THE Sheiling, on a wooded hill at Silverdale, was the home of Gordon Bottomley and his wife Emily for most of their married life.
His Times obituary was to describe it as “a small house surrounded by trees and flowers, where poets and painters were welcome visitors”.
The late Mrs Helen Lamb, a local relative, remembered visiting ‘Uncle Gordon’ in his “house in a magic wood”, full of “many lovely objects, and pictures of note”, with an upstairs sitting-room whose windows offered “views of distances far off”.
Possibly the only known photograph of the interior of The Sheiling was snapped by Gordon himself when JB Priestley called.
Priestley sits on the right with his trademark pipe. His first wife and daughter sit opposite, while Emily Bottomley has her back to the camera.
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