Well Lane and Cedar Avenue
Well Lane is well named, though at the beginning of the 19th century it was a minor road leading to Hole House farm. From the era of municipal improvement, waterworks were at the foot of the road, built on Robert Mellor’s land in the early 1880s. There was also a borehole for water, water supply for the town being a constant matter of concern. There had been municipal pumps, probably on this site, since before the creation of a rural district council in the early 1870s. St Gabriel’s School, opened in 1975, occupies some of the site.
The building at the top of the Lane, now two cottages numbered 2 and 4, is one of the oldest in Alsager, and is shown on the enclosure plan of the early 1820s. It was owned and occupied separately from the land behind, which was part of the estate centred on Hole House and the Hill. The cottages were lived in for decades by members of the Bossons family.
The north-eastern side of the lane formed part of the grounds of Rosedale, 78 Station Road, which had its original entrance on this side. Development of its grounds began in the early 1930s, one of the several times the building itself has been altered.
On the south-western side, the original buildings at the southern end were half-timbered, and in date earlier than most this side of the railway. ‘Heath house’ was a farm of about 45 acres in 1840. A house here is known to have belonged to Lord Brereton in the 17th century, and to have been a place of non-conformist worship in the hands of its long-standing tenants, called Hilditch, in the early 18th. The site appears to have been further built on before 1875, with cottages replacing farm buildings at the north of the homestead. Now all of these have gone.
No. 12 Well Lane was built in 1938 for the district nurse, Ella Jones. Being a bungalow, it was grudgingly permitted by the UDC after a wrangle with the county council. The semi-detached houses at 14-16 were built for Joel Settle in 1925-6. He lived at the Hill, and owned the land behind, so in a sense this is an extension of the building up of the main road frontage by Robert Mellor’s lessees in the mid 19th century. Nos. 18 and 20 date to 1909 and were promoted by Robert Ashby, who in 1891 worked on locomotives, and lived on or near this site. Both sets of houses may eventually have been occupied by Settle’s employees in Settle Speakman’s railway works at Linley.
Cedar Avenue, previously sometimes called Cinder Lane, and (in the 1930s) Brookhouse Lane, reflects not only local trees but the largest house that once stood on it, the Gothic-style Cedars, now replaced by a modern development. This, like the two neighbouring houses further east, was in existence by 1871, and had 6 bedrooms and 4 public rooms as well as gardens with fountains, fernery, and fishpond. It was the residence of – briefly – Titus Hammersley, who left here in 1871, and who may have built it.
After the residence of others, including Thomas and Maria Ford and their 9 children (who went from here to Milton House), the Cedars became most associated with the Maddock family, especially James Maddock JP (c.1843-1916), younger son of the first Maddock to settle in Alsager, at Brundrett House. James lived here from the early 1880s until his death in 1916, employing a butler and a coachman as well as women servants (not to mention about 440 others in the pottery in Burslem). In the early 1930s the house came into the hands of Albert Perry, the Etruria builder who was at the time carving up Westmere Lodge and its grounds. He didn’t carve this one up, however, and it passed entire to Dr Michael Aische, who converted one of the outbuildings into Alsager’s first Roman Catholic place of worship, which lasted until the outbreak of war.
Next to its former site is Springfields, on the corner of Brookhouse Road. Its first recorded occupant was Joseph Eardley, a retired potter. He may well have built it on retiring about 1868 from the Church Bank pottery works he ran under a partnership with Ralph Hammersley. His daughter Elizabeth and her husband George Hammersley (not himself from the pottery-manufacturing family) lived with him and his wife Lucy before moving to Station Road. The children of the Eardleys also included Louisa, who married W. H. Bratt; and Eliza, who married Edwin Meir, another pottery manufacturer. The three households (all of whom were, with other Eardsley connections, involved about 1874 in setting up the Brownhills pottery company) had homes subsequently in Springfield terrace, behind. Later Springfields became the home of Robert Maddock, during whose tenure the octagonal turret was added in 1910.
Behind its roughcasting, the neighbouring villa, originally smaller than now, bears a striking resemblance to Springfields. It probably also dates to around 1870. Later it became known as Morningside, and has had other names since. It appears (as Greenlands) to have been first subdivided by Victor Maddock about 1935.
At the end of the road, opposite the 13 Club (founded by employees at Radway Green, once the site of Government munitions factory no. 13) is Ivy House, occasionally in its history known as Ivy Cottage. This was the home of James Thomas Dudson and his wife Elizabeth, who came here soon after 1866, when James’s parents had established their home at Hope Villa in Fields Road. J. T. Dudson was a commercial traveller for the firm, which he took over in 1880. Their younger children were born here, and James himself died here in 1917.
Next door is Osborne House, which was the home of a potter for 40 years. The potter was Benjamin Hancock, who lived here with his wife Amy from 1871 at the latest, and probably earlier. Afterwards the house had various residents, including, until his early death in 1913, Harry Dudson, son and co-heir of J. T. Dudson next door. By that time Harry’s brother, James Robert Dudson, was at Northern Hey on Lawton Road, and his sister Jane and brother-in-law Henry King at Wollaston, in Station Road.
