The Linley Wood Estate, Talk, Staffordshire. Home of the Caldwell family.

The Caldwell family lived in Talke from the 1789 untill 1949. Their home, Linley Hall, was a large rambling mansion house, built up on a hill overlooking Linley Road. The estate itself was known as Linley Wood. The hill sits by itself and appears to have been formed a long time ago by the intersection of two faults and the land subsequently having been pushed upwards at this point. A ring of concentric earthworks or terraces circling the hill indicate that it may have had some sort of settlement in pre-Roman times.

There appears to have been a house on the site in the early 1700s, owned by William Rowley (Romley?) There still exists today in the grounds of the present house a grave stone which reads as follows:

"Here Lieth William Rowley who departed this life Dec 22, 1745 and desired to be intered here in his own garden rather than in the church lest he who had studied to promote men's health while alive should be detrimental to it when dead as well as defile the house of God. Aged 66."

In his will written in 1737 William Rowley mentions his address as being called "New House, Montpelier, Talk o'the Hill". Perhaps the name "Linley Wood" originally just refered to the wooded area above the house.

James Caldwell bought the main part of the Linley Wood estate in March 1789 from the executors of the late Edward Salmon for the sum of £4,750. The title deeds, which are in the Stafford Record Office (4229/6/2/1), state that in 1789 the estate consisted of 211 acres and had 6 houses on it. James Caldwell set about building himself a large Georgian mansion presumably on or around the site of the existing house.

Believed to be Linley Wood around 1789

I understand that as time went on James Caldwell and later his son James Stamford Caldwell enlarged the estate by buying more land as opportunities arose. A full record of the estate was made on the death of James Stamford Caldwell in 1858 (Staffordshire Record Office 4229/1-5).

Ann Marsh-Caldwell is recorded as buying Bank Farm with 73 acres, for £4,700, 12 September 1869. The farm was previously owned by Richard Howard Haywood of Odd Rode in Cheshire. The farm was recorded as being in the occupation of Thomas Cotterill (Staffordshire Record Office 4229/6/5/1).

Rear view of Linley Wood early 1900s

Servants at Linley Wood in 1905

A record of the rents for 1908 exists and lists 16 tenants paying a total of £444 in annual rent. A list was also drawn up in 1913 as a "Provisional Valuation" when Maj Gen Frederick Crofton Heath-Caldwell took possession and at this time the estate appears to have totaled at lease 400 acres and extended from Talke to Alsager.

From the early 1900s onwards small parcels of land were sold off one by one to raise money but the majority of the estate did stay intact untill the estate was vacated and sold by auction in 9 lots on 25th October 1949.

I understand that Linley Hall was used for a while as a rest home for the elderly, however, the building was in a poor state of repair and was suffering from subsidence possibly caused by coal mining carried out in the early 1900s. In about 1960 Linley Hall was demolished and shortly afterwards a new smaller house was built over the existing cellars. I understand that this new house is also called Linley Hall.

Further along Linley Road is a pub, which at one time was called the Caldwell Arms, then the Oasis, and has more recently been renamed the Caldwell Tavern.

Maj Gen Frederick Crofton Heath-Caldwell died in 1945 and a few years later in 1949 his wife Constance Mary Helsham Heath-Caldwell moved out of Linley Wood, bringing to an end a period of more than 150 years during which the Caldwell family had lived there. Her son Captain Cuthbert Helsham Heath-Caldwell arranged the final clear out. I understand that very little was kept, as in a letter that he wrote at the time to one of his cousins, Cuthbert commented that he only took home two car trailer loads, mainly consisting of a few portraits of family interest. The majority of the contents were auctioned by the local firm of Louis Taylor & Son, in Hanley but in his letter Cuthbert briefly noted the following items going to Sotheby's:
1. An Italian (15th century) head and shoulders of two women and a man.
2. A portrait of an Elizabethan Lady.
3. All the Queens and Duchesses.
4. Portrait of Thomas Bentley.
5. Some old books, rather mouldy.
6. A painting thought to be by Van Dyke but sold as school of Van Dyke.

In fact there were quite a few more items sent to Sotheby's and these are all listed as the property of CH Heath-Caldwell in the Sotheby's catalogue for the auction of paintings in London on 2 November 1949. The books were listed in a separate Sotheby's catalogue , 23 & 24 January 1950.

The Sotherby catalogue gives an indication of some of the major artworks which had been at Linley Wood. In additon we also have a very comprehensive list made by Maj Gen Fredereck Crofton Heath-Caldwell in 1925. Also a list of the contents of the library. With this detailed record we are able to look back at an example of an English family's country house, full of furniture, paintings and effects collected by a diverse number of ancestors and relatives steadily over a 150 year period.

Another internet site with material of interest is www.butt-lane.co.uk which gives a lot of historical information about the Butt Lane area to the east of the Linley Wood Estate.