Worlds End Cottage / House
In 1807 there was a property slightly further along the lane from what is now Woodside bungalow at Priors Norton. Plot No 292, near the bottom of the following plan, was then a house and garden, 0-0-17 in area, owned by the Duke of Norfolk, with no details of the occupants at that time. For orientation, the site of Woodside bungalow was Plot No 317, Benges Cottage at Plot No 315, and the lane leaving the plan to the north is heading towards Benges Farm and Ivy House.
[1807]
Prior to this time much of this part of the village formed the Priors Norton Manor (see separate article). On 25 June 1828 the entire estate at Priors Norton and Down Hatherley was put up for sale by Thomas Cooke at an auction to be held at the Kings Head Inn, Gloucester;
“The Estate, comprised in this Particular, is most desirably situated, and affords a good opportunity either for investment of capital or for occupation. The roads are good to the estate, well supplied with water, and a good stock of game upon it. The manor attached to the estate confers a right of sporting over a great extent of land. There are two packs of hounds kept within a short distance …”.
The estate was purchased by Nathaniel Dyer and in 1829/30 the house and land was occupied by Nathan Clark at £232 11s per annum. Nathan was referred to as ‘Farmer Clarke’ in several records at this time.
The cottage can be identified again in 1838 when it was named Worlds End Cottage, was owned jointly by John Garlick Ball and John Clift, with tenants William Holder and James Lawrence. The Ball and Clift families owned a lot of land in this area throughout the nineteenth century.
On 4 November 1791 William Ball married Mary Dyer, daughter of Nathaniel Dyer who owned the manor of Priors Norton at this time and the marriage probably explains how William came to hold land at Norton. Amongst their children was John Garlick Ball who was born at Horsley in 1794.
John Garlick Ball married Martha Purchas at Ross in May 1815 and had several children before Martha died in 1826. John Garlick Ball remarried Mary Thomas in September 1829 at Minchinhampton and had further children.
When William Ball died at Wickwar in April 1851, son John appears to have inherited his Priors Norton estate. By 1851 John and family were living at Badbrook, Stroud, where John was a solicitor and the county coroner and in 1871 they were living at Castle Bank, Stroud. John Garlick Ball died at Castle Bank, Stroud, on 25 April 1878, at which time he had been the county coroner for 47 years.
Amongst John’s children was Alfred John Morton Ball, born at Minchinhampton in 1845, who appears to have inherited the Norton property upon his father’s death.
Alfred married Jeanette Cox at Ross in March 1881 and they had a number of children before Jeanette died in June 1890. By 1891 widower Alfred was living at The Green, Painswick, where he had followed his father as a solicitor and coroner. Alfred was still at Painswick in 1911 at which time he was a solicitor, HM Coroner for Gloucestershire and County Courts Registrar. Alfred John Morton Ball died whilst living at Slad, near Stroud, on 13 February 1921.
The other owner in 1838 was John Clift who was also born at Horsley, in July 1796, son of Isaac and Deborah Clift. Deborah was also the daughter of Nathaniel Dyer so another family connection to the manor of Priors Norton. John was still at Bath Road, Horsley, in 1841, married Elizabeth Martin at Kingscote, Cirencester, in 1843, and by 1851 they were living at Smalley Hill, Derby, where they were farming 65 acres and where John was parish overseer. John’s name ceases to appear for property at Norton after 1860 and whilst this may be when the cottage here ceased to exist, it also only briefly precedes his death. John died at Stanley, Derbyshire, on 30 September 1861 and was buried at St John the Baptist, Smalley, where he still has a memorial in the churchyard along with his wife, Elizabeth.
Another connection between the families came on 6 December 1848 when John’s widower brother, William, married the widowed Mary Ball of Avening at Norton and they settled ‘near the Church’, likely at what became Church Farm.
The Holders, who were tenants in 1838, had been a Norton family for many years by this time. William was born at Norton in 1763, son of Thomas and Sarah nee Morris and married Sarah Skinner at Norton in 1797. Amongst their children was daughter Sarah who later married James Lawrence. William Holder’s death has not been identified but by 1841 Sarah Holder was widowed and living at Worlds End Cottage as an agricultural labourer and pauper, in the household of James Lawrence, his wife Sarah, and three infant children. Sarah Holder was still here in 1851 when daughter Sarah was also a widow with husband James dying in 1846 and buried at Norton. Sarah Holder died aged 90 in 1852 also being buried at St Mary’s, Norton, and the Lawrences appear to have moved to Cheltenham.
In 1861 a property called Worlds End House is recorded as being unoccupied so could this mark the time that the house ceased to exist ? The property at Plot No 292 has not been identified again after this time and on maps of the area from a few years later do not record a building on this site.
