Whitmore, Butterton (including Shutlanehead and the Lymes) and Acton Villages
Whitmore situated on the crossroads of the A53 and Three Mile Lane, lies about four miles south west of Newcastle-under-Lyme and has a population of about 100 people. The centre of the village lies in the beautiful, wooded Meece Brook valley while two farms and some outlying dwellings are situated
on the surrounding higher ground.
 
At the time of the Domesday Book Whitmore consisted of five houses including that of the Saxon
proprietor Ulfac. Ulfac's Manor House, now Whitmore Hall, has been enlarged so it now encompasses
the Saxon and Elizabethan houses, other additions and is a Grade I listed building. After the Norman
Conquest a considerable acreage of land was given to a supporter of William the Conqueror whose
descendants, the Cavenagh-Mainwaring Family, still occupy the Hall and own most of Whitmore Village,
including some 1500 acres surrounding Whitmore and Acton.
 
St Mary's and All Saints Church in the village has a flourishing congregation and is especially popular for weddings. ''The Mainwaring Arms'' (the village inn), is widely popular and the original inn, standing on the old turnpike road was converted in the late1980s into a restaurant/tea rooms and art gallery, but is now solely a restaurant. The village has tennis and cricket clubs, a working smithy and the Cudmore Fisheries attract many visitors and anglers.
Butterton is a small rural hamlet situated three miles south west of Newcastle and its core is located off a lane that runs parallel to and half a mile east of the A53 Newcastle to Shrewsbury Road. There are 3 farms and 39 dwellings, nine of which have been completed since1995 by conversion of stables and outbuildings of the original estate house and make a secondary village group off Park Road. The two parts of the village, which are about half a mile apart, are secluded and cannot be seen from either A53 or A5182.
The original village of Butterton, in 15th and 16th centuries lay off Park Road adjacent to the old Hall, now a Grade II listed relic. Cottages nearby were demolished at the end of the 18th century when Millstone Green, now renamed Butterton, was built alongside the Newcastle to Shrewsbury turnpike road. In 1842/43 a new road was built (A53), which bypassed the village.
 
Butterton Hall was the home of the Swinnerton-Pilkington Family whose estate in the area totalled some 1700 acres. The family built a new Hall, stable block, lodge and home farm at the beginning of the 19th century , though the Hall itself was not completed until 1849. They also built St Thomas's Church in 1845 and helped with the building of a village school in 1860. The family moved to Yorkshire in 1860 and the Hall was let for short periods, but often stood empty. Troops were billeted there during the First World War, but seriously infested with dry rot in the 1920s, the Hall was demolished. In the 1930's part of the Estate was sold to the then Newcastle Borough Council for the residential development of the Westlands and the remainder was sold in 1954.
Shutlanehead. In the 19th Century this single-track lane ran through to Keele and gave access to three farms and a brickworks with a manager's cottage, outbuildings and 2 kilns. Of the six newer dwellings in the settlement two were built before the 1939-45 War. The "brickworks cottage" has been rebuilt and one farm has been converted into a riding establishment and the other two into private houses. Shutlanehead is now a cul-de-sac; about a kilometre long, with no turning head and has a potentially dangerous junctoion with the A53. Any new development in the lane would increase this problem.
The Lymes was a major farm of the Keele Estate until 1951 when it was sold. It ceased as a working
farm in the 1980's.
 Acton, situated on the reverse slope of the hill overlooking Whitmore Village to the northeast and
completely hidden from the A53, remains an intimate and attractive village. At the beginning of the 20th Century the settlement contained a farm and about a dozen labourers' cottages lining the old turnpike road. Most of the cottages have now been demolished and replaced by new houses.
|
