Residential College

Set back from the road in an otherwise pleasant neighbourhood is this derelict Victorian-era house that has clearly been converted to commercial use at some point. I was told that it was a college, but it sure doesn't look very college-like. Another clickbait title referred to it as the "The Murder Manor."

Now, if you've even ever just dipped your toe into the urbex pond, you'll know that being abandoned or derelict is pretty much the only criteria a house needs to meet in order to be called a Murder Manor. Nevertheless, this intrigued me. I researched this murder at great length, finding that a little old lady was the tragic victim of the most brutal murder of the 20th Century. The catch? Well it didn't happen here. It happened next door.

Whoops!

I was disappointed that I'd wasted my time researching the wrong damn house, but it made me wonder, what was the real history of this place?

Luckily it's not a lost cause. I've managed to find out quite a bit, along with old photos and everything!

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

In 2014 the house was also featured briefly in the movie, Marvellous, a film about the life of Neil Baldwin where, in a directorial choice I've never seen before, the actor playing Neil Baldwin also regularly consults the real Neil Baldwin about the events.

I'll include a screenshot below. (Of the house, not Neil Baldwin talking to his fictional self)

The building itself dates back to 1893, where it was built for William Jackson and his wife Mary. Being something of a botanist, he loved his garden and turned the ground around his house into an arboretum. That is, a garden that collects loads of different kinds of non-local plants. It's said that many of the trees are memorial trees, but I have no idea who they could be memorial trees for, although Mary is a likely candidate, given that she passed away a year after the house was built.

Time to slip inside! Check it out!

 

 

Research into the former occupants proved to be rather tedious, because there isn't a lot to work with. What I do know is that in 1905, William Jackson purchased a boat house near his local canal. A chap called Josiah Wedgwood was one of the biggest investors in this canal, using it to export his chinaware from his factory, and to import clay. The Wedgwood company dates back to 1759, and it's pretty huge, thriving even to this day. Quite what Jackson wanted with a boat house, I don't know. I haven't found anything in his professional life that would suggest a need for it, so maybe he just liked boats. 

He actually held the license of a couple of local pubs, notably the Sea Lion Hotel, and The Grapes in Stoke-On-Trent. The Grapes was demolished in 1960, and was replaced with a Blockbuster, but curiously it was on a corner known unofficially as "Jackson's Corner," due to there being a booze shop named Jackson's there too. I have no idea if that's just a coincidence or if it has any connection to William Jackson.

 

William Jackson's obituary describes him as self-made, well-known and humble. He was a lover of music and regularly attended concerts and musicals, at least until bronchial trouble caused him to spend much of his free time at the seaside in his later years. He retired in 1911.

According to the 1911 census he had at least two of his children with him, Cecil the motor engineer and Vincent the law student, who were 24 and 18. He also had a daughter, Lilian, but she got married in 1911 so she wasn't living with him at that point. William Jackson passed away in this house in 1922, and even though there have been a few paranormal Youtubers come here for a mooch, for some unknown reason they're only capable of contacting the ghosts of people who have their own Wikipedia page, so they mostly just get the murder victim from next door, and her killer. William, at least according to paranormal Youtubers, rests in peace.

 

 

Without a doubt, this room is the highlight of the entire place. 

 

 

Of the buildings interior, this room was also used in the film Marvellous, although you could probably watch the entire film and not notice.

 

(Image not mine)

 

In all likelihood the entire building interior was probably used, but this room was the most noticeable, given the wall decor. This actor, Toby Jones, also did the voice of Dobby in the Harry Potter movies, and played Arnim Zola in the Captain America movies, among numerous other roles, so it's kinda cool to be in the same room that he once sat in, dressed as a clown.

 

Following William Jackson's death in 1922, the house was unoccupied, his sons and daughter having long gone on to live their lives. Both sons fought in the first world war, and Vincent opened up a solicitors down in Worthing. The house they'd grown up in was far behind them and they weren't looking back. By 1924 it was occupied by a Frederick Victor Johnson, of the famous-at-the-time "Johnson Brothers."
 

The Johnson Brothers initially consisted of Frederick and his brother Alfred, who began working out of a defunct pottery in 1883, later joined by their younger brother, Rev Henry and then by their youngest brother Robert in 1898. They were one of the biggest exporters of pottery to the US at the time. Their company developed "semi-porcelain." That is, it had the characteristics of fine china but was more durable, which made it quite popular with the Americans. If it was durable enough to be bullet-proof they could have made a fortune making school uniforms out of it too.

