Cotton, Staffordshire
| Cotton | |
|---|---|
 Church of St John the Baptist, Cotton |
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 Cotton
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| Cotton shown within Staffordshire | |
| OS grid reference | SK066463 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Police | Staffordshire |
| Fire | Staffordshire |
| Ambulance | West Midlands |
| EU Parliament | West Midlands |
Cotton is a village and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. It is about 5 miles (8.0 km) north-east of Cheadle.
Cotton Hall, originally built in the 17th century, was the home of Cotton College from 1863 until its closure in 1987.
Cotton Hall, which dates from 1630, was bought by Thomas Gilbert (1688–1742). His son, the politician Thomas Gilbert (c.1719–1798) inherited the building, and it was largely rebuilt; the male line of the family died out in 1843. It was bought by John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, and he offered it in 1846 to Frederick William Faber as a rural retreat for his small Roman Catholic community, called the Brothers of the Will of God, in Birmingham.
The community left Cotton in April 1849 to set up the London Oratory. In 1863 the building was opened as Cotton College, a Roman Catholic boarding school (previously Sedgley Park School, Wolverhampton).
There were additions to the building in 1874–75, 1886–87 and 1931–32. It is a Grade II listed building.
The school closed in 1987; since then the site has not been used.
The Anglican church of St John the Baptist, in the Diocese of Lichfield, is a Grade II listed building. It was built in 1795 by Thomas Gilbert of Cotton Hall. It is built of red brick on an ashlar plinth, and has a slate roof; it has a two-bay nave and a single-bay chancel. There are wall plaques to Thomas Gilbert (died 1798) and his son Thomas (died 1843).
The patron saint of the Roman Catholic community of Cotton Hall in the 1840s was St Wilfrid, and St Wilfrid's Church, for which funds were provided by the Earl of Shrewsbury, was built soon after their arrival. The architect was August Pugin, who had designed St. Giles' Catholic Church, Cheadle for the Earl of Shrewsbury. It was completed in 1848. It later became the chapel of Cotton College.
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