The house is listed as Goldthorn Cottage, but we have at least two other names for it.  The first is Hill Cottage, which was the address name when I moved here 27 years ago; the other is Bluebell Cottage.

In the 16^th century the building was a tavern, with two outbuildings, a coach house and a pig shed. The coach house still has the original stables fittings and hay store.  As a tavern it was the Blue Bell. This area was known as "Seven Cornfields" and lies adjacent to Blue Bell Wood. At the bottom of Upper Villiers street is Bell Place.

The building has a mural in an upper room which is of some heritage significance.

The building, until a century ago, was part of Sedgley or Segley, as it was known.  Goldthorn Hill itself was a toll road and in living memory there was a toll house at the bottom of Goldthorn Hill.

The building is oak framed throughout and the pebble-dash render dates back to the beginning of the century. The building is made of hand made brick. The perimeter wall is Roman in part.

Thanks to an ABCD heritage grant we hope to restore the building in 2007, rebuilding the three chimneys, removing and repairing the roof and replacing it with original tiles all in the same colour (at present the patches of roof tile have not been repaired with colour coded slates). The down pipes are for the most part cast iron; those that are not are being replaced as part of the building work.  The exterior pebble dash is to be removed and replaced with a flat lime render.  All of the work will be carried out by heritage specialists and we hope to return this, one of the six oldest buildings in the city, back to its former glory.

Also worthy of note is that during the war Winston Churchill is known to have visited the property twice, though who he met, and the purpose of his visit, remain a mystery.