Bexton Croft

Bexton Croft is a house built in 1896, designed by MH Baillie-Scott, with an early 20th-century addition. It stands on Toft Road in Knutsford and is constructed of roughcast render over brick with mock timber framing to the entrance front and a stone-flagged roof.

The house is planned with an entrance hall providing direct access to three principal rooms and a kitchen. The entrance front is asymmetrically arranged with a wide gable to the right and a narrower gable over the entrance to the left, the two linked by a lean-to roof over the hallway. This lean-to has been continued to the left of the porch in an early 20th-century addition. The entrance features a heavy ribbed and nailed door with decorative wrought-iron hinges and a knocker inscribed with a rhyme. The doorway is flanked by narrow windows, with a 3-light mullioned window with leading above the door and a further window in the gable apex. Decorative bargeboards adorn the gable. To the right of the porch, a stone carved cat carries a lead rainwater head, inscribed with the initials DDM and the date 1896. A 4-light mullioned window appears to the first floor to the left of the porch, and two 2-light mullioned windows are set in the hall lean-to. The wide gable to the right contains a 2-light mullioned window to the ground floor and a 6-light mullioned window above, with a carved cambered tie in the gable and scrolled decoration to the bargeboards. Axial stacks rise through the façade.

The garden front displays roughcast render with a jettied first storey. Three principal 6-light mullioned windows with leaded lights are positioned here, along with a smaller 2-light window to the dining room inglenook to the left and a tiny window to the gallery stairway towards the right. The right-hand window extends as far as the corner of the house. A recessed bay to the left contains an enlarged kitchen window and doorway. The jettied upper storey features four oriel mullioned windows with leaded lights, variously diamond and square-latticed. Robust pegged timber frames support the upper windows. Two 6-light dormers with leaded lights rise from the roof. Pronounced scrolled angle brackets support the overhanging eaves.

The building is two storeys with attics. The return elevation to the west continues as a lower gabled wing connecting to the coach house. The coach house, also rendered and mock-timbered, is two storeys over a three-bay plan with a central coach entrance formed by a 4-centred archway with carved spandrels. A 4-light mullioned and transomed window sits in the gable above, with decorative bargeboards.

The interior preserves extensive original detail. The entrance and stair hall runs almost the entire length of the house, with dado panelling and a heavy panelled ceiling constructed from timber salvaged from a Manchester church and railway coaches. The kitchen and small service area occupy the right-hand bay, while the principal rooms, all accessible from the hall, are interconnected by a series of folding doors.

The dining room adjoins the kitchen, featuring a heavy timber panelled ceiling and an inglenook fireplace lined with Delft tiles. A copper fire-hood with repousse work stands in the inglenook. A carved wooden swallows nest with a commemorative rhyme on a brass plaque sits in the angle of the beams. The dining room opens onto the meeting room, a full-height open hall with an inglenook fireplace at one end and a tiny minstrels gallery opposite. The walls are panelled below and hung with painted Irish damask table cloths above. Close studding above the inglenook connects to the gallery via wooden shutters. The panelled ceiling features gilded bosses bearing emblems of Cheshire, repeated in stained glass motifs in the window. A small brass plaque records that the house was built for Donald and Bessie Macpherson and constructed by John and Joseph Beswick.

The sitting room opens off the meeting room and retains an Adam-style fireplace with Delft tiles. Bedrooms preserve original fireplaces, fitted furniture, and basins. The house is considered one of Baillie-Scott's best early buildings and has retained much of its original architectural detail.