Bankton is a large house, now divided into two parts, set back from the corner of Grange Road and the Turners Hill Road. It was built in 1863 as a result of a dramatic set of circumstances. An earlier house had existed on the site. In the census of 1841 it was described as ‘Cottage on Crawley Down’ and was the home of its builder, Charles Milligan, aged 50, an army contractor who was born in Scotland, together with his wife Matilda and their 22-year-old daughter, also Matilda. They had previously lived in Woolwich, perhaps because of the military connection, as that is where the younger Matilda had been born. For the next 20 years we know little of the Milligans, apart from their appearance in the decennial census and the unseemly wrangle between Mr Milligan and Mr Wilson, his neighbour at The Grange, over the purchase at auction of two parcels of land in 1848 (see Mr Wilson and the railway). The younger Matilda lived with her parents, remaining unmarried and in 1851 we learn that she had a younger sister, Caroline, who was married and had two young daughters and a baby son.
All this changed on the 19th of July 1861 when the Milligans’ house was destroyed by fire. But it was apparently no accident. A report repeated in newspapers across the country in August the next year recounted the case that was brought before Lord Bramwell at Lewes Assizes against a 17-year-old servant girl, Harriet Goble, on the charge of arson. The principal witness for the prosecution in the case was Charles Milligan’s daughter Matilda, by then in her early 40s, who was described as “a fashionably-dressed young lady of a very prepossessing appearance”. She confirmed that she and her elderly parents were at home at the time, as was a long-serving retainer, Robert Howes. Harriet Goble had been engaged on a temporary basis the previous February as cook and housemaid until a permanent appointment could be made. Matilda recounted that at about one o’clock on that day she noticed that the house was full of smoke, but assumed it to have been caused by the kitchen chimney. When the family dined an hour or so later the smoke had increased and it was discovered that a portfolio in an upstairs room was on fire and a coat and dress were smouldering. This was extinguished, but at around 6pm, Goble gave the alarm that there was another fire, this time of some books. Again this was put out. An hour and a half after that there was a fire in another room, which was again put out. About this time Goble cried out, “A man! a man! running up the attic-stairs”. Matilda, together with two neighbours who had been sent for, went up to look and found no-one. Finally at half past nine a fourth fire was discovered but this time it had taken hold too much to be extinguished, destroying the house and the greater part of its contents, estimated to be of the value of between three and four thousand pounds.
The defence barrister challenged Matilda about remarks she had been alleged to have made about her dislike of the house and that the only way she thought her father would leave was if it burnt down. Rumours had spread that it was she who had set light to the house. This she refuted by saying that on each occasion fires had started she was in the company of the neighbours, and they testified in her defence. Matilda went on to speak of a box and a watch which had gone missing when the last fire broke out. She said that she had questioned the accused about this who told her that she had gone into Matilda’s room at the time and had brought the box out with her but that she had met a man on the stairs who had knocked her down, with the flames rising around her, and taken the box. Matilda commented that she saw no mark on Goble’s face to indicate that she had been struck, nor any indication that any of her clothes had been burned. Matilda also stated that on several occasions in the past she had had cause to complain about Goble’s work.
Evidently Harriet Goble did not go into the witness box, as was her right. Hearing what was, in effect only one side of the case, with the defence concentrating on Matilda Milligan’s testimony, the jury found Goble not-guilty. The newspapers reported that the judge said after the jury had delivered their verdict that “he did not at all object to the verdict, but he could not help observing, in reference to a suggestion that had been thrown out in the course of the case, that it was absurd to suppose that the act could have been committed by Miss Milligan, especially when it appeared she would be so great a loser by it”.
The house had not been insured, but Charles Milligan had Bankton built to replace it, though he did not survive to enjoy it for very long. He died there in 1865, his invalid wife having predeceased him two years earlier. I am guessing that his two daughters retained ownership and let the property, for by 1891 Matilda had returned and was living in the lodge, built on the land that her father had bid so hard to buy over 40 years earlier. In a sad coda to this story Matilda was admitted to Holloway Hospital with dementia, and died in 1906 at Brookwood Hospital, near Woking, aged 87. She, her parents and their faithful servant of over 40 years, Robert Howe, are buried together in Brookwood Cemetery next to the grave of Matilda’s sister and some of her family.