Sandbach Road South
Before street names were formalised, this road was sometimes known, for obvious reasons, as Station Road. Most of its large, early houses remain, all of them built since the railway.
One of the earliest buildings after the station itself must have been the Alsager Arms hotel, opposite the station, first licensed in 1853 and recently demolished. The Alsager estate’s land agent was advertising building plots in the early 1850s, and land was put up for sale in some twenty lots, mostly of about half an acre, in 1859, but it is not clear what if anything resulted from this or other advertisements.
An unidentified house with outbuildings and about a sixth of an acre was put up for sale, partially built, in 1868. This may have been Grove House, one of two of that name in Alsager, which was built in mid-century north of the station and close – probably too close – to the railway. It has now gone. The architecturally austere Brundrett House at 23 Sandbach Road results from John Maddock’s purchase of this and surrounding land from the Church in 1865; the name seems to have been a surname associated with the Maddock family, as well as, perhaps, referring to the local fields called the Brunds, to which the southern arm of Fields Road once led. The Maddock dynasty lived here and hereabouts for long afterwards. John Maddock (c.1807-77), a successful pottery manufacturer in Burslem (where he became mayor) and a prominent Congregationalist, settled on Alsager for the family home long before his retirement: earlier he had lived locally with his family at Longview off Lawton Road. At Brundrett House the dynasty prospered. In the early 1880s the house became home to a daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Frederick Llewellyn (later of Westholme), who managed Shelton colliery and ironworks. The youngest daughter, Jane, built the Jane Maddock Homes on Crewe Road.
Heath House, 21 Sandbach Road (not to be confused with a vanished Alsager farmstead of the same name, in Well Lane) is broadly contemporary with Brundrett House. Heath House’s first known residents, till his death in 1917, were John Keen, wealthy partner in a Hanley firm of tobacco manufacturers, with his wife and daughters.
Parville, next to Heath House at 49 Ashmores Lane, is another, later house in which early residents lived for a long time. In this case it was Joseph and Annie Robinson. In 1881, when resident at 29 Newport Street, Burslem, Robinson commissioned a young local architect, Absalom Reade Wood, to design his Alsager house for him. What emerged was a much more ornate version of Heath House, with a similar number of reception and bedrooms. Wood went on to build several of the municipal buildings in Tunstall, as well as his own house at Porthill, the Middleport pottery and Kidsgrove’s Victoria Hall. ‘Parville’ may take its name from a place in Normandy or a large house on the Isle of Man, but a connection between the Robinsons and either of these has not been established.
Opposite is Holmcroft, built for Alsager’s first medical officer, Dr Henry Crutchley, a local practitioner, who lived here from about 1871 with his wife Ellen. After the First Word War he gave part of its garden as ground for the Alsager war memorial; his successor, Dr Percy Harpur, added more, as well as, in the depressed 1930s, providing the room over his garage in service of the unemployed of the town. Dr Crutchley died at Northolme on Crewe Road in 1923.
Holmcroft has been converted into flats, which was the destiny that also eventually overtook Westholme, another early house inhabited by a Maddock daughter, which used to stand on the present site of Homeshire House opposite. Before its demolition it became a working men’s club. The Limes, on the corner of Station Road, bears the date 1868 and a monogram, probably that of its likely creator, Seddon Wildblood, resident here until the early 1890s. Wildblood (1842-1936) was an artist and teacher of watercolours and drawing, whose career included heading the art department at various public schools. During his time at Alsager he was responsible for new painting in the chancel at Christ Church. His grandson, Peter, is remembered as a writer and campaigner for gay rights.
The Old Villa, like Holmcroft opposite complete with coach house, stands on the west side of the road north of Station Road. It dates from about 1854, and as built – for an earthenware manufacturer, Thomas Walker – is largely invisible from the road, which runs close to its rear. It is unlikely to be coincidence that though little else is known about Walker, he was a prominent shareholder in the North Staffordshire Railway. His successors, both long-standing residents, were first his son-in-law James Gibbons, a provision merchant in Stoke, then from 1906 Adolphus Goss, who came here (from Church Road) when his father’s death released his inheritance. Adolphus is responsible for the villa’s current name; at first it was known merely as ‘the Villa’, which he found pretentious.
Holmwood and Lyndale – 44 and 46 – are semi-detached houses which are broadly contemporary with the Old Villa changing hands. The neighbouring ground, both front and back lots, came into the hands of the Weatherby family. The Weatherbys, also pottery owners, decided on Alsager because its climate was drier than their alternative, Trentham. Two middle-aged brothers and their wives made their homes here about 1908. Their father, John H. Weatherby senior, built Parkholme on Station Road for himself on the larger piece of land behind.
Brooklyn, no 43, on the east side of the road, is an early house which has been re-fronted. When John Maddock senior first built Brundrett House, his son James lived here. It was neighbour to the Poplars, ‘Poplar House’ in the 1871 directory, which has now been replaced by a block of flats of the same name. This was the site of the main Alsager post office after it moved eastward from the top of Station Road. Brookhouse road, opposite, was known informally as Post Office Lane.
