[1][2] Alderley is situated 2 miles to the south of Wotton-under-Edge, between two brooks, the Ozleworth and Kilcott, underneath Winner Hill, and in the 16th and 17th century it was home to a number of woollen mills.

[10] Robert and Joan's only child,[11] the jurist Sir Matthew Hale (1609–1676), bought the manor of Alderley in 1656, some 50 years after being born in West End House.

[13] Both of Hale's parents died before he was five and he was brought up by Anthony Kingscot, a close relative and devout puritan.

[14] Hale remained firmly religious throughout his life and it is possible that this influenced his choice of location for the house: immediately to the southwest of St Kenelm's Church, whose origins date back to c.

In 1676 ill-health forced Hale to resign as Lord Chief Justice and he retired to Alderley[17] where he died on Christmas Day the same year; he was buried in St Kenelm's churchyard.

He outlived all but the eldest daughter and the youngest son and, as a result, had taken some of his grandchildren into his care after the death of their parents.

It was to these grandchildren that he left his estate,[19] while he bequeathed West End House to his daughter, Mary;[20] the latter property subsequently passed out of the family when it was sold by one of her descendants in the middle of the 18th century, around which time it was substantially rebuilt.

[a] For a period of more than one hundred years following the death of Sir Matthew Hale, The Lower House remained the family seat.

However, between 1776 and 1780, another Matthew Hale, possibly Sir Matthew Hale's great-grandson,[19] decided to rebuild The Upper House on the lower slopes of nearby Winner Hill to the east of St Kenelm's Church,[21] after which this became the new family home; consequently, The Lower House may have been abandoned for a while.

Matthew Blagden Hale,[24] chose The Lower House when he set up his own independent establishment.

He progressively withdrew from his official appointments in order to devote himself to the life of a country gentleman and in 1857 he resigned as an MP and sold Cottles House.

It forms three sides of an entrance court, with a shallow, single storey porch in the middle of the central range making a token gesture at an E-plan.

At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the house was again empty and Rose Hill School was evacuated to it from Banstead in Surrey.

[43][44] This document formed part of the literary effects of Lord John Selden (1584–1654), of whose estate Sir Matthew Hale was both one of the executors[45] and one of the beneficiaries.

[48][49][50][51] A change of use for the property was approved by Stroud District Council[52] and it was subsequently marketed as a private home for c.£3m at the end of 2009.

[61] In September 2009 the property was used as one of the filming locations for an episode of BBC1's hospital drama Casualty which aired in early 2010.