The Twelve Apostles Terrace

The Twelve Apostles Terrace is a late 19th-century terrace of workers' housing, built by the Mason family, owners of the nearby Oxford Mills. It is located on the south side of Stockport Road in Ashton-under-Lyne. The terrace comprises numbers 1-23 (odd) and 2-24 (even).

The terrace is constructed of red brick in a Flemish bond pattern, with ashlar sandstone dressings, deep decorated ridge stacks topped with clay pots, and a Welsh slate roof. The linear design features advanced gabled end bays and rear service ranges, all enclosed by an attached brick boundary wall.

The north elevation faces two storeys and attics, arranged in a 1:10:1 house bay configuration, with each house having three window bays. The houses at bays 1 and 10 have doorways with overlights set beneath shallow segmental brick arches, positioned at the angle where they meet the gabled end houses. The remaining dwellings incorporate coupled doorways set back within recessed openings. These doorways are framed by shallow, stepped segmental arches of chamfered brick, rising from elaborate moulded springers with foliage stops carved into the hood moulds. Each doorway has a four-panelled door, with the upper two panels glazed, and faceted lower panels. Rectangular overlights are above the doors. Ground and first floor windows are coupled sashes without glazing bars, the ground floor windows set beneath segmental arches. The first-floor openings are set within a blind arcade of semi-circular headed openings, with three recesses above each doorway and at each party wall. A dogtooth brick band and a moulded string runs above the ground-floor window heads and below the first-floor window cills, linked by a plain ashlar band. The attic floor has three small sashes per house, set between the blind openings. Decorative timber brackets support the overhanging eaves. The gabled end houses have taller attic sashes, with a semi-circular arch above the central window, featuring an attenuated keystone incorporating a bracket to the gable apex. Projecting chimney stacks are built on corbelled brickwork along the end sidewalls. The shop front of the south-west end house has been altered. A brick boundary wall runs along the rear, with integral openings, enclosing the rear yards and supporting some lean-to outhouses.