/  accessed 22 November 2024

Tiverton Civic Society, Newsletter no.37, September 1992

Tiverton Civic Society, Newsletter no 65, November 2006

Tiverton Masons,  http://www.tivertonmasons.org.uk/   accessed 22 November 2024

1841 census, www.ancestry.co.uk  accessed 8 November 2024

Google Books, RAMMELL (1851), Preliminary Enquiry into the sewerage, drainage and supply of water and  the sanitary condtions of the inhabitants of the Borough of Tiverton

https://books.google.co.uk/books?redir_esc=y&id=xmfwxgk6lfic&q=beck#v=snippet&q=beck&f=false         accessed 8 November 2024