Birchencliff Farmhouse Farmbuilding And The Cottage, Numbers 1 And 2 Birchencliff

SJ 98 SW POTT SHRIGLEY C.P. OFF SHRIGLEY ROAD (East Side)

3/101 Birchencliff Farmhouse Farmbuilding and the 31/7/1979 Cottage, Nos. 1 and 2 Birchencliff

II

Farmhouse and 2 courtyards of farmbuildings: early C19, perhaps c.1825. Farmhouse, washed and pebble-dashed rubble with sandstone dressings and Kerridge stone-slate roof with 2 stone, gable chimneys. L-shaped in plan with 2-storey, symmetrical 3-bay front with slightly raised quoins. Plain stone surrounds to sashes without glazing bars, semi-circular head stone doorcase with raised keystone and springers surrounds a fanlight with radial glazing bars and a 6-panelled door. Interior: Inspected in 1979 when described as much altered.

Farmhouse forms the eastern corner of a courtyard of buildings around a rectangular, stone-edged pond. All the buildings are in yellow sandstone rubble with sandstone dressings and stone-slate roofs. North-east range of 2-storey buildings. To left, a piggery, with 2 round-headed entrances and a loft above reached by external stone stairs. 2, 2-unit buildings (perhaps cheese rooms) join it to the house. The south-east range consists of 2-storey barns now nearly collapsed. The south-west range faces outwards onto the track, and has 4, 2-storey, 2-unit cottages with horizontal sliding sashes with glazing bars and plain doorcases to the left. The range continues with a drift house with segmental arches, a similar cottage and a 3-storey barn with a segmentally arched entry from the yard.

The north-west range is flanked by 2 drift houses (one collapsed) containing 3 shippons divided by feeding passages, all with board doors under plain lintels, with 3 semi-circular headed pitch-holes above, and a dairy with a 9-hole dovecote above. A second courtyard is attached to the north-west and is divided into 2 by a low arcaded building. The south-west range continues the facade along the track with a corn barn with an elliptical arch to the left, then a drift house and a 4-bay stable with plain rectangular doorcases with fanlights above and semi-circular headed openings in the upper storey. The north-west range has been reduced to a one-storey shippon to the division with the remainder and the corner formed by a 3-storey building with an ashlar 4-bay carthouse of low segmental arches, and square openings above. The north-east range_has been demolished or collapsed.

This is a model farm of early C19 date, and the home farm for Shrigley Park (q.v.) which was rebuilt by Sir W Turner circa.1825. Identical elements occur on a smaller scale at Redacre Hall (q.v.) another estate farm.

Listing NGR: SJ9484480533