The Buildings of South West Lancashire

Extracts from -
Lancashire: Liverpool and the South West
By Richard Pollard 2006
Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England Collection

Holy Trinity Newchurch Interior

CULCHETH
 Culcheth is now a large characterless village, a scattering of cottages and farms developed into a sprawling suburban dormitory since 1946, initially to house the scientists of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Birchwood.
Dismal 1950s-70s shopping parades define the centre (with a little plain SUNDAY SCHOOL, dated 1821). More interesting are the flat-roofed semis at Fowley Common, built during the Second World War as accommodation for HMS Ariel, now Risley Remand Centre. The streets here have deferentially patriotic names - Churchill, Eden, Bevin, Attlee, Beaverbrook.
 
HOLY TRINITY NEWCHURCH (Image above), Church Lane. 1904-5, by
Travers & Ramsden, replacing a C17 chapel destroyed by fire.
Incredibly retardataire. This brand of Neo-Norman might be
1850. W tower, aisles, quarry-faced stone. Dull interior, with
parish room in w bay, behind a clashing wooden screen (1991).
- REREDOS with the Adoration of the Magi on painted glass
panels by Kayll & Co., Leeds.
- FONT. Marble, quatrefoil plan, on four stubby piers with merging capitals.
Presumably 1905 too.
- TWO CHANDELIERS in the chancel. Brass, C18, four tiers;
from Culcheth Hall (demolished c. 1958).
- STAINED GLASS.
More quantity than quality. Much by A. Seward & Co. of Lan-
caster, including an impressive Crucifixion in the five-light
E window, a memorial to Charles Crofton Black, 1913.
- BRASSES. In the parish room a brass inscription to Elizabeth
Egerton, 1646, signed John Sale sculpsit - an oddity of the first
order; also one to William Ratclyff, 1561, and family; a third
brass is of three girls, hands clasped in prayer, the dead daughters
mentioned on the Ratclyff brass. These two brasses are
fragments of a larger memorial.

SALFORD UNION COTTAGE HOMES (former), Stonyhurst Crescent.
Built in 1901 with an oval plan and varied treatment
of the front elevations, though the rears of every cottage are
identical. Now housing.
 
KENYON HALL, Broseley Lane, on the NW edge of Culcheth, is
a classical mansion now serving as a golf clubhouse. It appears
to be early C19 with alterations. Rendered, the ground floor
with channelled rustication. The orientation is 90 degrees out
from what one might expect: the N side has the entrance loggia;
the E front is seven bays, the middle three projecting in a
shallow segmental bay, with a grossly insensitive single-storey
extension; and the s front is seven bays, the r. three slightly
projecting with a later segmental ground-floor bay, and with
a later blank w extension containing the billiard room
(there were large conservatories attached here in 1886).
Giant pilasters at most angles, hideously pink. The w side is definitely
the back, with C20 extension and alterations.
Some good INTERIORS. Much of the plan is taken up by
the top-lit central hall, which contains a very grand staircase
rising around the sides via quarter-pace landings to a first-floor
landing supported by two Ionic columns. The ceiling is sup-
ported by two more Ionic columns above these, now with a
partition between. Lantern, once square, replaced by lenses set
in a concrete disc. Off this on the ground floor are four rooms,
knocked into two, with high-quality ceilings (in 1886 they were,
clockwise, the library, drawing room, music room and dining
room). The dining room in the centre of the s façade has a
superb cornice, with a frieze of pomegranates and pears,
unusual ceiling rose, and square engaged Corinthian columns
that once flanked the buffet. All this decoration (and the stair
balustrade) seems mid-C19. The billiard-room lantern is now
hidden behind suspended ceiling tiles.
The LODGE is single-storeyed, stuccoed with pedimented
gables and a Doric entrance porch in the re-entrant angle.
Across Broseley Lane is a really quite big VILLA of 1906, Stockbroker
Tudor with half-timbering, turrets etc. It is the best of
a number of early C20 houses built by the new money of Leigh
in the northern part of Culcheth, which is called Twiss Green.

