Australian descendent of Littleborough’s Newall family visits Hare Hill House

Cathy Newman and Iain Bowden working together

An Australian descendent of the Newall family from Littleborough paid a very special visit to historic Hare Hill House on Thursday (26 July).

Cathy Newman, from Sydney, is the great-great granddaughter of Thomas Agar Newall, who was born in Hare Hill House on 18 June 1813. Hare Hill House was home to the Newall family for hundreds of years but has been in decline since they moved out.

Towards the end of 1841, Thomas emigrated to Sydney Australia. He became, amongst other things, an expert rifleman, a brilliant artist, a bar owner, and an entrepreneur.

Cathy and her family back in Australia have spent a lot of time finding out about their family history and how they are related to the Newalls of Littleborough. Her visit was a very special day for both Cathy and the team at Hare Hill House.

They spent the whole day enthusiastically swapping knowledge and understanding of this fascinating family and all were as excited as each other over the new understandings gathered about the individual members of the Newall family and their importance in the development of Littleborough.

Cathy also brought four letters from a box of over 70 letters that Thomas had taken with him when he emigrated.

Two of the letters, over 300 years old, solved the mystery of what happened to John Newall, who ran away from home to join the navy.

Another letter, from a Mr Dearden to William Newall, gave details of how he was setting up Littleborough’s Handle Hall as a hunting lodge.

Amongst other game animals, he introduced pheasants to his land. This explains why the birds, not a normal species for the area, still run across Calderbrook Road nearly 200 years later.

The Hare Hill House team are still working on the final letter, which appears to be asking the Newalls for £1,000 as the author had become bankrupt.

Cathy has very kindly donated the letters to Hare Hill House and has promised to let the team have the rest of the collection when she comes to visit again in the near future.

Cathy and the Hare Hill House team parted at the end of the day buzzing with new ideas about how they can work together to understand this very important family, of which, very little has been written down - until now.