The Rookery

The Rookery is a former large house, now an old people's home, dated 1909 on the rainheads for Frederick Wignall of Tate and Lyle. It features a timber frame on a stone plinth with rusticated brick lower storeys at the rear. The roof is made of stone slate with a stone ridge and a large ashlar lateral stack, complemented by Tudor-style brick stacks. The south front is designed in an Elizabethan style, highlighted by a large two-storey gable. It has coved jetties at the first and second floors, with chevron decoration below, roundels above, and cross motifs in the gable, along with ornate pierced bargeboards. The windows are five-light, ovolo-moulded, with mullions and transoms. There is a similar gable on the west front and a two-storey porch on the east front, along with an extensive service range to the north.

Inside, the hall features an oak stair with shaped flat balusters and square newels. The main room to the left is in an ornate Elizabethan style, complete with an inglenook fireplace, a panelled plastered ceiling, and a frieze. The dining room boasts a Baroque ceiling adorned with Tate and Lyle Liver Birds and an ornate early 18th-century-style fireplace. The building may replace and include small portions of an original Elizabethan structure, representing a meticulous evocation of Cheshire vernacular architecture.