Building record 6513 - Coach House (nr Dene House) off Northwich Road

<1> Vale Royal Borough Council, 2006, Vale Royal Borough Council's List of Locally Important Buildings (Report). SCH5487.

<2> Vale Royal Borough Council, 1977-79, The Vale Royal Borough Council Historic Buildings Survey Index Card, GBU/HB 61 (Paper Archive). SCH5481.

CRITERION E: BUILDINGS INCLUDED IN THE VALE ROYAL BOROUGH COUNCIL HISTORIC BUILDINGS SURVEY 1977 - 79

Victorian
Coach House
Terracotta string courses below 1st floor windows and above 2cnd floor and eaves, raised diamond pattern. Corbelling on bay with buttress. Raking roof.

<3> Peter de Figueiredo (Independent Consultant), 2013, The Coach House, Great Budworth, Cheshire: Heritage Statement, R4572 (Client Report). SCH9171.

The Coach House was built to serve Dene House, which was built in 1868-69 as a dower house by Roland Egerton-Warburton of Arley Hall. It occupies a rural setting half a mile north west of Great Budworth. Dene House and its grounds were sold by the Arley Estate many years ago, and have been subdivided. The Coach House with a substantial part of the formal gardens makes up one of the principal residential units. The Coach House is a two storey building with a later single storey wing, and is situated to the north of Dene House, part of a group with former barns, now also converted. To the north of the Coach House is a walled garden, and the grounds are surrounded by trees and hedgerows.

In the 19th century, the village of Great Budworth formed part of the Arley Estate, and from the late 1860s, Roland Egerton-Warburton, the head of the family, set about a campaign to restore and enhance the village and its setting in a picturesque manner. His works included the rebuilding of Arley Hall and many estate buildings, and also the construction of a dower house just north of Great Budworth known as Dene House. Dene House was built in 1868-69, and extended in 1879. The architect was Edmund Kirby. The Coach House fronts Dene House across a wide forecourt, and was built around the same date as the extensions. The Tithe map of 1841 reproduced below shows the land in agricultural use, before the construction of Dene House. The OS map of 1875 show Dene House, without any outbuildings, and the 1910 map shows it with the ancillary buildings and walled garden.

The Coach House consists of a two-storey block of picturesque character, with a steeply-pitched roof, mullioned windows and decorative brickwork. A single storey extension on the north side is screened from Dene House. An open courtyard separates the Coach House from a former barn, which is probably contemporary with it, and has also been converted for residential use. The Coach House is impressive in scale, and probably included staff accommodation on the upper floor. It is built in two shades of red brick, decorated with moulded string courses, mullions and diaper work. In the gables are panels of render. A steeply pitched roof of red clay tiles is punctuated by varied forms of dormer windows. The original windows are leaded casements, but later timber windows with pointed arched glazing bars have been installed, presumably when the building was extended and converted to domestic use. The single storey extension, which is of much smaller scale, and runs perpendicular to the main block, adopts the same palette of materials, but in a much simplified form and lacks the picturesque qualities of the original building.