Source/Archive record SCH6589 - Lea Manor Farm, Aldford: Desk-Based Assessment of the Archaeological Assessment of the Implications of Proposed Re-Development

Lea Manor Farm lies in the extreme east of Aldford township, West Cheshire, on the Grosvenor estate. The existing layout developed from large-scale building or re-building campaigns in the nineteenth century, from which the house derives along with a large, brick-built barn which is scheduled as a grade II listed building. Another smaller barn, which is not listed, survives on the same North-South alignment to the north of the listed structure. A further brick-built farm building west of the scheduled barn which has similar brickwork was badly damaged by fire during the twentieth century and has been partially rebuilt, while nineteenth-century farm buildings to the east and west of the scheduled barn have been demolished. The nineteenth-century brick-built structures are now in a poor state of repair, including the listed barn. A range of steel-framed cow sheds and slurry storage facilities were constructed further west during the later twentieth century and have recently served as the focus of farm working. A large slurry pit on the north side has fallen out of use and the later range of cowsheds, built after 1992, are in the process of demolition. It is proposed to demolish all the buildings west of the listed barn, part of which will become a reception area, and excepting also the later workshop/barn on the same alignment to the north of it. The current house will also be retained. Proposals also include constructing three cottages and attendant garaging between the house and the access road to the east. To the west it is intended to replace all other farm structures with very much larger cow buildings which will extend further west onto what is currently fields, with an outlying waste disposal facility constructed to the north- west. This desk-based survey will assess the historical and archaeological aspects of these proposals and where necessary propose appropriate strategies for determining the nature of any threat to archaeology and the historic environment. These strategies are picked out in bold to enhance their visibility, then outlined in the conclusion.