Building record 5578 - Lower Roewood, 70 Birtles Road, Macclesfield

<1> Cheshire East Council, 2010, Cheshire East LDF Local List of Historic Buildings (Report). SCH5404.

Village/Town: Macclesfield
Lower Roewood
70 Birtles Road
SK10 3JG
Timber framed core, possibly 16th century, encased and extended with early-mid 19th century brick shell under stone slate roof.

<2> Peter de Figueiredo (Independent Consultant), 2015, Proposed Development, Lower Roewood, 70 Birtles Road, Macclesfield, SK10 3JG: Heritage Statement, R4610 (Client Report). SCH9254.

Heritage statement, including site visit and photographs, produced for 70 Birtles Road in advance of proposed redevelopment. The farmhouse can be dated to the early 17th century on the basis of surviving floor and roof timbers within the building. It was probably built as a two-cell cottage and would have had a fully timber-framed structure and thatched roof.

The earliest map evidence is the Tithe map of 1835 which shows a building slightly set back from Birtles Road with two small rear projections. The western part of the building probably served as a shippon for housing livestock. The Tithe apportionments show that in 1835 Lower Roewood was in the ownership of the Earl of Courtown, and the tenant was Job Simpson, who farmed the surrounding land. James Stopford, 4th Earl of Courtown (1794-1858) succeeded to his father’s earldom and estate in 1835, and served as Keeper of the Rolls for the County of Wexford from 1845-1858.

The 1875 and 1910 OS maps suggest that the building was more elongated in plan, but since the west gable wall corresponds with the field boundary or hedge line on all three maps, it is unlikely that it was extended in the 19th century. The 1910 map shows a hedge line running from the road edge to the building line, and this presumably marks the division between the living accommodation on the east side and the shippon to the west. The latter must have been demolished after 1910, probably at the time that the separate agricultural building was erected on the western edge of the property. At the time of survey, this outbuilding survived alongside the track leading to the allotment gardens to the north.

<3> L-P Archaeology, 2016, Historic Building Recording and Watching Brief at 70 Birtles Road, Macclesfield, R4053 (Client Report). SCH8314.

The property was demolished in 2017 in advance of a new residential development, but as part of the planning process, was subject to an historic buildings survey and watching brief prior to and during its demolition. Whilst the outer shell of the house was drastically remodelled during the Victorian period, the original structure of the southern block of the building partially remained intact. This contained a central cruck frame which could date to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, a period when the use of cruck frames was common for rural buildings. However, it is possible that the building has earlier, medieval origins, as cruck frames have been in use in the North West since the medieval period, dating from the thirteenth century onwards.

It was probably originally built as a two cell cottage with timber structure and thatched roof. During the Victorian period the house was modified by the construction of a brick exterior and addition of a slate roof, forming two adjoining blocks (north and south), with a roof comprising two parallel, pitched rooves with an east-west axis and gable ends at east and west elevations of the property. The watching brief on ground clearance of the footprint of the structure revealed no earlier foundations. To the rear of the property a 3m square cellar was identified, underlying, and likely contemporary with, the added nineteenth century northern block of the house.

Dendrochronological dating of the original oak timbers was attempted but unfortunately they were not of a suitable form and size.