Leonard Johnston Wills - Farley Cottage

Farley Cottage

In 1926, the Willses bought Farley Cottage, with some 45 surrounding acres in a valley near the Lickey Hills between Bromsgrove and Romsley, together with the neighbouring mediaeval Shut Mill. In 1926, this small and idyllic estate was extremely remote, with no mains electricity or water. Jack Wills installed a turbine which generated electricity from the mill pool. A ram supplied water from a spring. There was a telephone: Romsley 3. In 1936, Farley Cottage was enlarged and modernised by their architect son, Leonard, then newly graduated from the Architectural Association.

Farley Cottage, its gardens, orchard and surrounding valley, was the setting for the Willses’ generous hospitality to many – family, friends, and geological colleagues – over the next forty years. ‘The Professor’ did much for local history, archaeology, and geology, and was largely instrumental in saving the valley from being flooded as a reservoir for Birmingham. He was a churchwarden at Romsley from 1930 to 1936. He was a keen gardener with extensive horticultural knowledge.

In 1956, Jack Wills decided to gift Farley Cottage and its land to the Field Studies Council (‘FSC’), subject to him being able to continue to live there for his lifetime. The intention was that on his death the house would be used by the FSC as a Field Studies Centre. In 1965, the FSC decided that Farley Cottage was not of a size to be economic as a Centre, but that it would be sold and the proceeds put towards buying and restoring a new Centre. This was done, and Nettlecombe Court in Somerset has since been known as the Leonard Wills Field Centre. Jack Wills and his daughter Penty moved to a small bungalow half a mile away from Farley Cottage in the same valley, where he lived until his death in 1979.