This house was used as the parsonage or rectory from medieval times until 1843, when it was succeeded by the property that later became the Old Rectory Nursing Home in Church Lane (see location 13). The oldest part of Rectory Farm was of stone and thatch but it was considerably extended between 1710 and 1715 by Rector George Roades with the addition of a brick parlour and rooms over.
When the Archdeacon of Stafford visited the house in 1830 he described it as a ‘brick, whitewashed house in miserable condition’. The house remained in the hands of the Church Commissioners until 1913. The Reverend William Hutchinson briefly lived in the house from 1839, following the death of the Reverend Samuel Langley, until 1843, when he and his family moved to the rectory in Church Lane.
With the purchase of a new Rectory, the property and its lands became a farm, the rents paid by the tenants forming part of the Rector's stipend. Charles Prince was the first tenant, followed by Francis Stubbs and Thomas Holdcroft. In the early twentieth century the property was occupied by the Shoebotham family who considerably improved the condition of the land and laid out new gardens around the house.
In 1913, the property was bought from the Church Commissioners by Mr. John Halden and remained in the ownership of the Halden family until 1985 when it was sold to Mr. and Mrs. John Salt.
After years of determined fund raising the Community Centre was built and opened in 1983. It was extended in 1998 when a stage area was added to the hall. In 2010 solar panels were added to the roof of the building which, on an annual basis, generally meet the electricity needs of the Centre with any surplus is fed back into the National Grid.
The Hutchinson Memorial School was built in 1879 in memory of the Reverend William Hutchinson who was the Rector of Checkley from 1839 until 1878. It was constructed on a piece of glebe land donated for the purpose, and originally there was a schoolhouse for the head teacher to the left of the school building when viewed from the road. The house was demolished in the early 1970s.
As can be seen the older part of the building (that built in the 1870s) was a brick building with a small bell turret. The bell was not a decorative feature in those early days. It is recorded that when the bell was out of service for a short while the school register shows that the children were late to school for nearly a week. When it was originally built there was only one classroom divided by a wooden partition and there was also a small kitchen. In the latter part of the 20th Century extra classrooms were added at the rear of the property.
The school was lit with oil lamps hanging from the ceiling until 1935 when the Checkley Silver Jubilee Committee agreed to donate money to have electricity installed as a memorial to King George V’s Silver Jubilee.
On 5 September 1939 40 children and 3 teachers were evacuated from Manchester to join the children in Checkley.
In 1974 the school became a ‘First School’, taking children from age 4+ to 9. This was when the school became part of the three tier system of education in the Uttoxeter area. Generally, children move on to Windsor Park Middle School in Uttoxeter at the age of 9 (year 5) and then to Thomas Alleyne’s High School at the age of 13 (year 9).
There are currently around 80 pupils at the school.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, Hutchinson Memorial School, replaced the earlier Sunday School that had been in the churchyard from 1840. It is interesting to note that the Reverend Hutchinson brought about a revolution in education in the village. The marriage registers show that over 55% of Checkley people were illiterate when he came to the village in 1840 but by the time that the new school was built in 1879 less than 20% signed their names with a cross.