Bush Hill

Bush’s Hill

Report by R Williams. (Of joint investigation with Mary Antill & Roy Crew.)

Mary had asked “Does anyone know about Grotto House, apparently on Bush’s Hill?” and offered the story of John Creech Horse Dealer who lived there.

From Census and old newspapers Nos. 14 & 16 Chapel Rd were identified as the properties in question. Behind No 16 (Grotto House) was a yard with Stabling advertised for 50 horses.

This pair of houses appears on the 1^st series OS Map, pre 1888,

It was confirmed that Bush’s Hill was a narrow lane running from Lower Hanham Rd to the Junction with Lower Chapel Rd. Roger said that he believed it originally ran through the narrow alley between ‘Curry Night’ & ‘Sticky Fingers’. In fact he said that before the High St was built as part of the Turnpike the lane could have joined with Anstey’s Rd

Roger Williams had spoken to the occupant of no 14 who confirmed that Albert Moss the last Horse-Dealer had lived at No. 16. The yard was cobbled then. She also said that her house had been called Coronation House, and that it had been the home of Cliff Britton the Rovers Everton & England footballer. Pictures of the Houses and of Cliff Britton were shown. Albert Moss had been enlisted as a Wheelwright in the Great War (document shown).

The Stables had been converted to 14 Garages when the yard was sold in 1938, as part of the estate of Robert Fussell, (Kingswood boot Manufacturing Family). Moss’s Mother was a Fussell.

Some time after WW2 the Yard became the property of G. Sampson’s Hardware business on the High St. and was used for Builder’s Merchants stocks.

Within a couple of weeks of the original enquiry Roger noticed that the yard had changed hands again and was now a building-site for 6 houses. The developer’s archaeology watch had reported a crudely built well of late Victorian date. We had noted this on the 1903 OS map.

We could not find a specific reason for the name ‘Bush’s’. There did not seem to have been any commercial operation to have given its name to the narrow lane. There were but 10 houses in the earliest map and census details we found, with no occupants of that name.

Roger adds this afterthought: -

In 1740 Methodist Preacher Cennick’s diary lists three, Peter, William & Aaron Bush who were of the Moravian Brotherhood. These could be the coalminers who held a mine called Bushes at the top of Stradbrook Vale by Kennard Close in the Map of Player’s Manors of 1750. That’s just over half a mile away.