In 1854 Henry Cox, carpenter, purchased approximately 2½ acres on the Newport Road, then called Kingston Lane, from Charles Chapman, cordwainer of Tattle End, for £240 with a mortgage of £200 (at 4½%) from Rebecca Freear, spinster of Newport Pagnell.

The land, known variously as New Close, Barn Close, or Rookery Close, came to be known as Cox's Clump, and is now occupied by numbers 47 – 57 Newport Road. Previous owners identified from maps had been Stephen Hoddle (1779), in Charles Kipling (1828) and subsequently by William Kitelee and his son Thomas Kitelee. Early maps show no indication of buildings on the site.

By 1889 (in the Will of Henry Cox) there was a house on Newport Road, known as Elm Tree House and divided into two dwellings, occupied by Henry Cox and George Herbert. There were another nine houses (Elm Tree Cottages) down a lane behind Elm Tree House, all of which had been built by Henry Cox on the property. The tenants of those houses are listed below. None of the houses exist today, having been replaced by properties at numbers 47 – 57 Newport Road.

In his will of 1898, Henry Cox left his property to his wife, Charlotte, and upon her death to his five daughters: Julia Elizabeth, Annie, Sarah (Cox) Ward, Ellen and Mary Eliza (Cox) Whitbread. Henry Cox died in 1904 and Charlotte in 1910, predeceased by Julia Elizabeth, who left her interest in the property to Ellen Cox.

In 1924 the property was purchased by Harry Percy Ward, Sheffield schoolmaster and husband of Sarah (Cox) Ward, for £1200. The proceeds were divided, as per the terms of Henry Cox's will, between Sarah (Cox) Ward - £320, Ellen Cox - £560, and Mary Eliza (Cox) Whitbread - £320.

Sarah (Cox) Ward and her son Stanley predeceased Harry Percy Ward, so on his death in 1942, the property passed to their two daughters, Mary and Nellie Ward. They were by then living in Hampshire and Norwich respectively, and sold the property to Charles Henry Smith, haulage contractor of Sherington, for £1600. By this time, some of the nine cottages had been combined, so that there were only six.

On the death of Charles Henry Smith, the property passed to his wife and subsequently daughters:

 Occupants of house(s) on Newport Road (Elm Tree House or Villa):

1889	1910 IR Survey	1943
Henry Cox	Charlotte Cox	Mrs Perry
George Herbert	William Ditam	Percy Evans

Occupants of nine tenanted houses behind Elm Tree House, known as Elm Tree Cottages: