Hillside House dates from 1805-6 and was built by William Coxeter James, one of the most successful coal entrepeneurs in the Radstock area. He was also a Justice of the Peace and Chairman of Clutton Poor Law Union.
William decided to move from the old family home at Ham Pasture, Coombend, Radstock following his marriage to Anna Maria Hill of Writhlington in 1801. He bought freehold land on Loves Hill from John Crang and began by opening a small quarry on the upper part of the site to obtain rubble from the White Lias. The 1784 map below shows the land he acquired. The 1838 Tithe map shows the layout of the completed site, which included demolishing some buildings close to Loves Hill.
Once completed Hillside House included the main house with a spacious forecourt and turning circle. There were stables to the north, a walled garden and orchard. To the south there were terraced gardens.
After William Coxeter James’s death in 1848 his son John William Coxeter James lived there until his death in 1873. His sister Ann married William Rees-Mogg of Cholwell House in 1847. She inherited the house on her brother’s death and it belonged to her until her death in 1892. Therafter it passed to her husband William Rees-Mogg who sold the house in 1900 to Rev. Henry Noel Waldegrave for £2500.
The census shows that Sarah Gray occupied the house in 1891 with her two adult children and four servants. She is described as living on her own means. The occupancy changed fairly quickly as Mary Fenwick is there on her own with three servants in 1901. William Henry Bowles, a retired barrister-at-law, is there in 1911.
Hillside comes up for sale again in 1918, but must not as been quite as attractive – the advert stated the property was to be sold at a low upset (reserved) price. Henry Waldegrave sold it to Henry and Isabel Kemp Tippett in 1919 for £1600. This represented a significant reduction in value and is an example of the impact of World War I on the British economy. Edith Speakman lived there with her daughter Patience. Soon after in 1922 a fire occurred. The residence was in the process of being redecorated and brought up to date with electric lights and central heating. Radstock Fire Brigade eventually arrived conveyed by Mr Maloney’s motor lorry, but found that the fire had already been extinguished by local people. Hillside House at this time was run as a model farm.
By the 1930s the house was owned and occupied by Henry and Isabel Kemp Tippett and they renamed it Rennys. They were the parents of Michael Tippett the prominent composer whose most famous works included the oratorio Child of Our Time and the opera King Priam.
Henry and Isabel Kemp Tippett used their house for many social events including drama productions, fetes and a girls tennis club. They were actively involved in many village organisations. In 1933 an angry Mrs Kemp Tippett protested at a Parish Council meeting about the facilities at Timsbury School on South Road, expressing concern that children could not be expected to get a proper education in a school where there was scarcely room for them to breathe.
In 1941 Hillside House had a significant change when Bristol City Council purchased the property and used it as youth detention accommodation. Also, in the 1940s, Leslie Bence started his business in Newmans Lane and then moved to the stable block before transferring in 1947 to the garage at Marksbury. Bristol City Council ran Hillside as reformatory until 1956. It then changed hands several times before being bought by a property developer, John Buckingham, in 1963. He divided up the property selling the stables to William Bertram. Rennys was designated a Grade II listed building in 1960 and in the 1990s was renamed as Rosewood Manor.