Highley Forum articles on houses of Highley

This collection of articles describes the history of some of the houses in Highley. Subjects range from the medieval Borle Mill to the 20th Century terrace of Coronation Street.

Borle Mill

There are very few sites in Highley that can claim a documented history stretching back to medieval times. The Church is one such, but the site with the next longest recorded history is probably Borle Mill.

Whilst in early communities corn was milled by hand, during the middle ages there was a striking increase in the number of water-powered mills. Borle Mill belongs to this era. We do not know when it was first built, but in an order of nuns, the White Ladies of Brewood, were in possession of a tenement in Highley. This was probably the mill because in 1249 the Prioress sued Brain de Brampton of Kinlet for levelling a water course in Highley; presumably the mill race. The White Ladies would not have worked the mill themselves but would have let it out to a miller who would have paid them rent. In the middle of the 15th century this was William Lowe and the Lowes were to be associated with the mill for the next 200 years. The miller was an important man in any village and he had the opportunity to make a very comfortable living. The Lowe family made the most of this; they give the impression that they put upward mobility before popularity. By the middle of the 17th Century Thomas Lowe had become lord of the manor and styled himself as living in Borle Hall. He was described as owning three mills; although this probably means there were three sets of grinding stones worked by one water wheel rather than three distinct mills by the brook. The middle, timber framed portion of the current mill probably dates from the times of the Lowes, although the hall has long since gone.

In fact the hall of Thomas Lowe may well have been demolished in the late Eighteenth Century to make way for the stone built house that now forms the main living quarters of the mill. It is not clear who built this; in the Eighteenth Century the mill was owned by a variety of influential village families including the Jordins (who later became the “squires”) and the Stewards who owned much property around Netherton. What is certain is that in 1783 the mill consisted of one wheel driving three pairs of stones (probably the same as Lowe’s mill in the 17th Century) and an adjacent mill with a water wheel attached to just one pair of stones. These could be let separately, although in practice they were probably worked together. Today the end of the building nearest the road which used to house the mill wheels is made of brick and may well be of late Eighteenth or early Nineteenth Century in date.

Towards the middle of the Nineteenth Century the mill was owned by Daniel Jordin, a brother to “Squire” William. In the 1880s it was put up for sale when it was stated that two wheels worked two pairs of stones, although there was room for two more stone. Following a period when it was leased to a variety of itinerant millers, it passed to the Derricut family at the turn of the century. At this stage it seems to have mainly ground corn and beans for animal foodstuffs; grain for bread was increasingly being sent to large mechanised mills. Soon even the foodstuffs market vanished as farmers purchased their own small mills. Just before the First World War the mill was purchased by the Evan’s family whose descendants owned and lived in it until recently. The mill became derelict and a sawmill was set up in the yard. Just after the Great War there was even a proposal to convert it to a hydroelectric power station. The end finally came in 1947 when the mill dam was breached by floods.

Although much has been lost, the recent renovation means that the core of the mill is now safe and once again is a family home.

Greenhall

It is in the nature of buildings for them to eventually decay and fall down. In medieval times, Highley was probably home to 30 or more families; the only building that survives from those days is the church. Similarly, most of the Tudor and Stuart homes have long since fallen down; those that remain are now considered to be important and every effort is made to preserve them. Unfortunately a few fall through the net. In Highley, the biggest loss has probably been Greenhall.

Greenhall is found down the footpath that goes from the Malt to New England. The site is now a bramble-covered mound; a few stone blocks mark tumbled-down walls. It is not much of a memorial to what was once one of the largest and most important houses in the village. The first house was probably built in medieval times. The north of the village remained covered by woods long after the rest of the parish had been converted into arable fields. Pioneer farmers were encouraged to clear patches of woodland to establish their own farms, on which they would graze cattle and sheep. Greenhall originated in this manner. The name incorporates the old English word, halh, meaning a small enclosure; a good description of the first isolated woodland clearing. Gradually it became more important; in Tudor times it is possible to see how it swallowed up the neighbouring estates of the Sturt and Jenkin’s Harries. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I it was occupied by the Holloway family who were amongst the wealthiest inhabitants of Highley; in 1587 it passed by marriage to William Pountney. Pountney at first leased the farm but bought it outright in 1609. Pountney was the largest landowner in the village at this period, also owing the Rea Farm. However, in 1639 William’s son, George, sold Greenhall to Stephen Edmunds In the later 17th Century the house was divided into two, occupied by Stephen and his son-in-law, John Bates. At this period it was sold to the Fox family of Cleobury Mortimer and from then on was held by a series of tenant farmers.

