Monument record 1574/7 - Parting-Gap Farmstead

<1> Various, Written Communication to the HER, Cliffe S, 09/01/2015 (Written Communication). SCH3756.

It consists of a large mound beside a stream with a flat top, revetted in drystone on it's western side and covered in extensive stone foundations well hidden by thick moss and trees on top, which seem to include square and rectangular spaces with an access ramp, ditch and remains of a yard possibly for livestock or horses. There are one or two very rotten old beams lying about and a much later foresters stone hut. This is roughly the location of The Coombs mentioned in mid fourteenth century documents as the hunting lodge used by the Black Prince and before him Edward I and the Earls of Chester.

<2> Various, Written Communication to the HER, Whiteley S, 12/01/2015 (Written Communication). SCH3756.

The 1897, 1:2500 scale map (see 3) shows a, quite large, building complex here called ‘Parting-gap’. (1) may refer to what remains of this farmstead. There is every possibility that it had earlier origins.

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1896-1898, Ordnance Survey First Revision County Series (Epoch 2) 25 inch to 1 mile - Cheshire, SJ9671, 1897 (Maps and Plans). SCH3848.

Depicts a north-west to south-east aligned building, or range of buildings, c.40m long. There is one outbuilding to the south-east.

<4> Bryant, A., 1831, Map of the County Palatine of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH2114.

Earliest known map depiction of the site (see 5).

<5> Dodgson J McN, 1970-2, 1981, The Place-Names of Cheshire, Vol.I, p.128 (Book). SCH3228.

Parting-Gap, perhaps the site of a deer-leap or sheep gate.

<6> Various, Written Communication to the HER, Edwards R, 18/01/2018 (Written Communication). SCH3756.

Sources (3), (4) and (5) record [the] Coombs (see 1) as being located c.400m to the south-east of this site. Possibly associated with the deer inclosures established at the Coombs (see 9).

<7> See map for surveyor, c.1837-51, Cheshire Tithe Maps and Awards, EDT 255/2, 1849 (Maps and Plans). SCH3266.

The tithe award for Macclesfield Forest records this site as a 'house, outhouses, fold and garden' occupied by John Brough and owned by the Earl of Derby.

<8> The GeoInformation Group, 2005, 1940s RAF Aerial Photographs from Operation Review, 106G UK 645, 11/08/1945 (Aerial Photograph). SCH4608.

The farmstead is no longer extant.

<9> Harris, B E (ed), 1979, Victoria County History - A History of the County of Chester: Volume II, p.183 (Book). SCH6525.

By 1347 there was a hunting lodge at the Coombs which the chamberlain was ordered to repair. In 1361 the Black Prince ordered two lodges to be made in Macclesfield hundred and the chamber near the Coombs was mentioned in the survey of Whelley waste in 1638. In 1291 mention was made of inclosures for preserving the deer located near the Coombs and in 1303-4 expenditure was recorded for making an inclosure round the chase of Coombs.