page_title: Widows' Almshouses, Nantwich
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Widows' Almshouses, Nantwich / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Widows' Almshouses, Welsh Row, Nantwich, Cheshire
context_page_description: The Widows' Almshouses, also known as the Wilbraham or Wilbraham's Almshouses and as the Widows' Hospital, are former almshouses for six widows in Nantwich, Cheshire, England. They are located at numbers 26–30 on the north side of Welsh Row, on the junction with Second Wood Street. The almshouses were founded by Roger Wilbraham in 1676–7 in memory of his deceased wife in three existing cottages built in 1637; they were the earliest almshouses in the town for women. In 1705, Wilbraham also founded the Old Maids' Almshouse for two old maids in a separate building on Welsh Row. They remained in use as almshouses until the 1930s. The timber-framed Widows' Almshouses building, which is listed at grade II, has subsequently been used as a café, public house, night club, restaurant, wine bar and hotel.
  Nikolaus Pevsner considers Welsh Row "the best street of Nantwich". The street has many listed buildings and is known for its mixture of architectural styles, including other black-and-white cottages, Georgian town houses such as Townwell House and number 83, and Victorian buildings such as the former Grammar School, Primitive Methodist Chapel and Savings Bank.
context_section_description: Roger Wilbraham (1623–1707/8) was born at Townsend House on Welsh Row, and inherited the family's Nantwich property on the death of his elder brother in 1649. He was the great-nephew of his namesake Sir Roger Wilbraham, founder of the Wilbraham's Almshouses. He married in 1656; his wife Alice was the daughter of another Roger Wilbraham from the Dorfold branch of the family.
  In 1675–76, Wilbraham experienced personal tragedy: his two eldest sons died within a few months of each other in 1675, and his wife died on 8 September 1676, the anniversary of the death of his eldest son. A few months after the death of his wife, he decided to found almhouses for impoverished widows in her memory, describing their foundation in detail in his journal:
  It was just Quarter of a year before I returned to my widow-bed, & that while I had no rest in my spirit; sleep became a straunger to me; and while I lay musing I thought of erecting a monument that might transmit the memory of my D.[ear] wife to posterity; it came into my thoughts, that I had in our own Street, three well built houses, under a roof, with convenient apartments, that might easily be converted into an Almshouse, for half a dozen poor aged widows; and thought better to devote something of this nature to the Honor of God and to her memory that had been mindfull to lay something by, to be distributed to poor widows in her own street. I gave notice forthwith to the Tenants of these houses to remove at Christmas coming and till then I cᵈ proceed no further in this affair.
  [...] I made all possible haste to fitt the houses wᶜʰ were now in my possession for the reception of six aged widows, that I had there in my thoughts. I endowed the same by deed executed by Livery, with lands to the value of xxiiijˡⁱ per ann.; for a constant and perpetual maintenance for so many poor aged widows for ages to come. Which done the six widows took their lodging in the said almshouse; two in each house (for society) upon the eve of the Blessed Virgin M[ary] 1676. The day following being Sunday the said widows went orderly in their gowns to Church; took their places in a seat wᶜʰ I had provided for them in the face of the Pulpit; dined with me that day; and joined with me and my family to beg a blessing upon this charitable mite which God enabled me and inclined my heart to cast into the Corban, and lent me life to see it accomplished.
  The three existing cottages that Wilbraham converted for this purpose had been built by his father, Thomas Wilbraham, in 1637. The almshouse deed was dated 15 January 1676–7; the endowment of lands in Betchton, near Sandbach, gave an annual income of £24. Each house was occupied by two widows, and had two rooms on the ground floor with a single room above. It is traditionally stated that a line was drawn across the main ground-floor room in each cottage, passing through the centre of the single grate, leading to arguments about housework. In 1705, a few years before his death, Wilbraham additionally founded an almshouse for two "old Maids", with an annual endowment of £3 per head. The Old Maids' Almshouse was a small cottage with a single room on each floor located near the Widows' Almshouses, on the other side of Welsh Row.
  In 1721, the endowments of both the Widows' and Old Maids' Almshouses were increased by Randle Wilbraham, Roger Wilbraham's eldest surviving son. They were increased again in 1834 from a bequest of £500 by Peter Sprout; he and his brother William were among the town's major 19th-century benefactors. In 1850, the inhabitants of the Widows' and Old Maids' Almshouses each received, respectively, 17s 6d or 15 shillings quarterly, plus 6s 8d or 3s 4d annually for coal, and a gown and petticoat every other year; all received an additional £2 1s 0d a year from the Sprout bequest. Additional cottages were added at the rear of the Widows' Almshouses on Second Wood Street in the 19th century. The Old Maids' Almshouse had only a single occupant throughout much of the 19th century. The almshouses were still being maintained by the Wilbraham family in the 19
caption: Gable end to Second Wood Street
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