Greenhall remained an important farm into the 19th Century. However, early in that century a new farm was established at Woodhill. In 1858 Greenhall was purchased by the vicar of Highley, Samuel Du Pre; in 1859 he also bought Woodhill. Woodhill was a modern farm with relatively new buildings; within a few years the two had been amalgamated with Woodhill as the farmstead. Greenhall was now used as a labourer’s house. In 1871 it was occupied by John Hopkins, a waggoner who presumably worked at Woodhill. Twenty years later the link with the land had been broken when it was home to Christopher Foxall, a bricklayer. Later it housed a number of miners; including the Weaver and the Palmer families. At times it was subdivided and let as two homes. One of the last occupiers was Horace Cooper who was later to entertain many with his tales of a ghostly cavalier who was said to walk into the fireplace. After World War 1 the house fell into ruin. It was eventually demolished about 1935 by Pain’s of Cleobury; the end truss was pulled out by a tractor with a wire rope.

A few photographs survive to show what the building looked like. I am indebted to Mick Cotton for the reconstruction of the south face of the house shown below. This was probably as built about 1600 by William Poutney.

The Stonehouse

The Stone House in Highley has recently been demolished, to make way for new houses. As such, it seems appropriate to put down what is known about the history of this somewhat enigmatic house.

The history of the house probably begins in Tudor times, around 1550. At that date, the land on which the Stone House was to be built was part of the common grazing land of Highley; an area called Higley Wood. However, the Lord of the Manor could usually earn more from rents of houses than he could for payments for common grazing and so there was always the temptation to allow houses to be put up on small patches of the common. This is what seems to have happened with the Stone House. We do not know who did this, but when the house is first mentioned in 1590, its earliest owners were John and Ann Nichols. They paid 6/8 rent a year for the cottage and 3½ acres of land. Ann inherited it from her father, Thomas Lowe, a bargeowner and he may have built it.

Following Ann’s death in the early 17th Century, there are no more references to the Stone House for well over a 100 years. However, 17th Century pottery from around the area shows that the house was still being lived in at this date. It reappears in the records, albeit without a name, in 1708. In that year John James seems to have moved in. James was an upwardly mobile wheelwright and carpenter; records show how his household expanded to include both a man and a maid servant as well as his wife and children. The Stone House as it stood recently had no obvious trace of a Tudor cottage; it may well have been James who rebuilt it on a grander scale to suit his aspirations.

For the first half of the 18th Century the house stood either alone or with just a few acres of land surrounding it; part of the old Higley Wood estate. However, in the second half of the 18th Century, the land associated with the house expanded. This process seems to have begun in the 1760s when a Richard Charter held the house. He rented two other estates in the village and so probably farmed around 50 to 100 acres. In 1772 Charter moved on and was replaced as tenant by William Lamb. At this point the Stone House became associated with about 30 acres of land at New England; together with the land around the house, this meant that the farm was about 50 acres. At this point the house and associated lands were held by the vicar of Highley, Dr John Fleming and for the first time in over 150 years the name “Stone House” was revived. Whatever the aspirations of John James, the 9 rooms of the Stone House in its final form would seem excessive for a wheelwright but more in keeping with a farm house. Furthermore, some of the features of the house seem to belong to the late 18th Century. It is possible that James’s house was substantially rebuilt by Fleming.

In 1773 Richard Fosbrook paid rates for the house. More details come in 1779, when the "Stone House and New England Farm" was offered for sale. It was then a small farm in Highley with 15 acres immediately surrounding it and about another 30 acres in a detached block at New England. There were doubtless farm buildings at the Stone House itself but there was also a stone barn on the land at New England; the foundations of this survive next to a quarry. In the late 1790s the occupier of the Stone House was Joseph Powell, a land surveyor. It is possible that the land was sublet to another farmer at this date. The land at New England was removed from the Stone House in the mid-19th Century, passing to Hazelwells Farm and then Greenhall and finally incorporated into Woodhill Farm.

