Balderton Dairy

SJ 36 SE 2/10000

DODLESTON Balderton Balderton Dairy

II Cheese factory, now disused. 1874-75 by John Douglas for the first Duke of Westminster. Red brick and plaster-panelled timber framing; slate roof. One storey and attic and single storey. Four-bay main block with additional wings to right and to rear left.

Bay one projects and houses the office with eight-pane iron casements to a five-light brick-mullioned window above a string course. Above this is a jettied timber-framed able with boarded three-light mullioned window and oversailing verges. Bay two is recessed and has Tudor-arched doorway with quoined sandstone surround and boarded door on strap hinges; altered window to right; studwork beneath the eaves includes an original stair-window. Bay three is a gabled projection with boarded window beneath a taking-in door with overlight and hoist. Bay four has two boarded windows and studwork beneath oversailing eaves on struts. The roof over the office has catslide projection over stair outshut on left return; brick ridge stack set to rear.

Right end of range terminates in hipped roof; to rear of this is a large boiler-house chimney with sunken panels and incomplete top. Side wing to right of main range is altered.

Left return: to rear of office is a hipped-roof block with oversailing eaves on struts. Beyond this is a sunken single-storey storehouse with moulded-brick window.

Balderton dairy is a rare example of the cheese factories built on Cheshire estates during the late C19 when cheese became a mainstay of farming, transported by special trains from Cheshire to the northern industrial towns.

Listing NGR: SJ3726062282