Clonterbrook House, Cheshire, England

Clonterbrook House is a former manor house in the parish of Swettenham, Cheshire, England. It was built in 1697 for Jeffery and Katherine Lockett. It passed from the Lockett family in 1769, but was bought by Derek and Elizabeth Lockett in 1939. They restored the house in 1949.[1] The house is constructed in brick, and it has a stone-slate roof. There are two storeys plus an attic, and it is in five bays. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.[2] Around the house are three former farm buildings that have been converted into other uses; they are all listed at Grade II. The former shippon, which was damaged in an air raid in 1941, has been rebuilt as a music room.[3] A former bakehouse is now an office,[4] and a barn has been developed into a picture gallery.[5] Clonter Opera Theatre has been built adjacent to these buildings.[6]

Some notes relating to the Locketts of Clonterbrook House from a history of Westhoughton, Lancashire

1792-1812 Westhoughton Hall (in Daisy Hill) was tenanted by Mr & Mrs Lockett. Information supplied by Mr Lockett of Clonterbrook House, Cheshire.

1800 The road from Bolton via Snydale was turnpiked "as far as the turnpike road from Manchester to Westhoughton Chapel". Park Road, Market Street and Wigan Road were probably turnpiked about 1753. A toll house was situated near the Cenotaph, and gates across Church Street and Market Street.

1804 Mr Lockett, of Westhoughton Hall, built a Factory - (one of the earliest steam-powered mills) on land opposite the White Lion.

1808 Factory leased to Thomas Wroe of Manchester DDZ/Bur.6&8

1812 Westhoughton Factory was set on fire by Luddites. 4 were hanged and 5 transported to Australia. Calendar of Crown Prisoners.
1812 Westhoughton Hall was sent on fire by the Luddites (this is in the family records of the Locketts)

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vBvi6Gu6fboC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&d...

Jeremy Lockett, MBE, DL

Doctor of Music

Mr Lockett was born into a musical family. His mother was Betty Bannerman, the mezzo-soprano, and his father had a music room constructed in their home, Clonterbrook House – a former manor house in the parish of Swettenham in Cheshire.

He read agriculture at St John’s College, Cambridge before carrying out National Service. Mr Lockett joined the Milk Marketing Board as an agricultural consultant before becoming a tenant farmer and then owner occupier of a 250 acre Dairy Farm at Swettenham Heath. He was High Sheriff of Cheshire from 1989 to 1990, is a member of the Countryside Landowners Association and the National Farmers Union and was Chairman of the Cheshire Committee of the former organisation from 1994/95. In 2003 he was awarded Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Cheshire.

After attending a cattle auction in 1974, he had been impressed by the theatrical aspect of the arena and it inspired him to hold a charity concert in one of his barns. He invited the Abbey Opera Group to bring an evening of operatic excerpts to his farm in Cheshire. A barn full of straw bales was converted for the night into an auditorium and the proceeds went to Cancer Relief. Since then Clonter Opera has become a permanent fixture.

As part of Clonter Opera Theatre, the Clonter Farm Music Trust is committed to providing the highest quality training and performance opportunities for young singers. Summer productions are taken on tour to London in the Autumn with performances at the Britten Theatre at the Royal College of Music. Clonter’s Opera Prize, worth £2,000, is the only inter-conservatoire opera prize awarded in the United Kingdom. Singers are nominated by the heads of opera at the principal music colleges and then go forward to a competition at Clonter Opera Theatre, held at the beginning of each year.

The mission is to ‘bridge the gap’ between conservatoire and professional work, but there is also further outreach work with 1,545 children from 29 different schools and 701 adults participating in 2010’s Education Programme.

Mr Lockett became a Fellow of the Royal Northern College of Music in 1990; Master of the Musicians’ Company from 1990 to 1991; he was made Member of the British Empire for Services to Music in 2003 and received an MEN Theatre Award in 2006.

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A collection of English watercolours and drawings formed by Mr Derek Lockett at Clonterbrook House, Cheshire, mainly in the 1960s recorded in the Whitworth: http://www.artfund.org/supporting-museums/art-weve-helped-buy/artwo...