ID: ML2017_011_L32 / Ron Green

TitleMemory Lane - The History of Orleans Part 2
AbstractBy Ron Green with Tony Millatt and Brian Jay Mersea Island Museum

We continue the history of Orleans, the large house by the Monkey Beach in West Mersea.

At the end of the 19th Century, Orleans belonged to Thomas Gilbert a wealthy gentleman who was a JP, Churchwarden, Captain of the Yacht club, Parish Councillor etc. He committed suicide in February 1904. He had become infatuated with a variety actress Miss Florence Bates and they became engaged. She was just nineteen and he was 21 years her senior. She eventually found his jealousy and possessiveness unbearable and broke off the engagement. She and her sister Lottie got parts in a pantomime at Birkenhead and Gilbert followed her there, where he shot her with a revolver. She survived, but he then turned the gun on himself and died. He had probably sold Orleans by then as Willoughby John Bean had taken out a mortgage on Orleans in May 1903. In 1913 the sale of 'This Highly Desirable Marine Residence' was withdrawn but came up for sale by auction on June 25th 1914 at the Hall Barn together with other property of WJB who was now bankrupt. Orleans sold for £1450.

The purchaser was was probably Henry George Hoblyn, whose name is in the Register of Electors for 1918 through to 1931. [ Appendix 1 ] In 1929 and 1931 it lists Ida Eleanor Drane as housekeeper. By 1936, Isabel Margaret Smith and Olive Francis Guthrie Smith were there.

During the war, girls of the Women's Land Army were billeted there. One report says there were 70 of them but this was a gross exaggeration. The 1914 auction lists eight bedrooms, two dressing rooms and two bathrooms. Mrs Guthrie Smith and her companion Isabel were living there at the time. The Land Army girls were taken to their place of work by Underwood's coal lorry driven Stan Deal. Not a luxury means of transport and not very clean.

I started work in 1946 for Clifford White, the local builder, who did the maintenance work on Orleans. Mrs Guthrie Smith owned it then. One of the jobs that my father Les and I did was to repair the balustrades in the garden. This was all renewed this year by my son Laurence - a third generation of Greens doing maintenance work at Orleans.

Isabel Smith died in the late 1950s and Mrs Guthrie Smith had died a few years earlier. The house was then sold by auction. It was was demolished and replaced by New Orleans luxury flats 1959-60. The gardens have been retained and are the finest gardens on Mersea Island.


This card of Orleans was posted June 1906


The lovely view from New Orleans in the 2017 summer.
The balustrades are in the middle of being replaced. Photo by Laurence Green.

Published in Mersea Life November 2017, Local page 32.

Appendix 1
Henry George Hoblyn was born in 1864. He went to Felstead and then took up farming, for a time in Cornwall and later in the States, though without much success. Eventually he came home and, breaking his leg in a hunting accident, was lame for the rest of his life. He lived with his mother at Ashford Lodge until about 1912, when he set up house on his own at Orleans, West Mersea. During the time that his mother was a Ward in Chancery, he acted as "receiver". The last years of his life were spent at Colchester, where he died In 1933. He is buried in Halstead cemetery. His house-keeper, Ida Drane, occupied the house 2 St. Clare Drive, Colchester, for her lifetime.
From Kevin Bruce - originally from The diaries of T.H. Usborne 1843-1867 by Thomas Noel Hoblyn 1963.

[because Orleans was sold by auction 1914 as mentioned above, that is the likely date for H.G. Hoblyn coming to Orleans].

Ida Drane was Kevin's mother-in-law - she was one of thirteen. Family members often spent holidays at Orleans with Ida.

Read More
Part 1
Mersea Cottage, later Orleans Cottage, 1821 - 1901

Updated Jan 2021 - add Henry George Hoblyn and Ida Eleanor Drane.

AuthorRon Green
PublishedNovember 2017
SourceMersea Museum
IDML2017_011_L32
Related Images:
 Queenie Crozier, possibly at Orleans, West Mersea. Ida Eleanor Drane was Queenie's aunt and was housekeeper at Orleans c1930.
 Photograph taken at the home (Berkshire?) of Lord Birkett, where Queenie and her husband Les Crozier were in service. 
 Les Crozier was Kevin's wife's great uncle.  KBC_001
ImageID:   KBC_001
Title: Queenie Crozier, possibly at Orleans, West Mersea. Ida Eleanor Drane was Queenie's aunt and was housekeeper at Orleans c1930.
Photograph taken at the home (Berkshire?) of Lord Birkett, where Queenie and her husband Les Crozier were in service.
Les Crozier was Kevin's wife's great uncle.
Date:c1930
Source:Mersea Museum / Kevin Bruce
 On the terrace of Orleans, West Mersea
 L-R Ida Drane, Grandmother Susan Drane, Olive Drane, Queenie Crozier and Great Grandfather Alfred Drane.
 Ida Drane was housekeeper at Orleans around 1931.  KBC_003
ImageID:   KBC_003
Title: On the terrace of Orleans, West Mersea
L-R Ida Drane, Grandmother Susan Drane, Olive Drane, Queenie Crozier and Great Grandfather Alfred Drane.
Ida Drane was housekeeper at Orleans around 1931.
Date:c1931
Source:Mersea Museum / Kevin Bruce