Cotton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

, England. It is about north-east of Cheadle. Cotton Hall, originally built in the 17th century, was the home of

Cotton College Cotton College was a Roman Catholic boarding school in Cotton, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. It was also known as ''Saint Wilfrid's College''. The school buildings were centred on Cotton Hall, a country house used by religious communities fro ...

from 1863 until its closure in 1987.

Buildings

Cotton Hall

Cotton Hall, which dates from 1630, was bought by Thomas Gilbert (1688–1742). His son, the politician Thomas Gilbert (c.1719–1798) inherited the building, and it was largely rebuilt. In 1844 it was bought by

John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, 16th Earl of Waterford (18 March 1791 – 9 November 1852) was a British peer and aristocrat. Sometimes known as "Good Earl John", he has been described as "the most prominent British Catholic of his day ...

, and he offered it in 1846 to

Frederick William Faber Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) was a noted English hymnwriter and theologian, who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845. He was ordained to the Catholic priesthood subsequently in 1847. His best-known work is the hymn ...

as a rural retreat for his small Roman Catholic community, called the Brothers of the Will of God, in Birmingham.Cotton Hall

Nat Gould Nathaniel Gould (21 December 1857 – 25 July 1919), commonly known as Nat Gould, was a British novelist. History Gould was born at Manchester, Lancashire, the only surviving child of Nathaniel Gould, a tea merchant, and his wife Mary, ''née' ...

, his life and books. Accessed 28 August 2016.Michael Fisher, ''St Wilfrid's, Cotton''. Urban Vision North Staffordshire, 2012. The community left Cotton in April 1849 to set up the

London Oratory The London Oratory ("the Congregation of the Oratory of St Philip Neri in London") is a Catholic community of priests living under the rule of life established by its founder, Philip Neri (1515-1595). It is housed in an Oratory House, next to t ...

. In 1863 the building was opened as

, a Roman Catholic boarding school (previously

Sedgley Park School, Wolverhampton Sedgley Park School was a Roman Catholic Academy located on the outskirts of Wolverhampton, then part of Staffordshire. The school was founded by William Errington, at the request of Bishop Richard Challoner, on 25 March 1763. History Errington ma ...

). There were additions to the building in 1874–75, 1886–87 and 1931–32. It is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The school closed in 1987; since then the site has not been used.

St John the Baptist's Church

The Anglican church of St John the Baptist, in the

Diocese of Lichfield The Diocese of Lichfield is a Church of England diocese in the Province of Canterbury, England. The bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Chad in the city of Lichfield. The diocese covers of seve ...

, is a Grade II listed building. It was built in 1795 by Thomas Gilbert of Cotton Hall. It is built of red brick on an ashlar plinth, and has a slate roof; it has a two-bay

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and a single-bay

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

. There are wall plaques to Thomas Gilbert (died 1798) and his son Thomas (died 1843).

St Wilfrid's Church

The patron saint of the Roman Catholic community of Cotton Hall in the 1840s was St

Wilfrid Wilfrid ( – 709 or 710) was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and ...

, and St Wilfrid's Church, for which funds were provided by the Earl of Shrewsbury, was built soon after their arrival. The architect was

August Pugin Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin ( ; 1 March 181214 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and, ultimately, Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival st ...

, who had designed

St. Giles' Catholic Church, Cheadle St. Giles' Church is a Roman Catholic church in the town of Cheadle, Staffordshire, England. The Grade I listed Gothic Revival church was designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. It has a spire height of 61m / 200 ft and is by far the tal ...

for the Earl of Shrewsbury. It was completed in 1848. It later became the chapel of Cotton College.Pugin's St Wilfrid's Catholic church in Cotton closes
BBC News, 25 October 2010. Accessed 28 August 2016. 300px, Cotton College in 2006. On the right is the spire of St Wilfrid's Church. It is a Grade II listed building, built of local sandstone in a Gothic style of about 1300. It has a south-west tower with a

broach spire A broach spire is a type of spire (tall pyramidal structure), which usually sits atop a tower or turret of a church. It starts on a square base and is carried up to a tapering octagonal spire by means of triangular faces. File:Leicester Cathedral ...

. To provide space for the expanding college, there were additions in 1936–37 by the architect George Drysdale, which included extending the chancel. After the closure of the college in 1987 the church continued to serve the local area; annual reunions of former college pupils took place at the church. Dry rot was found in the roof in 2009, and the last Mass in the church was celebrated on 24 October 2010. The building was closed in 2011.

References

{{authority control Villages in Staffordshire Staffordshire Moorlands Civil parishes in Staffordshire

Buildings

Cotton Hall

St John the Baptist's Church

St Wilfrid's Church

See also

References