 

The Johnson Brothers also made toilets. This was a point in history where the external privy was becoming obsolete, and people didn't mind shitting indoors anymore. But in the late 1800s, in true Victorian fashion, toilets weren't just functional. They were as artistic and pretty as it was possible for a human waste depository to be, decorated with intricate embossing and flowery designs. Here's an early Johnson Brothers toilet advert:

 

(Image not mine, obviously)

 

Alas, the fancy toilet era gradually faded away in favour of the more boring toilets of today, although there were some fancy Johnson toilets being made well into the late 20th Century. 

The Johnson Brothers business had five factories in the UK, and another in the US managed by Robert. They even had a toilet factory in Germany, but that closed in 1914 due to the war. But their entire company was actually acquired by the Wedgwood Pottery in 1968, the same Wedgwood Pottery whose founder Josiah Wedgwood had invested in the canal some two centuries earlier.

 

Frederick Johnson, occupant of this house, died in 1928, relatively young in his early forties. However his descendants are still working in pottery, with a Christopher Johnson staying within the production team when Wedgwood acquired them, only retiring in 2002. 

Onto the kitchen...

 

 

The kitchen is messy, but oddly preserved, still having a load of stuff in it. With a little TLC it could become a functioning kitchen again really easily. 

 

 

Looks like the building, in its later years, had issues with staff cluttering up the kitchen and some angry kitchen staff wanted them to clear off but couldn't be arsed just communicating with them like a normal person. "I want these people to get out of my way. Instead of saying Excuse Me, I'll just wait until they've gone and then write them a letter."

 

 

In 1930 the building was up for an auction, and in 1931 it can be assumed that a Doctor Alexander Gill was living here, seeing as he was adverting for a house keeper. He ended up occupying the house throughout the second world war, hosting war effort functions and medical parish charities. In 1937 he hosted the annual meeting of the local Nursing Association and in 1940 he hosted a coffee morning for the local Red Cross supply depot. 

He died in 1948, and his wife sold everything.

 

 

Check out this safe! Probably the fanciest safe I've ever come across since I started doing the whole urbex thing.

 

 

There's a first aid poster here giving guidance on what to do if someone is electrocuted.

 

 And there's a sign on the back door warning people to keep it shut in order to keep rats and mice out. It seems like common sense really. I think someone on the staff team really just liked making crabby signs.

 

Down to the cellar!

 

 

The most notable thing in the cellar is the cleaning cupboard, which someone has gone to great lengths to safeguard from thieving hands.

 

 

However it's not that surprising. According to law, substances that could be hazardous do need to have controlled access. 

Time to go upstairs...

 

 

So as you can probably tell, by the cleaning cupboard and the posters being bitchy at the staff, this place didn't stay a residential location. No, it was absorbed into an adult residential college. That is, it specialised in short-stay adult education courses run by the local authority. It had weekend, midweek, day courses, and summer schools, but it was all offered for the enjoyment of learning rather than for formal credit.

 

The college was established as a memorial college for a member of the Wedgwood family, who keep popping up like a bubble on wallpaper. But which Wedgwood? Take your pick. The entire family consists of potential candidates. The grand poohbah of the Wedgwood empire, Josiah, started the pottery empire that made them famous. His brother Thomas is one of the pioneers in photography, sometimes even referred to as the first photographer. The other brother, John, founded the Royal Horticultural Society. Of the Wedgwood descendants there is, to name a few, the famous composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, the highly intelligent writer and first-wave feminist Frances Wedgwood, the first mayor of Stoke-on-Trent, Cecil Wedgwood, and one of the first female anthropologists, Camilla Wedgwood. And that's just a quick glance at the internet. Every Wedgwood seems to have done rather well for themselves.

Josiah Wedgwood was actually the grandfather of Charles Darwin too! His daughter was Darwin's mother. Josiah was also the grandfather of Charlie D's wife Emma, because young Mr Darwin had eyes for his cousin. Not only that but his sister Caroline Darwin also married Emma's brother, so two siblings from each family have married each other and they all have the same grandfather. And this is only two examples of inter-family breeding. The Wedgwood family tree looks like a Spirograph! Charles Darwin's statue can be found in Shrewsbury, but I'm surprised they haven't got one in Telford too! 

 

 However, I digress! The residential college, according to Wikipedia, is in memorial to one specific Wedgwood, Camilla's father, Josiah IV. 

