Audley Road
Here is the core of the pre-railway hamlet and most of Alsager’s non-ecclesiastical listed buildings, some dating to the 17th or 18th centuries. A large part of the rest of the street is the product of the late 19th century, when both Edwards building firms contributed to the streetscape. Later still came the Council itself, with various phases of building in the 20th century.
The Station house post-dates the railway, as the station master, William Barber, lived at first at Radway Green. The redevelopment of cottages across Talke Road from the station may have been at the behest of a later station master, Ikin. There was by the end of the 19th century a butcher’s on this corner, which remained until after WW2. The former Post Office is still identifiable on the other side of the crossing, and appears first to have been a villa built at some time after the 1876 sale of a former garden to a Mr Casson (who already owned surrounding land). By the early 20th century it was ‘the Railway Stores’, run by Thomas Smith, and became a sub-post office in 1928. To its south, no. 4 dates from around 1900. On this west side are nos. 6 to 20. They include York Villa, May Villa and Albert Villas, some bearing dates between 1894 and 1896, and may be by George Edwards (likewise 28 and 30).
A smithy was formerly at no. 15 Audley Road, though the site has been much altered over the years. The Railway Inn plausibly boasts a (pre-railway) date of 1835. Its proximity to the station helps account for the attraction of Alsager for 19th century workplaces organising ‘works outings’. There is an account from 1880 of one which involved a game of ‘prison bars’, originally a street game, on a ‘spacious ground’ adjoining the inn, followed by a ‘knife and fork tea’.
Nos 21 and 23 Audley Road, dated to the late 17th or early 18th century, are taller and squarer than the others. The other cottages in the terrace (as far as no. 29) themselves probably date from the first half of the 19th century, and were certainly shown on the first ever large-scale map of the area, in 1875; the rest of the terrace, though similar, may post-date the auction of Samuel Warburton’s property in 1877.
North of Fanny’s Croft there was until a late date evidence of medieval strip farming. Opposite, nos. 43 and 45 Audley Road were built around 1897 by Thomas Wakefield, who had employment as a bricklayer and lived in one of them. He also built at least 2 others in the road on his own account (possibly 56 and 58). Nos 51 to 65 Audley Road bear the name of Mona Terrace (Mona being the Roman name for Anglesey), built in 1893 as a row of eight 3-bedroom semi-detached houses by a prominent local contractor, Joseph Worrall of Congleton. They were rented out by the month; as originally built, they had bathrooms, but the sanitary arrangements involved ashpits.
No 69 Audley Road, Denford, is almost certainly named for the Northamptonshire birthplace of an owner (and possible builder), David Groom, a lawyer’s managing clerk. It was built by 1890, and once had a pond. The footprint of two old cottages on the site at least informed the new building and may even be incorporated to some extent. Groom developed land opposite, so may have built 70 Audley Road around 1914.
St Andrew’s Villa at 68 Audley Road (now Lavender House care home) was the original name of a large detached house formerly here, probably built in the late 1890s. Beyond, on the other side, no. 75, which was farmland in 1876, was built before the end of the 19th century and known as West View. The semi-detacheds at no.79 and 81 were an investment by Dr Henry Crutchley of Holmcroft in Sandbach Road South, the first medical man resident in Alsager, and as built had a municipal water supply but no bathrooms.
The Laundry House, an old building which latterly housed two households and may at times have housed more, lay among a group of cottages east of the Town House, one of which became known as Laundry Cottage. A pair of cottages (now 45 and 47 Birch Avenue) were built here between the mid-1870s and the mid-1890s; becoming known as Town House Cottages, forming originally part of the yard attached to the Town House. This was once the centre of one of the larger farms, though the Georgian frontage (behind which lie earlier farm buildings) was built by a carrier, John Twiss, around 1790. Before the railway he ran road and canal transport carrying goods between Birmingham, Stafford and Manchester. Behind it is the timber-framed Town End Cottage, probably now Alsager’s oldest single identifiable building.
Somewhere in this area were held, for a few years in the mid-1860s, a 2-day race meeting. Thomas Manley, who acted as clerk of the course, lived at the Town House, and the racecourse was probably on farmland tenanted by him. The races however didn’t long survive being removed from a location so convenient to attending crowds.
The Manor House hotel opposite incorporates the remains of Town End farm. Before it became a hotel, it was used as a textile warehouse and for other commercial purposes.
