Building record 4637 - Five structures east of Swanscoe Farm

Five structures or chambers set into the steep hillside to the East of the farmhouse and barn complex each with approximately 0.8m square openings at ground level on the West elevation providing high level access to the chamber beyond. The most northerly is approximately 6m square in plan and 6m in height with a stone arched roof, stone upper walls above a row of brick headers below which the walls appear tanked. This chamber currently serves as a conduit for spring water which forms the water supply to the farm. A few metres to the south is a second smaller chamber approximately 4m in depth and 1.5m wide. This chamber has an old iron pipe entering at low level in the northeast corner and a roof of stone flags supported on rough hewn timber joists. The roof is in a state of partial collapse. Some further few metres to the south are a series of three chambers each approximately 2.7m wide and 5m deep in plan with a mixture of stone and brick walls and stone barrel vault roofs. The three appear linked by square openings at low level. Approximately 3m to the west of these chambers is what appears to be an iron pipe valve set into the hillside in an open pit formed by three low retaining walls. There is possibly a similar open pit / valve arrangement serving the two northern chambers, but this area is currently very overgrown. Some loose bricks in the area of the chambers have frogs and are therefore suggestive of a building, or partial rebuilding date of the mid nineteenth century (1). The exterior is superficially similar to an eighteenth century lime/potash kilnlocated to the west (CHER 4624) (RE).

<1> Macclesfiel Borough Council, 2007, Letter RE: Possible LimeKilns at Swanscoe Farm., H Thomas 30/05/2007 (Written Communication). SCH4892.