A new estate was built in 1760, known then as Bitterne Grove and today housing St Mary's Independent School. A number of workers' cottages were erected to support the estate and the farming activities at Bitterne Manor and Townhill Park; the cottages were in the Mousehole area of Bitterne. In the 1790s, frequent royal visits to Southampton encouraged a spate of land-buying in the area, and further estates were added to the Bitterne area, including Ridgeway, Sydney Farm and Midanbury Lodge. Townhill Park House was also built around this time, and Chessel House was built in 1796 by David Lance. Aware that access to his land was poor, Lance encouraged the building of a bridge over the River Itchen linking Bitterne Manor to Northam, and another bridge over the River Hamble at Bursledon, with a road linking the bridges meeting another new road, to Botley, at the location known as the centre of today's Bitterne. Construction of this new road and the bridges was completed in 1801. Although this new junction on an important communications route would eventually stimulate the growth of Bitterne Village, an account of 1826 mentions only the estate houses and not any hamlet or collection of cottages.