Building record 15666 - The Royals, Whitchurch Road, Aston

<1> King Partnership, 2007, Farm Buildings at The Royals Farm, Aston: An Architectural and Archaeological Appraisal, R4628 (Client Report). SCH9283.

Aston or Essetune is recorded in the Domesday Survey. After the Conquest, the land on which The Royals is now situated, formed part of the estate of the Cistercian Abbey of Combermere founded in the twelfth century. The name 'the Royalls' is thought to be from the Anglo Saxon 'Ruhall'. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Abbott of Combermere surrendered the monastery to the King, who, in 1556, granted the former monastery and land to George Cotton, the son of Sir John Cotton of Cotton, Cheshire. The Cotton family owned the Combermere estate through the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.

The Royals Farm was a livestock farm and has many features characteristic of nineteenth century planned farm construction. Model farm principles filtered down from the great estates, such as those of the Marquis of Stafford. The group of buildings at The Royals demonstrate how the tenanted farms on the Combermere Estate were improved as the introduction of model farm practice influenced even the most modest farms.

The farmhouse with its Welsh slate roof and overhanging eaves has a Regency feel. It had an adjoining east-west range of cottages which were later converted into accommodation. Other buildings include a potential mill to produce animal feed, a cart shed, a probable threshing barn with a later cottage incorporated into the centre of the range, also stables.

<2> Aeon Archaeology, 2018, The Royals, Whitchurch Road, Aston, Cheshire: Archaeological Assessment, R4222 (Client Report). SCH8551.

The Royals is first depicted on the 1804 'Survey of Dodcott cum Wilkesley Smeaton Wood and Wrenbury etc'. The farmhouse and adjoining dairy cottage are depicted as an L-shaped building and three other buildings, in the location of the stables and the barn, are also shown and named 'The Royals'. The name originates from the Old English 'ryge' and 'halh', meaning 'Rye Nooks'. The farmstead is also depicted on the 1845 Tithe Map for Acton and Audlem. At this time, the farmhouse had been extended northwards at its eastern end, forming the shape in plan that the house currently occupies. Outbuildings are again depicted in the location of the stables and barn, also a shippon had been constructed to the east. A further L-shaped building is depicted to the north of the farmhouse, this building no longer exists. The tithe apportionment records that many of the field plots surrounding the farm were owned by Viscount Combermere, with a large proportion tenanted by William Etches who resided at The Royals. Two other buildings (Drift House and piggery) had been built to the north of the farmhouse by the time of the OS Second Edition map of 1899.

The construction, materials and form of the farmhouse and dairy cottage indicate a mid-eighteenth century date.