THE DEVELOPMENT OF SINCE 1766

A Paper Presented to the Bowdon History Society by

Ronald Trenbath

St. Mary’s Church, Bowdon

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF BOWDON SINCE 1766

By Ronald Trenbath DA, FRSA, ARIBA

THE URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF BOWDON FROM 1700

The parish of Bowdon, on the north side of the lower reaches of the Bollin Valley, originally stretched from Barns in the east to Warburton in the west, and included the Manor of , the market town of and the of Bowdon, and no study can be made of one of these three communities without reference to the other two.

In the nineteenth century the village of Bowdon, which has a hill in the centre of the parish, was developed for expensive and prestigious residential use by entrepreneurs from the industrial belt north of the Mersey.

Why, one might ask, is Bowdon so special that it is worthy of any consideration? Large conurbations have always had salubrious areas which evolved over many years into affluent suburbs. The answer to that question is that Bowdon was not a suburb but a self-governing entity which, when studied in the context of the Social Revolution of the time, reflects the changes which occurred both nationally and locally!

Buildings mirror the character and culture of those who live in them! The elegance of classical Greece is embodied in the Temple of Nike Apteros in Athens, the might and brutality of Ancient Rome is seen in the Coliseum, the spiritual magnitude of medieval is celebrated in Salisbury Cathedral and for the technical genius and criminal administrative incompetence of twentieth-century England one need look no further than the Millennium Dome, and in Bowdon one can read the story of those who have lived there.

Any development is governed by three factors: Accessibility, Availability, and Suitability. Accessibility in the form of transport by land, water or air; availability of land for development, and the suitability of the land for the project. All of these factors were satisfied after the Romans extended

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Watling Street northwards from , through the centre of the future parish and the elevated nature of the locality made it essentially suitable for future development, but it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century that the potential of the area was really exploited, as it was events during that period that Bowdon, as we know it today, really took shape and it is of interest that much of the development was influenced by women.

The first of these women was Mary Oldbury, the estranged wife of George Booth, the 2nd Earl of , an interesting and eccentric woman whose extensive dowry on her marriage in 1702 provided the money for a vast scheme to transform a totally neglected estate into a thoroughly viable enterprise, commenced by her husband and continued by their brilliant and talented daughter Mary, Countess of Stamford, who inherited the estate on the death of her father in 1758.

Prior to this period the Booths had shewn more interest in politics than in attending to their own affairs, first supporting Cromwell, then following disillusionment accepting the Restoration and then risking their lives and estates in replacing the Stuarts with William and Mary, for which they were enabled.

The Second Earl concentrated all his efforts into restoring the near- bankrupt estate and shunned politics, except for a pamphlet advocating that England should become a republic with a Bill of Rights and provision for divorce on the grounds of incompatibility.

A vast scheme was put in hand to include modernising the hall replanting and landscaping the to a Dutch design, afforestation, a rational policy of farm tenancies, the building of large numbers of new farmsteads, some of which were very big with dormitory accommodation for workers and new cottages to a high standard of construction. The Royal Society showed interest in these innovations and sent observers to report.

The Salt Works at Dunham Woodhouses was expanded by Thomas Walton, the Salt Master, to be a very viable enterprise and it provided a boost to the local economy as well as contributing to the fortune made by Walton, who died in 1757 leaving provision in his will for a local charity which included the building of Bowdon Grammar School.

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The increase in wealth gave rise to an increase in crime, mainly highway robbery and murder, and travellers on the Chester Road resorted to taking circuitous routes to avoid Bowdon and members of my family were always armed with pistols, powder and shot.

A practice known as salt smuggling was rife throughout , whereby salt produced for export, and therefore exempt from tax, was sold locally and the revenue kept by the vendor. To combat this practice my ancestor, William Trenbath, was appointed Salt Revenue Officer in 1766 to deal with the problem, in spite of the fact that his brother, John, was engaged in smuggling at home in Cornwall. Improvements to the Chester Road, with the introduction of the turnpike system and more satisfactory facilities of hostelries, livery stables, staging posts and farriers, facilitated better accessibility for trade and communications, and the construction of the through Altrincham and Dunham Massey provided for commercial and industrial expansion.

Warehouses and works were developed along the canal to the north of Altrincham and regular fast passenger packet barges provided facilities for travellers with meals being served for long journeys, so that Altrincham became a thriving market town with local industry and, according to the British Directory of Trade, Commerce and Manufacture at the time, it was an area to be “much esteemed and resorted to on account of its cleanliness and pleasant situation.”

Increased prosperity resulted in elegant town houses in Altrincham and the arrival of jewellers and silversmiths, lawyers and doctors. The latter accepted fee-paying pupils who started training by making pills and studying anatomy for which the doctor would dissect corpses from the local workhouse or bought from body snatchers in Bowdon.

When Chartist Dissenters from marched on Bowdon and Altrincham, the placated them with ale and baskets of bread and cheese, and the Yeomanry was mobilised to prevent further trouble, until the passing of the County and Borough Police Act of 1856 brought about the formation of the Cheshire County Constabulary which helped to restore law and order.