Sketch of Newchurch Old Rectory

NEWCHURCH OLD RECTORY( Image above), 1/4mile s on the A574, is a generous two-storey, three-bay, red brick house of 1812 with
pedimented Doric-columned doorcase. Steps up to it with
wrought-iron balustrade.
 
HOLCROFT HALL 1 mile w on the B5512. A rendered exterior,
the proportions and massive chimney the clues to the late
C15-early C16 date. It was enlarged in the C18, but in the late
C20 it disgracefully had its cross- and mullioned windows
replaced with uPVC frames, and gained a crude E extension.
One can only hope that the interior features described by the
DCMS - heavily moulded beams, massive roof timbers, a now
internal Gothic window, a priest hole and sealed triangular
openings - remain.
 
HOLE MILL FARM 1/5 mile further s on the B5512 is, mercifully,
a farmhouse that has so far escaped mauling. Brick, three bays,
two phases - C18 and possibly C17. Inside is a charming provincial
Chinese Chippendale staircase, presumably of the 1750s.

CROFT
 
Croft was a dispersed village, a scattering of cottages and farms.
Now it is an uninteresting dormitory to Warrington, the cottages
and farms heavily modernised and housing estates erected. The
best surviving house is SPRINGFIELD FARMHOUSE, Spring
Lane, a standard late C18 brick three-bay box with pedimented
doorcase and fanlight.
 
CHRIST CHURCH, Lady Lane. 1832-3, by Edward Blore, a little
Commissioners' church that cost £1,457. Red sandstone with
a stumpy sw steeple of wholly incorrect but quite enterprising
design. Lancet windows and short chancel. The simple, broad
interior has a little W GALLERY, and massive cross-braced roof
trusses. - Oak FURNISHINGS. - Creed, Decalogue and Lord's
Prayer, in pointed painted panels. On either side three E lancets
containing STAINED GLASS by Mayer of Munich, 1896. Very
good figures: Christ flanked by Peter and James, Elsewhere,
post-war glass by Shrigley & Hunt. The best is s fourth from
w, quintessentially 1950s.
 
ST LEWIS (R.C.), Mustard Lane, Little Town. 1826-7, replacing
a Jesuit mission in Southworth Hall, Brick. To the
E the church, to the w and back-to-back with it, within one
envelope, the priest's house, in the usual manner. The latter
has a chequered front and a doorway with engaged Doric
columns, the former arched windows to N and s and a w front
with gable pediment and pedimented porch. Inside, the E wall
has four Corinthian pilasters with a shallow apse and flanking
blank arches between them. The outer pilasters are cranked
around the re-entrants. Under the N arch is the door to the
vestry, under the s a Lady Altar. The flat ceiling has a coved
and bracketed cornice and a rose of acanthus within garlands
of husks.

SOUTHWORTH HALL, Southworth Lane, ½ mile w.
A house is first mentioned in the C13. The current building - of brick and
of five bays (the outer ones projecting under gables), with
cross-windows and a massive chimneystack - is of 1932, by
Geoffrey Owen, and a pretty faithful likeness of its C17 predecessor,
albeit reduced by one storey to two. The back elevation
was adapted for C20 living. From the old house there is a large
segmental-arched fireplace in the single-storey hall, and the
brick base of its chimney.* Also, the studded door and four-
centred stone surround in Owen's porch. The door is - and
was - central (i.e. creating a symmetrical façade). The current,
C19, staircase was formerly the back stairs. C17 brick and stone
reused in garden wall. The Southworth family's other medieval
house, Samlesbury Old Hall, survives (N Lancashire).
A Bronze Age ROUND BARROW was excavated 1/2 mile wsw of the
Hall in 1980. It displayed two phases: a small ditched sand
mound associated with two cremations was succeeded by a
larger turf mound covering a burnt timber structure and nine
cremations, three in collared urns and two in globular vessels.
The radiocarbon dates for the two phases spanned c. 400 years,
between approximately the C18 and C14 B.C. The barrow was
surrounded and overlain by a large Early Christian CEMETERY.
This comprised at least 800 graves covering an area of
over 1,200 square metres. There were at least three phases of
burial, but few bones survived in the acidic soil conditions. A
possible church, 26ft (8 metres) long and 13 ft (4 metres) wide,
was suggested by the layout of the graves.**
 
* The C19 panelling in the hall is from Norton Priory, Runcorn, Cheshire,
demolished in 1928.
 
