Biddulph Grange

Biddulph Grange is a country house that combines two distinct periods of building. The original structure of 1848–60 was commissioned by John Bateman, the renowned horticulturist, who developed it from an unpromising farmhouse set in a marsh. This first phase was constructed in yellow brick and render with slate roofs. Following a severe fire, Heath, a mine owner, purchased the house and commissioned a substantial enlargement completed in 1897 by architect John Bower, the year of Bateman's death. Bower's new work virtually replaced the original building with a grandiloquent mansion of sandstone ashlar with lead roofs and brick chimneys, employing a revived English Baroque style.

The garden front is composed in three parts. The main elevation rises three storeys to an attic storey under a pediment, with a second-floor cill-string, cornice and parapet balustraded between the sides and centre, which have urn finials. A ten-bay front features outer and central two-bay breaks flanked by pilasters; the centre break has also a central pilaster. Glazing bar sashes sit in architraves with cornices to first-floor centre windows and antae to the centre of window heads of outer bays. The ground floor has alternate triangular and segmental pediments to paired windows, with an understated entrance to the left in architrave and bracketed cornice. An irregularly placed balustraded tower, possibly a belvedere or water tower, stands to the right of centre and set back, unbalancing the composition.

To the left remains one of the surviving portions of Bateman's 1848–60 house: a two-storey Italianate structure with raised quoins and an irregular two-plus-two window arrangement. Two full-height hipped square bays have tripartite windows. The principal feature is a projecting semi-circular-headed domed porch to the left with paired columns and full entablature, marking the position of Bateman's study. The left-hand wing is set back and has round-headed plate-glass sashes in rusticated surrounds. To the right, a further projecting irregular bay of two round-arch windows is surmounted by a corbelled balcony with decorative frieze and cornice, all built out over a garden path.

The entrance front comprises three parts to the right, each rising three storeys and projecting progressively towards the centre. The focal point is an elaborate port-cochère with round arches and twinned Corinthian columns set back from the angles, surmounted by a balustraded parapet with urn finials.

The interior of the 1897 house features a splendid staircase with massive marble Ionic columns embraced by semi-circular bays of a balustraded landing and a three-tiered staircase behind, lit by stained glass to the first landing. The hall has a coffered ceiling. The more important interior space is Bateman's study to the south, which is French-inspired and retains a parquet floor, part-mirrored walls, a flat-domed centre to the ceiling, and substantial gilt enrichment, with pedimented doorcases. The room sits behind the domed porch and overlooks the cascade of steps leading to Bateman's miniature landscape park.

Bateman, having already begun his horticultural career at his father's house Knypersley Hall, notably cultivating orchids, commenced work on Biddulph Grange in 1848. Much of his enterprise was worked out with his friend the painter E.W. Cooke, with whom he shared a passion for ferns. The architect of Bateman's original house remains unknown. Work to both house and gardens was completed by 1860, when Bateman, having exhausted funds derived from his father's pump manufactory, was forced to relinquish the property.