Butterworth Hall

According to a survey of 1626, the principal hamlets in the Castleton Township were : Castleton,
Marland, Newbold and Buersill and in Butterworth were : Butterworth, Clegg and Hollingworth.
These latter three are still names familiar around Milnrow. Pre-dating this, the area around what is
now Butterworth Hall, which is located some hundred or so yards up Charles Lane, is thought to
have been an Anglo-Saxon settlement, its name derived from the Old English meaning butter and
worð meaning an enclosure. The name of the township was used by Reginal(d) de Boterworth, lord
of the manor who was granted land in the township by a charter of 1148, Butterworth Hall itself
being built some time prior to 1166. Interestingly, in the 12 th century, the Order of St John of
Jerusalem (the Knights Hospitaller) had extensive land holdings across the country and to identify
their buildings had a practice of marking their boundaries by a stone or metal cross. When the old

Butterworth Hall burned down in 1851 just such an iron cross was found at its gable, indicating that
it was owned by the order until 16 th century. Earlier, by the 15 th century, the Bishop of Lichfield
granted a licence to Sir John Byron, an ancestor of the 19th-century poet Lord Byron, to celebrate
mass in a chapel at Butterworth Hall which suggests that it was a sizeable building. Although it is
clear that the Butterworths were freeholders in this township and passed their land and buildings to
the Byron’s, there is no evidence connecting them to Butterworth Hall itself.
At the time of the fire in 1851 Butterworth Hall and its oratory appears to have fallen into decay and
ruin and after the fire the Hall was replaced by Butterworth Hall Farm. In the 20 th century the area in
that part of Milnrow was changed completely with the development of the Roch Valley School (now
Hollingworth Academy), the old Butterworth Hall Farm being replaced, firstly by school playing fields
and then in 2002/3 by a housing estate. Only the name of the hamlet now survives to suggest a once
important Hall.