Walden, 22 Backbower Lane, Gee Cross, Hyde

House and boundary wall, built in 1903 by architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin for Edward Berry. The later garden shed and garage are not included in the listing.

The house is constructed of brick and roughcast, with a red tile roof and brick stack. It has a distinctive keyhole-shaped plan and comprises two storeys set back from the road on a narrow, rectangular plot.

The ground floor contains a lobby entry with doorways to each side. The left doorway opens into a large living room with an inglenook and polygonal projections to each side, one of which contains an angled staircase. The right doorway leads into the kitchen, with a rear doorway, lobby, former coal store, and WC beyond. The first floor has three bedrooms and a bathroom accessed off a corridor.

Externally, the house features a rendered plinth and roughcast walls painted white. The red tiled roof is double-pitched with sprocketed eaves, while the polygonal projections at the north-west end have lower, multi-pitched roofs. The gables have plain barge boards with timber soffits to the overhanging eaves. A brick stack with stone coping is positioned towards the centre of the ridge. The windows have no visible framing, with roughcast continuing up to the metal frames. Window frames are either casements or fixed, with small pane leaded glazing. A number of windows have horizontal, chamfered hood moulds in roughcast.

The north-west elevation facing the road features a central gable flanked by diagonally-angled walls forming part of the polygonal projections. The gable wall contains a three-light mullioned window on the ground floor (left-hand side) and a centrally placed four-light mullioned window on the first floor, both with hood moulds. A decorative cast-iron hopper and down pipe, and a cast-iron waste pipe, are located to the right-hand side. The left-hand angled wall has a two-light mullioned window with hood mould on the ground floor and a row of three small square windows beneath the eaves. The right-hand angled wall has a similar row of small square windows beneath the eaves.

The south-west long elevation contains a polygonal projection at the left-hand end. The central narrow bay has a small square window beneath the eaves. The inner angled wall has a three-light mullioned window with hood mould on the ground floor and two small square windows beneath the eaves. Adjacent to the polygonal projection is the entrance doorway with a roughcast hood mould and stone step. The plank and batten door has a narrow, rectangular light with leaded glazing. To the right of the doorway is a cast-iron down pipe and a three-light mullioned window with hood mould on the ground floor, with a two-light mullioned window on the first floor projecting above the eaves as a flat-roofed dormer. A second cast-iron down pipe is positioned close to the right-hand corner.

The south-east garden elevation is gabled with single-light windows to the left-hand and right-hand sides of the ground floor. Right of centre is a wide segmental-arched opening with a recessed door and a timber-framed window set flush with the wall. The doorway has a sill of small square quarry tiles continuing into the lobby, and a sliding plank and batten door with a glazed upper half with iron security bars to the rear of toughened glass. The window has iron security bars to the rear of toughened glass. The first floor has a centrally placed four-light mullioned window with hood mould.

The north-east long elevation contains a polygonal projection at the right-hand end. The central narrow bay has a small square window beneath the eaves. The inner angled wall has a two-light mullioned window with hood mould on the ground floor and two small square windows beneath the eaves. On the ground floor to the immediate left of the polygonal projection is a single-light window with hood mould serving as a fire window for the inglenook. Two cast-iron down pipes flank this. To the left is a three-light mullioned window with hood mould on the ground floor, with a three-light mullioned window on the first floor projecting above the eaves as a flat-roofed dormer. Another cast-iron down pipe is positioned close to the left-hand corner.

The interior largely retains many original fixtures and fittings. These include plank and batten doors with narrow, rectangular lights with leaded glazing and chamfered sills on the ground floor, and narrow, rectangular recesses with chamfered sills on the first floor. The doors feature decorative upright door handles with thumb latches. The metal casement window frames have decorative ironwork turnbuckle catches and spiral-ended window stays. Many rooms have timber bands at picture rail height, timber pelmets with shaped brackets over the windows, and exposed structural timbers stained dark brown.

The lobby entry has parquet flooring, a coat hook rail with a hat hook rail above, and a built-in cupboard.

The main ground-floor living room has polygonal recesses at each end, parquet flooring, and exposed joists and cross beams. On the inner, south-east side is an inglenook with a bressummer beam and an irregularly-coursed ashlar wall of pink sandstone incorporating a flush fireplace with a slightly-projecting moulded mantel. The fireplace has a shaped beaten copper hood and cast-iron grate with a fitted metal sunken ash bucket beneath the grate, and a raised, semi-circular hearth with brown glazed tiles and an ashlar edge. To the left is a rectangular copper coal scuttle built into the wall. The north-east polygonal recess has a canted desk and shelving with architrave built-in between the angled windows. The south-west polygonal recess contains an angled staircase with square full-height posts, a panelled timber balustrade on the right-hand side in the living room, and a timber upper balustrade with a handrail and plain square-cut balusters. A built-in panelled cupboard lies beneath the stairs, with the vertical-boarded back to a former bench in the angled corner.

The rear lobby has a quarry tile floor with an inset runner for the sliding back door and a quarry tile window sill. The doors to each side (to the former coal store and to the WC) are plain plank and batten doors with strap hinges.

The main bedroom at the head of the stairs has full-height, built-in shelving with panelled doors behind the bedroom door. The inner wall contains a fireplace with an ashlar mantelpiece with a shaped beaten copper hood and cast-iron grate with a raised, rectangular hearth with dark green glazed tiles.

The boundary wall fronting the road is built of roughly shaped stone blocks of varying sizes with a coping of upright stones. Square gate piers with ashlar caps are also present.