Description:Previously the Steward's House, this building was enlarged to make a home for Miss Helen Gulson, the niece, and companion in widower-hood, of Josiah Spode IV. Josiah's will gave Miss Gulson the living of Armitage Park during her lifetime, with the permission to dispose of by trust and a default of it passing to the English Dominican order on her death. The estate was put up for auction on 26th June 1894 but on the 6th of June the property was withdrawn from sale. By the 23rd of June the Catholic newspaper, 'The Tablet', announced that it had come into the possession of the Dominican Fathers arising from the generosity of the late owner and his niece for the establishment of a Priory and House of Studies.
The cottages were Miss Gulson's home until her death in 1910. In 1923 they were used to increase the capacity of the Dominican School, housing about fifteen boys and one of the fathers and renamed Gulson House. This use was only brief as soon afterwards the Dominican School was transferred to Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire. It then became the home for a series of Preparatory Schools run by Catholic laymen until 1947. Part of it was a gardener's house in the 1950s.
Photographer: Alfred McCann, photographer of High Street, Uttoxeter.