Dalehead Cottage Dalehead Hall

Dalehead Cottage and Dalehead Hall, originally a single house, were later divided into a cottage and a residential meeting centre for Manchester City Corporation. The core of the building dates to the late 16th century, with significant rebuilding in 1623, alongside later 18th and 19th century extensions. The cottage has thick painted roughcast walls resting on a massive battered plinth. It features a graduated greenslate roof and large square and round stone chimney stacks. The rear facade displays incised stucco walls with patterned cast gutters. The structure is two storeys with a four-bay arrangement, including a three-storey single-bay projection to the right. A later 19th-century two-storey, five-bay facade extends to the rear, with a projecting bay on the right. Originally a single span with a late 17th-century stair projection at the left rear, the house was extended in the 19th century, filling the angle of the original L-shape. An 18th-century panelled door is set within a plain wooden surround. Two late 17th-century ground-floor cross-mullioned windows are present, along with a wooden facsimile cross-mullioned window and a 20th-century casement to the right, all in plain reveals. Upper-floor fixed-casement windows have glazing bars within enlarged plain reveals. A 19th-century lean-to extension to the left covers a blocked doorway with a wooden lintel inscribed "R.L." (likely Richard Leathes, born 1625). A contemporary extension to the right incorporates small original openings. The right side wall has an early 20th-century doorway and windows. The rear includes a top-glazed panelled door under a patterned fanlight in a painted stone surround with a pediment, enclosed within a 20th-century wooden-framed porch. Sash windows are set in painted stone surrounds. Internally, 17th-century plank and 18th-century panelled doors are found throughout. A semicircular original staircase has 20th-century wooden steps. A central chimney stack accommodates two inglenooks in the ground-floor rooms of the cottage. Beamed ceilings are present. An upper-floor bedroom contains a 17th-century fireside door, likely originally a doorway to a cradle cupboard. The hall features a late 17th-century oak staircase with barley-twist balusters and a heavy moulded handrail. An upper-floor room contains a cupboard in what was originally the rear wall of the hall, with a small 3-light wooden-mullioned early 17th-century window with diamond-leaded panes in its original position. Dalehead was acquired by the Laythes family (later Leathes) in 1577. A stained glass window inscribed "CHRISTOPHERUS LAYTHES HOC DOM AEDIF A.D. 1623" has been removed. The property was sold in 1879 by George Stanger-Leathes, along with Thirlmere, to Manchester Corporation, to enable the creation of a reservoir.