Theories behind the origin of Sharpley’s Gun Hill

GUN Hill House stood close to a gaunt out crop of rocks near High Sharpley, and could easily be seen from the Oaks Road.

Over the years there has been speculation as to its use or purpose.

My grandfather, Mr. Jack Savage, who was a game keeper down at Garendon Park for most of his working life never recalled its use other than as a land mark, which is strange because it has been suggested that it had been used for rearing young pheasants until they were ready for release into the wilds.

Another theory was that it had been used as a hunting lodge where the gentry could stop off amid a day’s fox hunting for refreshment, and get out of the biting wind that blows across the Forest at this point.

Disregarding the ghost stories and the mythical tunnels that supposedly lead to the Abbey, let us look at what we do know about this oddly shaped house.

In the centre of the building under the flat roof there was one bedroom. Below this was the kitchen and living room which were entered through the front door porch.

The left hand side room was a scullery and pantry, the other room on the right was a small parlour.

Both these rooms had slated pitched roofs. Water was drawn from a pump near the front of the house. With amenities such as these it does seem an unlikely venue for a stopping off place for a quick tot and a cold chicken leg! So it really must have been a keeper’s cottage after all, or was it?

Thomas Rossell Potter in his masterly 1842 book on Charnwood Forest, mentions “The Hermitage, near Sharpley Rocks”. Unfortunately he doesn’t elaborate on it.

He may of course have meant, Hermitage Farm, but that is a little way from Sharpley, just above the Blackbrook Reservoir.

At about the same time as it is thought Gun Hill House might have been built, c1835, six Cistercian monks were settling into Chanwood’s rocky wastes barely two miles away, trying to make a ram shackled, four - roomed cot- tage habitable.

It only takes a visit to the magnificent Mount St, Bernard’s Abbey today to see just how well they, and their successors, succeeded.

Whether there is any connection between the heap of rubble that is now Gun Hill House and the Monastery I will leave more knowledgeable researchers to find out! After all, it probably was just a Keeper’s home?

I am grateful to T. R. Potters History and Antiquities of Charnwood Forest, and, Charnwood Forest: A Changing Landscape. Edited by John Crocker.

Pictured is the famous Gun Hill House in Whitwick, or better known as the ‘haunted house.’ The photo is taken after the house had became derelict and it is where Elaine Hagan and her family lived for several months. Photo sent in by Looking Back reader...