An Illustrated History of Old Sutton in St.Helens, Lancashire
Part 5 (of 58) - Sutton's Halls and Houses
d) Green End House | e) Middlehurst House Farm | f) Ellams House
This page is devoted to some notable halls, houses and homes in the Sutton district
- also see the Sherdley estate page for details of Sherdley Hall, Sutton Hall etc.
a) Bold Hall
On May 6th, 1893, Henry Young the agent for Mrs. Harriet Wyatt, owner of the historic but dilapidated Bold Hall, sent out employment termination notices to dozens of estate employees. By that time, the Bold Hall estate was a shadow of its former self. Its connection with the Bold family had long been severed and in earlier years of the nineteenth century it had been owned by Polish royalty, by a cockfighting fanatic and by an eccentric Wigan cotton spinner who equated books with manure!In 1848 the estate had consisted of an area of almost 7000 acres with many tenant farmers, but in the year of its demise it was down to 13 farms on 1500 acres of land that the Liverpool Mercury said was “famous for its fertility and richness” (Liv. Merc. 8/5/1893). It had also become known for the minerals beneath its surface which had attracted the interest of a syndicate led by industrialist David Gamble and colliery proprietors. The sale of the land and subsequent demolition of the hall as part of the Bold Colliery development, was the end of an historic era that stretched back a remarkable 500 years.
An illustration of the opulent Bold Hall and estate - Contributed by Sutton Historic Society
An indication of the opulence of Bold Hall at that time was the cost of the damage done by the terrible thunderstorm of April 25th, 1821. So much glass was smashed by hail which drove like nails into its windows, that it cost £800 to replace. In today's money that equates to around £30,000.
On December 21st, 1822 Mary married Polish nobleman Prince Sapicha in Florence and the royal couple took up residence at Bold Hall at the beginning of August, 1823. However, Mary only enjoyed life as a princess for two years, dying in Rome in December 1824. It eventually became the property of the Bold-Hoghtons, as they styled themselves, who were especially noted for their cockfighting. They possessed 500 fighting cocks and according to a report in the Liverpool Mercury (8/5/1893), a 'setter' was paid the remarkable salary of £600 per year to look after them. A dedicated cock-fighting room was created within Bold Hall with an iron cradle that moved on a rail. There were several wooden bowls into which gambling stakes were thrown and many thousands of pounds were said to have been won and lost there.
Henry Bold-Hoghton made numerous unsuccessful attempts to sell off the estate during the 1850s, eventually selling it piecemeal. Bold Hall and various farms on the estate were sold in 1860 to Wigan cotton merchant William Whitacre Tipping for £120,000. He was said to be somewhat eccentric and allowed the mansion to get into a dilapidated state. This was with the exception of one room which hosted two full length Van Dyck portraits of Charles I and his Queen which was a Royal gift to one of the Bolds, plus two Claudes and a 'Holy Family' painting by Rubens.
Squire Tipping, as he was locally known, died on March 10th, 1889 leaving, what the Manchester Times said, was a "fortune of nearly half a million". It was claimed that he kept large quantities of gold sovereigns in milldewed sacks inside the hall. His only will had been made in 1843 and he had bequeathed all his estates to his mother, now deceased. His cousin Mrs. Harriet Wyatt of Hawley Parsonage and wife of a Hampshire clergyman, was Tipping's next of kin and so she inherited the estate. Mrs. Wyatt never lived at the hall during her four years of ownership, probably because of its poor condition. Upon its sale, it was reported that the fine dining room with granite columns and four gilt cornices was in ruins with unglazed windows and rotting floor. The front door had been nailed up and the offices and stables had been dismantled and lacked windows and doors.
When Tipping purchased the estate he was invited to buy what remained of the extensive library, after some of the books had been separately sold. Tipping was reported to have said:
I know nothing about books but I know something about muck and I will give muck (manure) price for them - (The Manchester Times 30/3/1889) 
So over a thousand books, including a number of rare originals and handsomely bound volumes, were piled on a cart and then weighed and sold to Tipping for 8-10 shillings a ton, the then price of manure. He was also said to keep sackfuls of golden sovereigns in the hall and followed his predecessor in practising the 'sport' of cockfighting. However, Tipping's former solicitors responded that the eccentric reports in various newspapers of their deceased client had been somewhat exaggerated.