(Picture credit: Wikipedia)

Check him out! Now there's a guy who knows how to pose for a picture. Doesn't he look badass?

Josiah IV was the Great-Great-Grandson of the original Josiah. He followed family tradition and married his cousin, although they divorced in 1919. It seems to be a rather amicable, mutual break up, but back then simply falling out of love wasn't a good enough reason for a marital split, and they needed a damn good excuse, which usually required someone to be the villain of the story. Josiah took the bullet, setting his wife free by falsely claiming to have committed adultery and deserting his family. This led to a lot of criticism, but after the divorce was out of the way, they admitted that they'd faked the whole thing to get it done.

 

Josiah was a liberal MP, and fairly active. He staged a filibuster in 1913 against the Mental Deficiency Bill that he saw as unjust and authoritarian. 

I did a quick look into that, and found that there was an actual bit of legilsation called "The Idiots Act 1886" that legally stated the differences between lunatics, idiots, imbeciles and the feeble-minded, so that they could be sorted accordingly into the right institutions. In 1913, the Mental Deficiency Bill was looking at putting the feeble minded into forced labour colonies, and also sterilising them. 

Josiah said it was the spirit of a horrible eugenic society which is setting out to breed the working class like cattle. He does make a very good point, but he was one of just three MPs who voted against it. It was later undone by the Mental Health Act 1959.

 

Josiah also fought in the first world war, and in 1918 he went to Siberia to gather intelligence on Bolshevik control. He opposed much of the reparations in the Versailles treaty, which was an unpopular position to take at the time, but again history would prove him right. Similarly unpopular at the time, Josiah spoke out in favour of accepting Jewish refugees from Europe during the 1930s, and again, hindsight makes him look like the better person. In 1942, Winston Churchill offered him a peerage and he became the first Baron Wedgwood.

He died a year later.

The memorial college was initially established elsewhere, but it had to move in 1949 due to dry rot. A local paper mentioned the proposal to turn this building into a part of the residential college, and it had a warden in residence by 1950.

 

 The college payphone is out of order.

 

 

Here we have what I assume was the college library, which boasted some 15,000 books for research. As a residential college, it can be assumed that the ironing board is from one of the bedrooms. 

 

 

When I was looking over the courses taught here, I was intrigued to see that it included languages, including French, German and Esperanto. If you've never heard of Esperanto, that's okay! It's nobody's mother tongue. It was actually invented in 1887 with the intention of introducing it to the world as a universal second language. Had Esperanto caught on globally, then theoretically someone could go anywhere in the world and remove all communication barriers. In theory it's wonderful. In practice, it's just impossible. A universal language across the world, predictably, became subject to various places developing their own unofficial words and slang. Had it caught on then eventually we'd get a multitude of different Esperanto dialects. 

Esperanto is on the Duolingo app today, meaning you too could become fluent in a pretty cool, but mostly useless second language that you'll likely never meet another speaker of.

 

 

The library shelves are still labeled with the subjects of the books that were once crammed in here.

 

 

There's also a floor plan here, which shows that all the rooms are named after various local potteries. Most notably the library is named after Wedgwood. But also worth noting is that one of the bedrooms is called Copeland Spode, a nod to William Taylor Copeland, who employed William Goss for a brief period. I blogged about him and his pottery earlier in the month. Goss himself doesn't have a room named after him. At least, not in this building.

As well as being used for education, some of these rooms were rented out of weddings, parties and small conferences.

 

The Moorcroft room was presumably a classroom. 

 

 Between 1988 and 2005 the local council also hired one of the rooms for their meetings, and in 2010 the local Men's Society had a Christmas dinner here. 

But the college itself was closed in 2012. I'm not sure why. The local authority just decided to call it a day. And I try to keep politics out of the blog, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Tory cuts probably have something to do with it.

The building was used to film Marvellous in 2014 and then it was apparently sold in 2019. There are now plans to develop the site, but in my opinion there's absolutely nothing wrong with this building. Structurally it's fine. It's a little neglected, but this is nothing that a little TLC can't solve. It's rumoured, as always, that the local council have let it fall into disrepair deliberately so that they could knock it down and build on it. I think currently there is actually a small movement trying to get the building listed, and also to protect the arboretum, but how successful they'll be remains to be seen.

There are a number of bathrooms on this floor, and since they're the best part of any abandoned building, I decided to photograph all of them.

Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs.

It's time to move on to the very top floor.

Given that the history of this building is often overshadowed by the events of the house next door, it would be remiss of me not to touch on it briefly. 

The house next door is also part of the same residential college, although I didn't go into it because it was locked. I know other urbexers have gotten in, but that's either since my initial visit, or before it, whereupon it was resealed. Either way, some people are happy to force entry. I am not. If I happen to show up after someone else has, like with this house, I will utilise the opening, but if a place is locked when I find it, I will leave it alone. As such, I have no images of the house next door.

It was built in 1906, and it was lived in by the Wiltshaw family, Cuthbert, Alice and their daughter Betty, who moved in around 1931 after their pottery business had hit a rough patch. Alice was 62 and had a gammy elbow that made her ineffective in defence and offence. One day, in 1952, her husband Cuthbert returned home to find her beaten with just about every household object the killer could get his hands on, and stabbed through the stomach and head with a barbed poker. It was described as the most horrific murder of the century. The pictures of her injuries were so brutal that the judge withheld them from the jury. Her jaw was shattered and she had a gash from the top of her nose all the way to her ear. 

 

Alice (left) and her family. Photo not mine, obviously

 

The killer was spotted fleeing the house in the direction of the train station, and he left behind a rather unique footprint and some blood stained gloves, which were located by a police dog called Rex. The left glove had a cut on the thumb. It was also ascertained that not all of the blood was hers, which means she got a few blows in too. But Cuthberts raincoat had been stolen, and this was later found on a train from Stafford to Leeds with a blood stain on the inside sleeve.

Because there was no forced entry, the culprit was quickly assumed to be someone who knew the house, and the police investigated all of the Wiltshaws former employees, eventually focusing on 29-year-old Leslie Green. He was their chauffeur and gardener, and had been fired for using their car for personal reasons without permission. He's enigmatic, born in 1922 and with an army service number on his 1945 wedding certificate that doesn't match any war records. He was married, and he had a child, but at the same time he was engaged to a woman called Nora Lammey who knew him as Terry. His wife told police that he had been in the army from 1939 to 1949, not even knowing he'd actually been in prison for some of those years. So it's safe to say the guys a serial liar, and he freely admitted that in court.

They found that his footprint matched the one in the house, and wounds on his hand and arm matched the cut in the glove and the bloodstain on the inside of the coat. His girlfriend Nora also had some jewelry that was stolen from the Wiltshaws. He'd actually borrowed money from her to get the train down from Yorkshire to the Wiltshaws house on the day of the murder, but he denied having anything to do with it. He was found guilty anyway, albeit with the understanding that he'd set out to commit a robbery and it had led to murder upon Alice finding him, and as punishment he was hung by the famous hangman Albert Pierrepoint. His ghost is said to haunt the Wiltshaws house, and also this house for some reason.

What intrigues me is that he turned himself in when he heard that they wanted to question him, but he denied the murder to the end. And in spite of the evidence stacked against him, there are people who still wonder what the real story actually is. The case was reopened in 1993 when new evidence suggested that three other men were involved, and allegedly there was a death bed confession that cleared Leslie Green entirely. So what's the truth? Maybe I'll cover it in more depth if I ever go to that house. Let's not rule out the possibility.

 

But understandably unable to live there any longer, Cuthbert sold the house, and it was absorbed into the residential college in 1953. Ghost stories aside, it's only real relevance to this place is that it was part of the same facility.

 

I presume these were bedrooms, but it sure is weird that they have sinks and carpeted floors together.

The name "Chelsea" is on the floor. I hadn't actually heard of Chelsea Pottery before, but it does exist! I'm still disappointed that there isn't a Goss room. Maybe I missed it, or maybe it's in the house next door.

That's about it for this building. It was good for a casual mooch but I personally can't say I have any strong attachment to it. The downstairs room with the black and white walls is by far the best part of the building, but I probably wouldn't have come out here just for this. I just happened to be in the area at the time. It's good for beginner urbexers though, because it's straightforward with minimal risk. 

Anyway, my next blogs will be a police station and then a massive prison, which I'm really looking forward to. There's a smashed up police helicopter there, which isn't something I get to park by wonderful arse on every day. 

In the meantime, follow me on Instagram, Reddit, my underused and neglected Twitter and the hub of misery that is Facebook. You don't have to, obviously, but if you like the blog then it's the best way to get updated when there's a new one.

Thanks for reading!