** Information supplied by Adrian Tindall.

GLAZEBURY
 
Glazebury is quite a large village strung out along the A574 with
numerous C19, C18 and a few C17 houses and weavers' cottages,
virtually all 'modernised' in the later C20 with miserable visual
consequences. Two plain C19 Methodist chapels. There was a
cotton mill alongside the railway.
 
ALL SAINTS. 1851, by E.H. Shellard. A pretty coursed rubble
exterior with reticulated tracery. Bellcote, aisle-less. No
chancel arch. Elegant oak PEWS.
 
HURST HALL BARN, Hurst Lane. A fascinating, important and
enigmatic fragment of a medieval timber-framed hall of rare
construction. There is a reference to an estate in 1311, and from
the C14 to the C18 at least it was held by a branch of the
Holcroft family. Beyond that we know little.
Adjoining the s gable of the present Late Victorian
farmhouse is a barn with a spectacular roof, which appears to
be the substantial part of a possibly C14 hall. The s side is
largely open and the gable ends are modern brick. Between
them are four bays, not all of the same length, with three tiers
of quatrefoil wind-braces (some missing), ridge purlin and four
trusses of three different designs. From the E, with suggested
interpretation of their functional relationship to the possible
plan of the former hall, these are: a cusped kingpost and raked
struts with a tie-beam, moulded on the w side only with rolls
and hollows (possibly a spere truss, with the screens passage
to the E, hence the moulding on the w side only; however, there
is little convincing evidence for spere posts). Next, an arch-
braced collar (associated with an open hearth). Third, another
kingpost and raked strut truss, the kingpost an uncusped
replacement, this time with an arch-braced and cambered tie-
beam. Finally, a similar truss, now missing its arch bracing (the
w end of the hall, and the site of the dais). Or, in fact, was the
dais at the E end, rather than the screens? The third truss is
supported on massive posts, with broad arch braces (one lost)
to the deep wall-plate running between the gable ends which
supports the others. The posts are magnificent: T-section, 20
in. (50 cm.) wide with a splay rising from cheeks at the foot to
the tie-beam, and all this fashioned from a single, monumental
piece of timber. They stand on sandstone padstones, and
there are remnants of an interrupted sill. The sandstone plinth
is largely replaced by brick. Mortices in the wall-plate indicate
the former position of intermediary posts. No corner posts or
closed trusses survive; was the hall ever more than four bays
long?
 
LIGHT OAKS HALL, Light Oaks Road. The hall was newly
rebuilt when its owner, Henry Traves, died in 1626. Traves,
with lead mining interests in the High Peak, was easily the
wealthiest man in the extensive Leigh parish and his new house
has an extremely fine E front, even after the s bay (which contained
the parlour) was demolished c. 1947, leaving the centre
bay and N bay. Two storeys. The old centre bay has ten-light
mullioned-and-transomed windows with a king mullion, and
the N bay a similar five-light window. All have hoodmoulds.
Between is the original studded door, in a heavy chamfered
surround with a four-centred arch. This is all sandstone (some
replacement), but the building is brick, constructed in diaper
pattern above the ground floor. A rear wing projects at the N
end, where there is a massive chimneystack (there was a match-
ing wing behind the demolished s bay). The house is only now
double-pile because of a 1960s extension filling in the remain-
ing L. The front door opens directly into the dining room (as
described in a 1626 valuation) filling the centre bay, lined with
immaculate early C17 oak panelling removed from the chamber
above in the C20. The fire surround and overmantel have
lozenges and attached colonnettes etc. as one would expect for
the date, but are said to be a C20 creation. If so it is extremely
convincing. A central armorial panel is attached. Two others
flank it; a fourth, with combined arms and the date 1657, is
above a door. They are all C17 and postdate the wainscoting.
They relate to the family of Traves' nephew Sir Henry Slater,
to whom the estate fell in 1655. Sir Henry's arms are the central
panel. The doors have cocks-head hinges. There was no stair-
case in the surviving C17 building, but presumably one in the
demolished part.
 