In 1808 the house and land was rented by William Shield of the Bind Farm in Billingsley. Shield was one of the first Methodists in the area and the earliest Methodist services in the district were at his house. They subsequently were held at a cottage in New England before a chapel was built in 1816. However, his interest in the Stone House raises the possibility that he was considering using this as a chapel for Highley before other arrangements were made.

The Stone House was now a small-holding; in 1859 surrounded by 16 acres of meadow, pasture and orchard “well stocked with thriving fruit trees”. The house had “a good parlour, kitchen and brewhouse and six lodging rooms”. When William Stokes left the Stonehouse in 1882 the dispersal sale included 3 ricks of hay and clover, 3 dairy cows, a bay cob, a breeding sow and a bacon pig, a chaff-cutter and a washing machine and mangle “nearly new”. By the start of the 20th Century the Stone House was in the hands of Harry Fox. In 1913, the Billingsley Colliery Company, exasperated by opposition to their plans to build workers houses in Billingsley, decided to go for a green field site in Highley. The Stone House land met their requirements and soon the “well stocked orchard” was a building site for Garden Village; all that is left of it now is the name. In the 1920s and 30s Miss Newey lived in the Stone House and used it for her school. A water tank was built by the house for Garden Village as well as workshops and a garage.

Coronation Street and the Bache Arms

Coronation Street was built in 1901 and was named after the Coronation of King Edward VII. It was built on a patch of land called Corbett’s Meadow. At the bottom end of the Street the Bache Arms, (originally called the New Inn) and the shop (Glen Cottage) predate the street and may have been built in the late 18th Century, although they are now much altered. There may also have been a large medieval or Tudor farmhouse behind the Bache and Glen Cottage but this vanished by about 1820.

With the coming of the Highley Mining Company in the late 1870s, the village grew rapidly in size. By the end of the 19th Century more houses were desperately needed by the Company. Via a subsidiary called the Highley Land and Building they purchased land in the village centre. Orchard Street was built first, then Coronation Street, then Barke Street. A large tank at the top of Coronation Street supplied water to standpipes for the houses; beneath the tank there was a property repair workshop. (The tank was secondhand, having been made in 1866).

The houses in Coronation Street had a front room, a kitchen and a back kitchen downstairs. Upstairs were bedrooms. The front room was usually the best room. The back kitchen was where most work took place; it had a cooking range and a boiler for heating water. The kitchen also had a cooking range with a built-in boiler. The front room and (some) bedrooms had fireplaces. Outside was a (large!) coalhouse whilst at the far end of the yard was an earth privy with a seat made of polished pine. There was one ash pit per two houses.

As turn-of-the-century workers houses, they would have been considered quite reasonable; certainly much better than the old agricultural labourers cottages that made most of the rest of the villages housing stock. Water was fetched and stored in enamel buckets covered with wooden lids. Although only a single standpipe served the whole of the north side of Coronation Street, this was probably more convenient than a walk to a well to draw water of uncertain quality. Keeping the fires going for heat, warm water and cooking would have been hard work but the miners got plenty of concessionary coal. The privy’s were emptied once a week by the horse-drawn “chariot”. The houses were lit by candles or oil lamps. There were no gardens but within a few years many men had allotments. The houses were rented to miners.

Although life in the streets was comfortable enough when the houses were first built, they were made to look primitive by houses built before the Great War elsewhere in Highley. Modernisation had to wait over half a century. Piped water indoors did not arrive until the early 1950s and water closets were a later still innovation.

The New Inn was rebuilt at the turn of the century. Under the long tenure of the Bache family it became one of Highley’s institutions. In the back yard the late Dr Wilkins built a wooden hut to serve as surgery for the village which remained in use until the 1970s. Glen Cottage was also extensively rebuilt and became a grocers shop owned by the Whittle family. When the coach business started, the yard at the back was used as the garage, as well as serving as the stables for the horse for grocery business’s delivery float. Subsequently the shop passed to Bernard Price before becoming part of Bob Cowley’s garage. Many will remember the petrol pump that stood outside the shop.