Farmed by the Shuttlewood family
AFTER seeing the AT Warbis sketch of the “The Round House” in Looking Back, regular Echo reader and contributor, John Bryson, got in touch.
The 1968 sketch was described by Mr Warbis as: “Beacon Cottage, more generally known as ‘The Round House’ on the Paget Estate, Dean’s Lane.
And john e-mailed to say: “Just read today’s Echo and saw the drawing by Mr Warbis of the Round House in Dean’s Lane.
“I’m not sure of it’s role today, but it used to be part of a farm, and it was farmed by the Shuttlewood family who then went to farm in Stanford on Soar.
“My late Godmother Joan Alvey was born in the Round House in the 1920s.
“Joan was a Shuttlewood by birth.
“Mr Shuttlewood was a prominent member of the National Farmers Union (NFU),and the farm the family lived in was village farm in Stanford on Soar.
“On an anecdotal level, my mother told me that Mr Shuttlewood wanted things done properly. My father was a young veterinary surgeon, not long in practice in the latter stages of 1945, having arrived from Northern Ireland in October of that year as an assistant to Mr Reginald Phillips, who owned the Meadow Lane practice in those days.
“Mr Phillips told dad (warned?) that Mr Shuttlewood wanted things done properly, and I gather dad was a little nervous on his first visit to Village Farm.
“I think it fair to say that dad passed the test, and he always got on with Mr Shuttlewood.
“Mr Shuttlewood passed away early 1968 when I was twelve, but I recall liking him.
“His wife lived into her 90s, passing away in June 1979. I attended her funeral with my parents, and I recall the church in Stanford on Soar being packed full.
“Mr Phillip, or to be exact Reginald Leggo Phillips,l was from Cornwall, which is where he’s buried, the cemetery is opposite St Michael’s Mount - I’ve visited the site.
“He never retired. He had a stroke not long after my parents married in March 1954 and died 11 days later. I believe he was 71. By this time dad was Mr Phillips partner in the practice.
“Mr Phillips had housekeepers, as he never married.
“So shortly after my parents married there’s mum living in the new marital home in Whitehouse Avenue, with dad living in Meadow Lane with these housekeepers!
“What it also meant is that mum had to give up her career as a tracer at Taylor’s Bell Foundry, and move into Meadow Lane as a veterinary surgeon’s wife.
“The practice was predominately large animal in those days, roughly a 65/35 split in favour of the large animals.
“I think mum would have carried on at the foundry but circumstances dictated otherwise. Mum always spoke well of her time there.
“On the artist’s front, I never knew Mr Warbis, but his son Steven was a contemporary of mine at Loughborough Grammar School.”