THE RAVEN INN, Warrington Road. Said to be of 1562, but
under the C20 fake timber frame it is brick, and double-pile,
and so unlikely to be any earlier than the early C18.

KENYON
Golborne
A hamlet 1 1/4 mile N of Croft on the B5207.
 
BARROW FARMHOUSE, Kenyon Lane. Brick, of three storeys. A
newel post is dated 1763, but the two platbands and especially
a brick label mould suggest a C17 or early C18 date. Perhaps
then 1763 is the date of improvement. Do the scars in the
return suggest the second storey was raised? The s front is
rebuilt in stretcher bond. Replacement windows. The plan was
originally baffle-entry (now altered to a door in the r. return).
Inglenook with massive bressumer.

HIGH PEAK, Main Lane. A big Queen Anne-style villa dated
1891. Brick. Built by the Marsh family, who abandoned the
C18 Westleigh Old Hall, Leigh (demolished). Hugely extended
and drastically altered for a nursing home c. 1988, but behind
the large mullioned-and-transomed window the staircase with
splat balusters survives. Attached stable/coachhouse. 

GLAZEBROOK
Rixton-with-Glazebrook
 
A linear village of little attraction along the B5212. Three
CHAPELS date from the growth that followed the draining of
the mosses in the 1870s: the Free Methodist, the Salvation Bar-
racks and the Primitive Methodist. The latter, 1908, shiny red
brick and buff terracotta, the least modest.
 
STATION. Of the same Cheshire Lines Committee design as
Widnes, with gables with divers patterns to the barge-
boards. The water basin on the Liverpool platform with dock
leaf in a pointed arch is dated 1872. A pretty row of COTTAGES
as at Padgate Station, Warrington.

BIRCHWOOD
 
The greater part of this district, bounded by the M6 to the w
and the M62 to the N, was made up of the former Risley Royal
Ordnance Factory, built 1939-41 and largely abandoned in 1961.
The district plan of 1974 was organised around the UK Atomic
Energy Research Establishment facility, established on part of the
factory site after the Second World War. This became the focus
of one of the United Kingdom's first Science Parks, intended to
attract research and development operations. Around this are the
district centre and three residential areas: Locking Stumps (w),
Gorse Covert (E), and Oakwood (s).
 
BIRCHWOOD DISTRICT CENTRE, Dewhurst Road. The
lynchpin is the SHOPPING CENTRE, 1980, low and deep with
bright enamel panelling and an internal street. Library, school,
sports centre and health centre are also included. It is located
in the sw corner of Birchwood for the admirable purpose of
integrating it with a new railway station. But the planning is
all wrong, with the parts isolated from one another by the
dominating car parking and distributor road, and the whole
thing lacks a sense of place.
 
OAKWOOD LOCAL CENTRE, Admiral's Road. A church, a
school and some shops. In other countries they would be
grouped compactly around a little paved and tree-lined square.
 
RISLEY MOSS VISITORS' CENTRE, S end of Moss Gate. By the
Building Design Partnership, 1980. A timber building buried in
the woods on the edge of the Risley Moss Nature Reserve. In
plan, five octagons, some stretched. The rather bland, boarded
elevations appear to float on the concrete substructure.
 
HOUSING. KINGSALE DRIVE, Locking Stumps, begun 1974,
was one of the first phases, a private development by Whelmar,
who were also required to create the adjoining golf course as
bait for golf-loving middle managers. Architecturally far
more interesting are two subsequent and parallel developments
in OAKWOOD which have matured well. MacCormac &
Jamieson's scheme on Redshank Lane off Ordnance Avenue
and Terry Farrell's (of the Farrell & Grimshaw Partnership) lanes
s of Admiral's Lane, public housing projects both designed in
1978, make an interesting comparison. They respond to the
policy of Hugh Canning, the Development Corporation's
Chief Architect, to introduce street frontage schemes,
though neither abandons separate pedestrian routes;
MacCormac's scheme has a particularly complex network. The
architects took very different approaches to the requirement
to anticipate the needs and desires of the (then unknown)
tenants.

