'Rill' means a brook or rivulet, or shallow channel cut into the surface or soil or rocks by running water (a small stream, the Coldbrook, rises in a valley adjoining 'the Butts' to the north).

[3] The property was sold in 1869 to John Treharne, a wealthy gentleman who also owned Friars Point House and was responsible for building a pier at Barry Island.

[4] St. David's Methodist Church of Barry (now in Colcot) has its origins in the district of Buttrills in the 1920s when a congregation began to meet for worship in two old huts.

[3] From around 1920 for a number of years, the British military also ran Buttrills Camp in the area for the treatment and recuperation of the wounded.

Buttrills Road is particularly steep and connects upper Barry to the western part of the CBD and the downtown district of Holton.

Buttrills playing fields (known as The Butts) in the upper part of the district are extensive and today are heavily used for local weekend football matches, both youth and adult, and training.

The pub was recently closed for refurbishment, subsequently reopened as a Marston's Inn and renamed 'The Cherry Orchard'.

Glamorgan College of Education was divided into several wings with primary and secondary education, and aside from standard subjects offered specialist courses such as PE for women, a one-year supplementary course in teaching handicapped children, needlework lessons, and oral classes in the Welsh language.