BUTLEY COTTAGE, PRESTBURY
2007 version of an article which was published
on
Butley
Cottage can be seen on the left-hand side of the road as one approaches the
village from the railway station. It is built of brick but a small part is made
of stone, indicating that there was an earlier building, perhaps timber-framed,
on the site. There is stabling (used as a garage) at the southern end, with a
former hayloft above.
It
has been said to date from 1732. It was extended at the northern end in about
1840.
Ownership
The
land on which it stands was once part of a small estate called the
Bollingtonfield Estate, a triangle of land occupying a few acres between New
Road, Bridge End Lane and a little beyond the railway. The estate had been
purchased by Richard Pimlott (1711-1791), a yeoman of Butley. He had come from
humble beginnings to become a successful cheesefactor. Seemingly stern but kind
to his family, he had reached a contented old age after a lifetime of honest
hard work. His tomb can be seen in the churchyard of St
Peter’s Church. It carries an epitaph set down in Latin by his son and heir
James in 1817.
James, who
spelt his surname "Pymlot", had been educated for the Church, but
would not subscribe to the 39 articles. He became bitterly opposed to
Methodism. He had kept a school in his house and in his Will had given detailed
directions for a new Sunday school to be built on a field next to the cottage’s
garden, with two small cottages contiguous to it. The management was not to be
entrusted to the "grasping and unholy fangs of Methodism, whether
Wesleyan, Primitive or Independent…." James died of apoplexy in 1834. His
tombstone was to have been inscribed "Persecuted, but not forsaken: cast
down by the beast of Methodism, but not destroyed!---"In the event the
words "the beast of Methodism" were omitted. What remained was a
quotation from the second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 9.
James’
Sunday school and associated buildings were never built. Instead, his young
widow Mary, to whom he was "lawfully married by the rites of
Scotland", built an extension to the cottage, so that it became a pair of
semi-detached houses. It remained in that form until well after her death on
July 1 1879, aged 75.
By 1884, William Coare Brocklehurst of the silk family had acquired the Bollingtonfield Estate. The Brocklehursts gave the name "Butley Cottage" to Bollingtonfield House (the present White House Manor), the imposing house next door to the cottage. The cottage, an appendage of Bollingtonfield House, did not merit a name of its own.
In
1931 the former Bollingtonfield House and the cottage were sold to E.C.Baines.
The Brocklehurst family later became connected with the Dent family. In the
1990s one scion of the family, Henry Dent-Brocklehurst of Sudeley Castle,
became a prominent socialite.
By
1948 the cottage had been sold, for the first time as a separate property, to
Major Monty Scholfield for £1500. Monty Scholfield gave it the name "Gay
Cottage". Dr John Swallow bought the cottage after Monty’s death in 1962.
By 1988 Butley Cottage had become Butley House. The name "Butley Cottage"
was transferred to the cottage.
Butley
Cottage was sold to Mrs Susan Roebuck in 2002.
Occupants
The
cottage’s first known occupant was John Roylance (1770-1850), a smallholder and
cordwainer. His garden was twice the size of the present garden and he also had a field opposite the
Rodney. At the time of his death he occupied the northern part of the cottage.
Thomas Bowers occupied the southern part. At the time of the 1851 Census, the
Bowers household consisted of himself, his wife, seven children and three
lodgers. The adults were all silk weavers.
Thomas
Everson, a coachman’s son, succeeded John Roylance. Starting as a garden
labourer, he later became a coachman like his father. Still later he was
described as a gardener. He and his family lived in the northern part of the
cottage for more than thirty years. Occupants of the southern part have
included the Misses Turner, dressmakers, who were there for more than thirty
years. Towards the end of their tenure, Margaret Turner, by then a seamstress,
shared her four rooms with a boarder Sarah Bradley, a widow.
The
cottage became a single house again during the twentieth century. James
Middleton, a coachman domestic, lived there between 1901 and 1911.The Hundlebys
lived in the cottage between 1912 and 1939. Mr Hundleby, still remembered in
the village, was Butler at Butley Hall. He had married Lily, née Pimlott, in
1898. Their son Harry was a pupil at Prestbury School and a prominent member of
the church choir. Tragically, Harry died of Spanish flu during the epidemic
which followed the First World War. The Hundlebys’ daughter Winifred became
Prestbury’s first telephonist, operating first from the Post Office and later
from an exchange in New Road.
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Composite picture showing a meal being enjoyed in the yard at the back of Butley Cottage. The photograph of Lily, Fred and Winifred Hundleby was taken in 1928 when John Swallow was two years old. The photograph of John Swallow, who has never met the Hundlebys, was taken in 1999. |
The
Lloyds succeeded the Hundlebys. Mr Lloyd is remembered as working at Prestbury
Station during the war. The Lloyds were succeeded in turn by the Sadlers and
the Wards but they did not live in the cottage for long. Monty Scholfield, the
first owner-occupier, lived there for fourteen years, cared for by his
housekeeper known locally as John Willy. Retired early, he was one of the
regulars at the Admiral
Rodney. He did not enjoy good health and died when he was only 57.
The
author of this article, a bachelor, was the next to
occupy the cottage. He was one of the pioneers of the modern subject of
Radiation Chemistry (the study of the chemical effects of ionising radiation).
He is an Emeritus Reader in the Diocese of Chester. Work abroad gave him a
taste for independent travel, which he also enjoyed in his spare time. Now retired, he is in the habit of living for part of
each year in Bangkok. His retirement interests have
included painting decorative murals, teaching English to speakers of other
languages, researching local history, editing websites and contributing to
Wikipedia.
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Trompe l'oeil mural, 340Wx235H(cm), painted by John Swallow at Butley
Cottage. It is straight and flat (there are no steps). The walls that can be
seen at the two sides of the picture are both at a right angle to the mural. |
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Susan
Roebuck began to occupy the cottage on 27 January 2003. The Prestbury
Photo Gallery has a photograph taken in June 2006.