There were actually two Bold Halls. When Peter Bold developed his estate in the early 18th century, he commissioned Venetian Architect, Giacomo (aka James) Leoni (1686 –1746) to design a new mansion. This was built in 1732 and the old hall - which the Liverpool Mercury of 1893 described as "a curious edifice of very ancient date" - was then used as a farmhouse to the mansion. It was said to have been rebuilt in 1616 and was only demolished in 1936, surviving the new hall by some thirty years.
The farms on the estate included Bold Hall Demesne Farm which measured 318 acres and in 1849 an advertisement in the Liverpool Mercury said it was "fine Land, thoroughly drained, newly fenced, and replete with recently erected Farm Buildings, of the most approved construction, with 6-horse power Steam Engine, Thrashing and Dressing Machines, Steaming Apparatus, &c.". There was also a Moat House Farm of 186 acres.
Here are a couple of 19th century descriptions of Bold Hall, the first was made in 1860:
The hall stands on a gentle elevation commanding extensive scenery to the south, extending over a fine expanse of park to the distant hills of Cheshire; to the north and east it overlooks the pleasure grounds and the finely timbered north park with its groves of unrivalled oaks. It is a handsome, uniform, and very substantial edifice, adorned with fine stone columns and corresponding decorative dressings, designed and erected about 1732 under the superintendence of the eminent Italian architect Leoni. 
The hall stands in the midst of a cluster of massive oak trees said to be the growth of centuries and the finest in the county, and is reached by a winding road across a broad expanse of open land. It stands about two miles from St.Helens Junction Station, on the Liverpool and Manchester main line of the London and North-western Railway Company, and is a three-storeyed building, of fine proportions, adorned with massive columns. 
b) St.Michael's House and Cromwell's Oak
Until Sutton Manor Colliery arrived early in the twentieth century, the locale was agricultural with hardly any buildings apart from farmhouses. An exception was the imposing St. Michael's House, located at the junction of Walkers Lane, Chapel Lane and Lea Green Road in Micklehead, which was built in Elizabethan times and had its its own moat. It was also believed to have secret passageways that provided an escape route for priests given refuge from religious persecution.
St.Michaels House with Cromwell's Oak surrounded by a white picket fence - Contributed by Frank Jones
A somewhat less romantic suggestion was that the tree was simply planted to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837. Another folklore theory was that the oak was planted in commemoration of one of the house's previous squires, whose favourite hunting dog was fatally run over by a stage-coach there. A bottle of whisky was also said to have been placed amongst its roots when the oak was originally planted along with a manuscript detailing its history.
Parts of St.Michael's House that are pictured above and right date back to the 13th century, with much of it built in 1530. It's said that John de Sutton lived in a house on this site in the reign of Edward I. Bold Hall Estates were the owners of St.Michael’s House during the 18th century, but the house was sold in 1848 to the Whitfield family.
In 1889, John H. Kearne moved in. However the Bold Manure Works partner was found dead at the White Hart Hotel in St.Helens in May 1890. A gentleman farmer and prominent figure in St.Helens society called Francis Watmough also resided there as did the Atherton family.
Like much of the Sutton district, St.Michael’s House - which was also sometimes called Micklehead House - became afflicted by subsidence. It was sold to the National Coal Board in 1960 who as a condition of purchase undertook to repair and maintain the building. However, the historic building was demolished in early 1961. (Also see: Memories of Sutton Part 1 St.Michael's House & Cromwell's Oak by David Richardson
c) Brook House
...extensive Outbuildings, comprising coach-house, shippon, stable, greenhouse, piggeries, gardener's cottage and other conveniences, together with large garden tastefully laid out in lawn and shrubbery, and orchard well stocked with fruit trees in full bearing; also six statute acres of land... (Liverpool Mercury June 7th, 1862) 
Ad in the 'To Be Let Business Premises' section - Liverpool Mercury March 28th, 1856
d) Green End House
Green End House was located on Marshalls Cross Road just north of Robins Lane and near to modern-day St.Helens Hospital. For many years it was a Sutton landmark, represented on all old ordnance survey maps and on William Yates' 1786 map of Lancashire.
Green End House with Sherdley Colliery in the background - Contributed by Frank Jones
During later 19th century years when owned by the Hughes family, it was surrounded by industry with Sherdley Colliery on one side and Sutton Glass Works on the other. However, in 1832 when Mary Loftus moved her private boarding school from Mill Brook House, Eccleston to Green End House in Sutton, it was a country location with good transport links, just a mile from the station at St.Helens Junction.
