Building record 15962 - Swan Inn, Bucklow Hill

<1> Heritage Collective, 2021, Heritage Impact Assessment: Former Swan Inn, Bucklow Hill, R4776 (Client Report). SCH9611.

Timber-framed building, formerly a house and inn, and provisionally dated to the seventeenth century. The outer walls are mostly rendered, and the roof is covered in heavy slates. The building may have been constructed in phases, and is essentially T-shaped on plan, with a long north-south range, a cross-wing at the northern and, and a spur containing a large chimney stack on the east (rear) side. The frame survives best in the roof, which was clearly used as an attic for accommodating servants and farm labourers. A long building lies to the east and is attached to the timber-framed building; it dates to the eighteenth century and probably represents an accommodation block or stable range. These two buildings are considered significant enough to be regarded as non designated heritage assets. A further building range, probably built for agricultural use, lies just to the north and likely dates to the earlier nineteenth century. The range was originally U-shaped, but was partly demolished during road widening, leaving an L-shaped range.

An early documentary reference to The Swan dates to 1803, when an auction of oak trees was held “at the sign of the Swan, of Bucklow Hill, near Knutsford.” In the 1841 census the inn keeper was Anne Palfrey, aged fifty, who appears to have run the establishment with her six children. Anne is listed as a “victualler” at the Swan, Buckley Hill, in Bagshawe’s Directory of 1850, but in the census of 1851 she described herself as a “Publican and Farmer”, by which time she was a widow living with a daughter and son, both assisting on the farm, a granddaughter, a barmaid, a female house servant and a farm labourer.

The tithe map of Rostherne which is not dated, but it was probably surveyed shortly before 1847, shows the layout of the buildings at that time with both the main house and extension to the east and the U-shaped agricultural range depicted. Neither the map nor the accompanying apportionment gives the name of the establishment, and it is described simply as “Homestead & garden.” Anne Palfrey is recorded as the occupier of the land, and the owner was Wilbraham Egerton Esq.

The first reference to the Swan “Hotel” was in 1866 when the then landlord, William Cuff, advertised “that his extensive alterations are now completed”, described as two large rooms capable of holding from two hundred to three hundred people. The next landlord, William Alcock (innkeeper and farmer), died at the Swan in 1891. At the time of the 1911 census the Swan Hotel was occupied by Thomas Ackerley, who described himself as a licensed victualler and the manager of the Hotel. It had eleven rooms, and the household consisted of Ackerley and his wife, and four servants.