Building record 14984 - Bexton Croft, Toft Road

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 476445 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

House. 1896, with early twentieth century addition. By MH Baillie-Scott. Roughcast render over brick, and mock timber to entrance front, with stone-flagged roof. PLAN: planned with entrance hall giving access directly to the three principal rooms and kitchen.

EXTERIOR: two-storeyed, with attics. Entrance front of mock timber and roughcast render, asymmetrically arranged with wide gable to right, and narrower gable over entrance towards left, the two linked by a lean-to roof over hallway. The line of this lean-to has been continued to the left of the porch in an early twentieth century addition to the front of the house. Heavy ribbed and nailed door with decorative wrought-iron hinges, and knocker inscribed with a rhyme. Doorway flanked by narrow windows, with three-light mullioned window with leading above the door, and a further window in the gable apex. Decorative bargeboards to gable. To the right of the porch, a stone carved cat carries lead rainwater head, with initials DDM and the date 1896. Four-light mullioned window to first floor to left of porch. Two two-light mullioned windows in the hall lean-to. Wide gable to right, with two-light mullioned window to ground floor, and six-light mullioned window above. Carved cambered tie in gable, and scrolled decoration to bargeboards. Axial stacks. Garden front is roughcast render with jettied first storey. Three principal six-light mullioned windows with leaded lights, and a smaller two-light window to dining room inglenook to left, and tiny window to gallery stairway towards right. The right-hand window extends as far as the corner of the house. Recessed bay to left with enlarged kitchen window and doorway. Four oriel mullioned windows with leaded lights variously diamond and square-latticed, in jettied upper storey. Robust timbering, with pegged frames to upper windows. Two six-light dormers in the roof, also with leaded lights. Pronounced scrolled angle brackets to overhanging eaves. Return elevation to west continues as lower gabled wing of entrance front which links to coach house. Coach house is also roughcast and mock timber. Two-storeyed, three bay plan with central coach entrance, a four-centred archway with carving in the spandrels, and four-light mullioned and transomed window in the gable above, with decorative bargeboards.

INTERIOR: entrance and stair hall runs almost the length of the house, with dado panelling and heavy panelled ceiling using timber salvaged from a Manchester church, and from railway coaches. Kitchen and small service area occupies the right-hand bay of the house, and the principal rooms, which can all be reached from the hall, are also interconnected by a series of folding doors. Dining room adjoins the kitchen, with heavy timber panelled ceiling, and an inglenook fireplace lined with Delft tiles. Copper fire-hood with repousse work. Carved wooden swallows nest with commemorative rhyme on brass plaque in angle of beams. Dining room opens onto 'meeting room'. Full-height open hall with inglenook fireplace at one end, and tiny minstrels gallery opposite. Panelled lower walls, the upper walls hung with painted Irish damask table cloths. Close studding to gallery above inglenook, connected to the hall by wooden shutters. Panelled ceiling with gilded bosses, emblems of Cheshire, which are repeated in stained glass motifs in window. Small brass plaque records that the house was built for Donald and Bessie Macpherson, and built by John and Joseph Beswick. Sitting room opens off meeting room, with Adam-style fireplace with Delft tiles. Bedrooms also retain original fireplaces, some fitted furniture and basins.

HISTORY: the house is considered to be one of Baillie-Scott's best early buildings, and has retained much of its original detail.