Richard MacCormac produced a 'perimeter development'
evolved from earlier schemes of his such as Pollards Hill, South
London. Six U-plan four-storey 'chalets' front the district distributor
road to the N to establish a substantial N boundary,
introducing verticality and a sense of enclosure in the drab
landscape. The architect patronisingly declared these suitable
for the elderly because they afforded views of pedestrians and
vehicles. In the shelter of the chalets, terraces of two-storey
monopitch houses are grouped around the access road - these
are Canning's street frontages - and parallel courts. All the
buildings have brick ground floors and timber upper stages
clad in enamel panels with vertical wooden strips, like a sort
of bizarre mock timber framing: MacCormac adopted an
unashamedly middle-class ideal of stockbroker Tudorbethan
(albeit as ordered and reassembled by a Modernist), to appeal
to the aspirations of tenants. Plans are based on half-levels. The
mock-Tudor style attracted criticism when new, but the chalets
were well built, the established landscaping has softened the
initially stark perimeter blocks, and the humanly scaled courts
combine in a satisfyingly intricate layout where the car is
definitely subordinated to the pedestrian.
 
Farrell took Canning's ideas one step further by doing away
with access roads altogether. The distributor road is fronted by
cheerful enamel-panelled three-storey flats with external steps
to the first floor, though as the neighbouring local centre was
never built up to similar heights as planned, they stand out
slightly awkwardly. Behind these, four parallel lanes are care-
fully and charmingly extended amongst trees, petering out into
woodland to the s. The lanes are lushly leafy and intimate
without separate pavements, after the Woonerf concept - and
seem to capture the intimacy and friendliness of idealised
village lanes. Farrell's intention to make them communal
spaces inhabited by all, not public space shunned by all,
appears to have been realised. The houses, in pairs and fours,
are enlivened by wooden trellises, verandas and screens. These
are applied to a 'universal core' of services, kitchen and bath-
room, to which a standard timber-framed skin could be
expanded by occupiers to meet their individual needs. Though
this adaptability lay at the heart of the architect's approach,
few seem to have taken advantage of it.
 
 BIRCHWOOD PARK. The former United Kingdom Atomic Energy
Research Establishment (from 1954, the Atomic Energy Author-
ity) site E of Faraday Street retains the grid layout of the Royal
Ordnance Factory. 1950s sawtooth-roofed laboratories, and a big
blank former reactor block. Its two six-storey slab offices on the
w side of the street are of c. 1956 by T.L. Viney and R.S. Brocklesby
and absolutely of their date. The rest of Birchwood was conceived
by the Development Corporation as a Science Park along
US lines, with pavilions set in leafy parkland, like a campus. Of
this early, optimistic phase the best building, designed by Cham-
berlin, Powell & Bon like a Modernist peripteral temple, has been
demolished. On Birchwood Park Avenue is British Nuclear
Fuels' HINTON HOUSE, 1984, by DEGW, the most inventive
building. The bulk is to a certain extent broken up by a W-plan
and tiered wings. This, along with the gablets and deep eaves of
the roofs and numerous planted roof terraces, creates a presum-
ably intentional pagoda aesthetic. Dense, award-winning land-
scaping, though the hoped-for hanging gardens do not really
hang. Elsewhere, design has descended since the 1980s into the
usual business-park collection of brick-and-tinted-glass offices
(now routinely with brises-soleil, and cladding instead of brick),
with increasing densities squeezing out landscaping. A recent
example is ERLANG HOUSE for Vodafone, by BDP. The area E
of the UKAEA site has been colonised by vast distribution ware-
houses and parades of ribbed business-unit sheds.

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