Chorley's Inns and Taverns: Whittle-le-Woods - Oddfellows' Arms (Rotherham Top)

Name: The Oddfellows' Arms

Address: Rotherham Top Farm, Preston Road, Whittle-le-Woods

Rotherham Top Farm - Oddfellows' Arms

There were originally two Oddfellows' Arms in Whittle, this one being located at Rotherham Top Farm, the other at the north end of the village on Chorley Old Road.

Rotherham Top is an area of Whittle-le-Woods whose name seems to have all but disappeared now but was certainly a marker for the boundaries of the parish of Whittle-le-Woods as the excerpt from the history of Lancashire in 1911 below confirms.

WHITTLE-LE-WOODS
Known as "Wythull" (1242) and "Whythill (or Whithull) in the Wode" (1304).
The northern half of this hilly township is traversed by the Lostock, here flowing from east to west and then north. In the angle thus formed lies the village, with the hamlet of Rip Row to the north. The ground here rises to over 400 ft. above sea level. The larger part of Whittle south of the Lostock has Shaw Hill on the western side, the ground rising to 360 ft., and other hills on the eastern side, attaining 460 ft. at the boundary of Chorley. The area is 1,355 acres, and in 1901 the population was 2,333.
The principal road is that from Chorley to Preston, which goes north, by Rotherham Top and Waterhouse Green, through the village. From this point other roads branch off to Heapey in the east, Brindle in the north-east, and Leyland in the west. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal winds through the eastern part of the township, a part or branch of it (the Lancaster Canal) going north-west through Rip Row.
British History Online

Rotherham Top Census for 1841

Preston Chronicle 10 March 1849 (thanks to Andrew Alston)

Census records of beer house keepers at Rotherham Top farm begin in 1851, shortly after the farm was sold by Catherine Hodgkinson (above) and continued through to 1871, but after that, all reference to the beer house disappeared and it seems to confirm that this was only a going concern in the middle of the 19th century.

Listed landlords were Richard Spiby (1851), William Hall (1861) and Thomas Webster (1871).