Site Event/Activity record ECH6300 - Historic Building Recording and Watching Brief at Ford House, Prestbury

AOC Archaeology Group was commissioned by PH Property Holdings to undertake an Historic Building Survey of Ford House, Prestbury, Cheshire prior to its proposed demolition. This comprised an English Heritage Level 2 building survey, including a photographic and drawn record of the building, a written description, and an assessment of the results; a structural watching brief, during demolition, and a watching brief on all ground work was also maintained. Ford House was a locally listed building constructed in the mid 19th century and was used a private dwelling for much of the time up until the mid 20th century, when it was likely converted for office use. In 1964 the building was bought by the Chester Diocesan Board of Finance for community use and in 1979 a large single-storey extension with a flat roof was added to the rear of the building. By 2007 the building had fallen into disrepair and the church closed the property. In 2016 the building was demolished. Ford House sits on the site of an earlier building depicted on the tithe map of 1839-51 (Figure 3) and recorded as the Roebuck Inn owned by Charles Legh and occupied by James Crowder. Between 1851 and 1871 the Roebuck in had been demolished and replaced with Ford House, which is depicted on the Ordnance Survey map of 1871 (Figure 4). The local listing information describes Ford House as being a reconstruction of an earlier building but the author could find no evidence for this. Ford House was constructed between some time between 1851 and 1871 based on map regression (Figures 3 and 4). Although the building has undergone several changes the overall structure of the main house is original. The north annex is also from this period however original this appears to have been a separate, although related, structure. A structural watching brief was maintained during key stages in the demolition of the roof. This revealed a previously unseen roof structure consisting of short oak kingpost trusses (Photograph 134) and oak purlins with later softwood additions providing extra support (Photograph 135). The oak beams were roughly hewn and showed many unused mortices and peg holes (Photographs 138) suggesting that they have been reused from an earlier structure. A several carpenters marks were noted following a numerical system (Photographs 137, 139 and 140) although these followed no logical order and did not appear on successive timbers from the same trusses, which can be seen as further evidence to support the reuse of earlier timbers. A watching brief was maintained on groundwork after the demolition of Ford house and this included monitoring the stripping of wide areas at the south of the site (Trench 1) and the excavation of ground beam slots across the north of the site (Trench 2). The watching brief was maintained across four days, which returned no archaeology.