2-16, MACHPELAH

This is a long row of terrace houses dating from 1805 to approximately 1820. The houses are constructed of dressed stone with a stone slate roof. Numbers 12, 14, and 16 were the first to be built for Reverend Richard Fawcett of Ewood Hall and are three storeys high. Quoins mark the division between numbers 8 and 10, which were later added onto number 12, with a passage connecting them to Machpelah Yard at the rear. Numbers 2 to 8 are set back and have a lower roofline, being two storeys in height.

The three-storey range features tall doorways with tie-stone jambs, and large two-light sash windows with plain stone surrounds and projecting sills to each floor, all with plain glazed sashes. Gutter brackets are present. Quoined angles highlight the passage entries. The two-storey range has similar doorways with wide single sash windows, plain stone surrounds, and projecting sills. A moulded eaves cornice with gutter brackets runs along the top.

The left-hand return wall is three and a half storeys high and contains an impressive long window to a former fustian cutters' workshop, featuring three lights and fourteen lights, with a doorway set between them, approached by a long flight of cantilevered stone stairs. Above this is a fifteen-light window with a central arched light to the attic. The rear of the three-storey range has similar former workshops, characterised by a long row of flat-faced mullioned windows. Eight stacks are visible along the ridge.

A fire mark numbered 218779, belonging to number 12, indicates a construction date of 1805. This policy was registered on 29th September 1805, when the houses belonging to Reverend Richard Fawcett were described as “4 houses at present empty”, presumably recently constructed. The terrace represents an interesting combination of industrial and residential development built by the son of Dr. John Fawcett, whose house at Machpelah was constructed concurrently. Dr. Fawcett was involved in social reform and concerned about the conditions of workers, having previously written against the factory system and child labour.