In 1849, a Mrs. Musgrove advertised her school at Green End in the Liverpool Mercury, describing it as being in a "pleasant and salubrious situation". Before long the noise and smoke of the new glassworks and colliery would make it a less attractive location for her gentile young boarders.
After manager John Bell left the glass company in 1828, Pilkington was forced to take over the reins and soon made it clear to Bromilow that he wasn't impressed with his bookkeeping. This led to his exit in January 1829 and within 12 months the Pilkingtons owned all the shares in the company and were on their way to riches. Not so for James Bromilow, however, as he then ran another glass factory with William West that went bankrupt.
This article will be updated with further information on the history of Green End House when available.
e) Middlehurst House Farm
The historic buildings of the Sutton district have been erased from the landscape through the insidious effects of subsidence and a lack of attention to preservation by many twentieth century local authority administrations. Frank Bamber in 'Clog Clatters in Old Sutton' referred to it as "the borough council’s vandalism - there is no other name for it". However, some properties were demolished in the name of progress for the community's overall benefit and one such was Middlehurst House Farm.
The house had ten rooms, however, each were only seven feet high with thick old beams in their roofs. There was a large cellar and under it ran natural springs, which were used to keep the dairy cool when it was a working farm.
Farming ceased early in the twentieth century because of chemicals in the soil and the farm was taken over by the Sutton Oak Brick Company for brick making. The Hayes family were the last to farm the land and Thomas Hayes returned as tenant in 1912 to live in the house. During WWII he was forbidden from repainting the cottage, as its distinctive black and white panelling showed up too clearly from the air.
The Hughes family were the owners of the house and land and in the early 1950s, Michael Hughes-Young sold it to St. Helens Hospital nearby. They demolished the cottage in 1954 to pave the way for a hospital expansion that included two new wards, an operating theatre, physiotherapy department and an out-patients clinic. Half a century later the old hospital has gone to make way for a new £100 million state-of-the-art complex, which was given the royal seal of approval in June 2010 when the Duke of York made a visit and unveiled a plaque. Progress, like time, marches on.
(Courtesy St.Helens Local History & Archives Library)
f) Ellams House or 'Tripe Shaws'
Ellams House in Ellamsbridge Road near Edgeworth Street in Sutton was nicknamed Tripe Shaws
Ellam’s House was one of the oldest houses in Sutton, built in the early 1700s in what became Ellamsbridge Road. It was probably the home of 18th century landowner Henry Ellam and from the late 1890s to the late 1920s, it was known to Suttoners as 'Tripe Shaws'. There was a simple explanation for this as Ellam’s House was occupied by George and Mary Shaw who sold tripe and pigs' trotters!
It was a farmhouse-type building with greyish-green outside walls that had been rendered in cement. It was quite a substantial-sized property, with a seven-foot fence at its front. Ellam’s House had a large porch over its front door with a stone flagged floor and an apex roof. Along each inside wall were wooden form seats that were built in, with each capable of seating a dozen people. Perhaps their original purpose had been to seat farm workers at meal times?
On Saturday nights, powerfully-built George Shaw would climb into his tripe trap that was pulled by his horse Charlie. He then travelled round Sutton visiting all the pubs and selling his tripe to the customers. Probably bartering one or two pints for himself with the landlords too! Shaw didn't have to travel far to get to the Victoria pub, however. This bore the nickname of 'The Little Pig' and was only across the road from Ellams House. Fletcher's abattoir had given rise to the pub's nickname and Shaw would have sourced his pigs' trotters from his neighbour.
At one time the Shaws had a young dog who drove the neighbours mad with its barking. So one Sutton wag wrote a poem called 'Tripe Shaws Pup':
It’s only small and black and white, but jumps up and down like a frog.
You can see it there from first daylight, until it’s nearly dark,
If you can’t see it, you can certainly hear it, ‘cause this bugger can’t half bark.
It’s tied up on some kind of rope, just behind ‘owd Tripe Shaw’s shed,
And the only time the bugger shuts up is when the bugger’s being fed.
It has a pretty little face with a long and fluffy tail,
And it jumps for joy when ‘owd George comes home after being on the ale.
Many years ago we had a man called “The Knocker Up”,
We don’t need one now, this present day, we can rely on this bloody pup.
It might be better, after rabbits or rounding up some sheep,
I wish he’d take the bugger there, so then we’d get some sleep.
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