Building record 2186/1 - Brook House Farmhouse

<1> Department of the Environment, 1971-2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, /6/11 (Report). SCH1934.

Brook House Farmhouse, London Road. C16, early C17 addition. Further additions and alterations from late C17. Partly coursed squared buff sandstone rubble, partly rendered brick. Stone-slate roof and two plastered stacks. L-shaped plan with east range containing early features. This has some chamfered stone-mullioned and some C20 windows. Interior: Original house timber framed with l.5 pairs of full crucks on padstones. Added stone parlour has weakly ovolo-moulded jetty posts, ceiling beams and wooden lintels. A three-light stone mullion survives within the house. Roof truss over parlour has a tiebeam and two diagonal struts. A clay floored priest hole with access from the loft only has now been included in the bathroom.

<2> Garry Miller Historic Building Consultancy, 2018, Proposed Development at Brook House Farm, Adlington, Cheshire East, R4272 (Client Report). SCH8635.

A heritage assessment was undertaken in 2018 in support of proposed development at Brook House Farm, Adlington. Brook House Farm dates from the early sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and is a Grade II Listed property. A late eighteenth/early nineteenth century block attached on the west side is not listed. Latterly converted to three dwellings, the property is now unoccupied and in a deteriorating state. The site also comprises two groups of late twentieth century agricultural buildings to the west and east of the farmhouse. The proposals for development comprise restoriation of the original farmhouse and its extension to form two dwellings, also conversion of two farm buildings into a further two dwellings.

Historically, Brook House was a tenanted farm belonging to the estate of the Legh family of nearby Adlington Hall. The house originated probably in the sixteenth century as an east-west, cruck-framed buildling. Two storey additions were added to the north and south, probably in the early seventeenth century; these were probably originally timber box-framed and later clad in stone and brick. The western portion of the cruck-range was obliterated by the addition of a late eighteenth/early nineteenth century block.

The farm was known as Brook House at the time of the 1850 Tithe survey of Adlington and was then the property of Charles Richard Banastre Legh and tenanted jointly by Daniel Clarke, William Porter and Robert Rankine, suggesting that the building was already subdivided at this time. The Tithe Map depicts the farm as having an L-shaped footprint and this has remained unchanged. The map also shows outbuildings to the east which remained until at least 1971, as evidenced by the OS 2500 map.

<3> Garry Miller: Architectural Historian, 2019, Proposed Development at Brook House Farm, Adlington, Borough of Cheshire East, R4384 (Client Report). SCH8803.

A heritage assessment was produced in support of a proposed development at Brook House Farm, Adlington, including restoration and refurbishment of the listed original farmhouse, along with an extension to provide two dwellings. Latterly three dwellings, the house has been unoccupied for several years and is deteriorating.