Monument record 15897 - 1-3 Mount View Cottages, Hall Lane, Brown Knoll

<1> Fisher German, 2023, Historic Building Recording: 1-3 Mount View Cottages, Hall Lane, Brown Knowl, Broxton, Chester, Cheshire, CH3 9JF, R4710 (Client Report). SCH9474.

Level II building survey, including a photographic record, was produced in 2023 for 1-3 Mount View Cottages, Hall Lane, Brown Knowl, Broxton, prior to their demolition and redevelopment of the site. However, the buildings were in a poor state and therefore a full internal photo survey was not possible. The buildings are not listed and do not fall within a conservation area.

Buildings are first recorded at this location on the Tithe Map for the Township of Broxton of 1840. The Tithe map shows a collection of buildings and land incorporated into plots numbered 204-207. Each of these plots were in the ownership of a man called Thomas Hale, a local landowner and farmer. The largest building on the site was occupied by a man called William Harrison.

The structure of the buildings is somewhat conventional in terms of the construction and materials, with the external walls comprising of brick and sandstone and a slate roof. It is unknown whether any of the original materials survive inside. There is little in the way of distinctive features. The external space has a number of brick built and wooden structures which would have been utilised, it is assumed, for livestock of one kind or another. At the time of survey (2023), the wooden structures were in a state of dilapidation and close to collapse. To the front of the cottages there are 3 small lawned areas bounded by a low sandstone wall. It is not entirely clear from the available records when the cottages became 3 separate dwellings although there is evidence of several episodes of the buildings being enlarged.

Although the sandstone facade presents a building of some quality and character, the bulk of the structure behind is of no particular historical or architectural importance, and displays various alterations and extensions over time similar to many other rural workers’ dwellings originally dating from the same era. As such, whilst there is original material present, the character and form of the original dwellings has been significantly compromised over the decades and the result today is a set of dilapidated and functionally compromised buildings unsuitable for habitation without significant alteration and upgrade.