A family called Scot was living in Calverley in the 1160s and was later to take the name of the place as its own. At an early date they began to put all their family and estate papers into a large chest. For 500 years both the family and the papers remained here in Calverley, in a house that naturally grew and changed over the centuries. So, before 1300, they had already built a small stone hall house for themselves, of which traces survive.
Onto one end of this stone hall a timber-framed solar wing was added soon after. This was to be remodelled and enlarged about a hundred years later, around 1400.
Papers and house together tell a story of a steady climb in wealth and status. The Calverleys added to their estates bit by bit and married into the leading families in the area. Many were knighted or served as magistrates and later as county sheriff. But never higher than that: they were county magnates, not national ones. Some stand out as individuals: Sir Walter, in the 1300s, was a vigorous improver, a pioneer of the iron industry, who sometimes clashed with the law. His son, also Walter, was more prudent, drawing up careful marriage settlements for his teenage children. In the 1480s, a pious William added the chapel and rebuilt the hall; about 1550, a prolific William, with 17 children, added extra chambers.
Then there is the tragic Walter Calverley, who in 1605 ran amok and murdered his two small sons, William and Walter, and died himself under torture. The surviving son, Henry, is a poignant figure, dogged by ill luck in youth and later burdened by a huge fine imposed by Parliament for being a Royalist. It was he who added the North wing, probably before the Civil War began.
The story of the Calverleys ends on a happier note with the 1st Baronet, Sir Walter Calverley, a possible source for Sir Roger de Coverley, Addison’s country squire of The Spectator. A busy, contented and prosperous man, he was the last of his family to have much to do with Calverley, though he lived not here but at neighbouring Esholt. His son, 2nd and last Baronet, moved further away, to Northumberland, where he inherited his mother’s estate at Wallington.
The ancient link between Calverley and the Calverleys was coming to an end. In 1754 the Calverley estate was sold to the Thornhills and the Old Hall was divided into cottages. The barns and stables which we know to have stood around it disappeared and its gardens and orchards were replaced by streets and houses. But the cottage tenants had no reason to make major alterations, so the medieval house remained intact, a rare and complete survival. The Calverley papers survived too, and are now in the British Librar