Official Guide to North Walsham 2023-2024

140 North Walsham Town Guide
still alive, his private library was put up for sale
by auction on 24th June 1822. He also tried
hard to sell the mansion: The Oaks was first put
up for sale in July 1821. The property did not
easily sell as it was put up for sale again on 2nd
July 1822, by auction on 8th April 1823, and by
private contract on 13th September 1823.
It is possible that the anger of his creditors
may have eventually driven him from town;
there was a heavily advertised meeting of his
creditors in North Walsham on 6th February
1826 and there’s a lengthy list of his myriad
creditors in the Cooper Family Archive at the
Norfolk Records Office.
Captain Thomas Hammont Cooper died in
Stoke Newington, Middlesex, on 25th April
1828. A brief obituary in The Examiner merely
stated he was “late of North Walsham, Norfolk,
Justice of the Peace.”
Respectable Owners
The next owner of The Oaks was the Reverend
William Tylney Spurdens, who had long been
Master of the Grammar School but resigned
in 1825. He is recorded in the 1830 Pigott’s
Directory of Norfolk under the heading of
Nobility, Gentry and Clergy and is residing at The
Oaks. However, he may not have lived at The
Oaks permanently; by 1835 he was advertising
The Oaks “To be let for a term of years, furnished
or unfurnished.” After his death in December
1852, his executors sold the mansion to Robert
Summers Baker in 1854.
Robert Summers Baker, a well-to-do local
solicitor and J.P. lived at The Oaks with his wife
Laura for over 30 years. Mr Baker also opened
the grounds for the benefit of the town. For
example, on 13th July 1883 he hosted the
North Walsham and Aylsham Horticultural
Society Show. He also gifted land from The
Oaks estate to the people of North Walsham to
be used as a recreation-ground. In reference to
his well-attended funeral on 19th March 1888,
the Norfolk Chronicle reported:
“The funeral was to take place at three o’clock,
but long before that hour spectators began to
assemble in the streets and in the vicinity of The
Oaks. The mansion may be said to be situated
in North Walsham, for although its grounds are
enclosed on the town side by lofty brick walls,
and its immediate surroundings suggest a not
unpleasant seclusion, the house itself practically
lies within a stone’s throw of the market-place.”
The Final Chapter
The next long-term owner of The Oaks was
John Wilkinson who bought the property and
lands in 1888 on the death of Mr Baker. John
Wilkinson was a local solicitor and a member
of a longstanding and well-established North
Walsham family. He lived there with his wife
Eleanora (his first cousin) and their three
children, Eleonora, Gertrude and John.
This brings us to the time of The Oaks as featured
in the model. An article in the Norfolk News
tells us that on 11th September 1889 Mr and
Mrs John Wilkinson hosted the wedding party
luncheon for Mrs Wilkinson’s younger sister
Gertrude. On that day, Mrs Gertrude Hadley
(who was widowed early in her first marriage)
married her first cousin (and younger brother
to Mr John Wilkinson) Colonel Lieutenant
Arthur Wilkinson in St Nicholas’s church, North
Walsham.
Mr and Mrs John Wilkinson continued to reside
at The Oaks and are recorded there in the
1891 and 1901 censuses. Whilst owners of the
mansion they held many events for the benefit
of the town, including in June 1901, the Annual
Summer Show of the Norfolk Agricultural