Backford Hall

Backford Hall is a house built in 1863 by John Cunningham for E.H.Clegg, now used as Cheshire County Council Highways and Transportation offices. It occupies the site of an earlier hall from 1565. The building is constructed of red brick with decorative diaper work, a stone plinth, quoins, and dressings, with graded slate roofs. It comprises two blocks connected by a corridor. The main hall wing is two storeys high with attics and cellars, featuring a symmetrical arrangement of seven windows across three bays. A central porch, with recessed windows on either side, projects from the centre bay, which itself is set forward. The ground floor sash windows have stone surrounds with Rococo-style heads and shell motifs above, and stone aprons below. First floor windows are positioned below shaped gables, alternating with smaller rounded gablets. A Jacobean-style stone porch has a rounded outer arch supported by tapered pilasters with strapwork decoration, leading to double doors on either side. A balcony with a pierced stone parapet sits above the porch and adjacent bays, which have similarly decorated pilasters at the angles. Tall brick stacks with multiple decorated stone flues are located at the gable and sides of the central bay. Moulded stone bands run along the first floor. Crests are positioned over the windows in the side bays. The left-hand block, likely a service wing, is of similar style but simpler in appearance, with six sash windows and a projecting bay with shaped gables on each side. Multiple flues are visible on the gable-end and ridge stacks. A one-storey brick wall with stone quoins and coping obscures the ground floor of this wing, with one door having a surround of alternating quoins. A stone pier at the left end has a moulded cornice and ball finial. Inside the hall wing, heavy mouldings are present. Ground floor doorcases feature broken pediments and panelled doors. A staircase in a 17th-century style has a heavily moulded, glazed canopy over the well. Pilasters and piers in the hall are decorated with strapwork. The interior has elaborately moulded and panelled ceilings, friezes, architraves, and sliding panelled doors adjoining ground floor rooms.