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Prior to the nineteenth century land locally was held in fragmented ownership of small parcels of distributed over the district between three parties: the Church of England, the Stamfords, and the Assheton-Smiths, until the parties concerned agree to consolidate their holdings on a give- and-take basis.

Under this arrangement the Church held land between the and the hill, the Assheton-Smiths received land on the south downs of the hill east of the church, and the Stamfords retained most of the remaining land.

The Assheton-Smith holding was quite small compared with that of other land owners and as it was too far removed from their main estate to be viably managed they sold it for residential development as it was eminently suitable for this purpose being an elevated south-facing site, in a very healthy position, suitable for domestic drainage and made accessible by local omnibus services between Altrincham and Bowdon Village.

This development is interesting in view of the great social changes taking place both in Britain and Europe following the Napoleonic Wars and it would be helpful at this point to consider these changes as they are relevant to the development of Bowdon Parish.

Prior to this period most people, other than the aristocracy who owned land estates and town houses, lived in either a town or the countryside, there were not marginal subdivisions between urban and rural areas. When a town expanded development continued outward without any change of character. At Chester the property on one side of the walls does not differ from that of the other side.

Citizens of all classes were content to live mainly in terraces near to their work. Merchants would live next door to their factories and bankers would live over their banks with their workers living alongside, but expansion of the population in rural areas in the late 18th century caused farm workers to become surplus to requirements and emigrate to the towns in search of livelihoods, resulting in urban overcrowding and the formation of slums.

Although commerce and industrial development fluctuated, the introduction of steam power and the lack of competition due to the

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Napoleonic Wars in Europe made Britain the major trading nation of the world, bringing in immense wealth and power to the middle-class entrepreneurs, and diminishing much of the power of the aristocracy.

Under these conditions middle-class society aspired to escape from the overcrowded towns into more salubrious environments, which requirement was first met when John Nash designed Regents Park, a landscaped country park with elegant terrace houses designed as Roman Palaces, surrounded by village development in romantic style, to which the nouveau-riche could escape, and copied in Liverpool when Sefton Park was built.

The biggest influence on development however was the vast improvements in transport during the early years of the 19th century, due to the introduction of lightweight, fast-moving, horse-drawn carriages of various descriptions and the upgrading of primary and secondary roads after Macadam was appointed Surveyor General of Roads in 1827. The introduction of the horse-drawn omnibus about 1824 followed by the formation of the London General Omnibus Company in 1856 provided the first public transport system connecting areas in a local conurbation allowing the public to travel to work rather than live next to it.

The first experiment in out-of-town development occurred in the 1820s when developers built gracious detached villas standing in their own grounds at St. John’s Wood for the upper echelon of society to be followed by the expansion of villages such as Hampstead with romantic dwellings.

In Bowdon the regular local omnibus service, regular coach service and fast passenger packet barges on the canal made the village accessible for residential development and so the Assheton-Smiths sold their land to developers rather than the Stamfords, which was given the romantic name of Rose Hill.

The initial development was quite modest with short terraces, semi- detached dwellings and small villas built in either late Georgian or Picturesque design, the latter including Cottage Orné features favoured by Marie Antoinette at Versailles and introduced into this country by French aristocrat refugees or Fonthill Abbey Gothic Revival or Strawberry Hill

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Gothic decorated. The result was very similar to Hampstead Village or the villages adjacent to Regent's Park.

Many of these buildings were opened as schools, catering for small numbers of pupils. A practice which started during this period had a huge impact on the social life in this country when investors eager to gain the most satisfactory return on investments came to realize that the purchasing and renting out property could bring a return of 4½% to 5% which was far greater than that from Guilt-Edged Securities and far more than industrial development, giving rise to the phrase “Safe as Houses.”

In order to safeguard investments against deterioration of property it was essential that tenants should be thoroughly vetted prior to being granted tenancies and that they should be suitable in every respect to live in the types of dwellings on offer and required by contract to maintain standards of living and behaviour commensurate with those of their neighbours.

A prospective tenant was judged by the type of work he undertook and the position he held within the organisation he worked for, thus a partner in a business could reside in one road but a manager had to be content with a road of a lower social status, and clerks and warehousemen would live in roads further down the social line again, so society was housed in accordance with station in life.

Local directories listed professional man, merchants and manufacturers and under the heading “Clergy & Gentry”, using the word ‘gentry’ with its correct connotation of genteel rather than aristocratic, to be later referred to as the “Middle Class.” A further category developed with unskilled workers in regular employment compared with unskilled workers in casual employment to be labelled as “Labouring Classes.”

This categorisation of society led to an epidemic of mass snobbery. Society had always accepted the prayer “God bless the Squire and all his relations and keep us in our proper status” but reading Addison & Oliver Goldsmith one gets the impression that the deference in former times was flavoured with easy-going familiarity but in the new bourgeois culture the insecure leaders maintained strict rules of propriety.

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To exacerbate the conditions a further situation arose. In Europe new countries such as Italy and Germany were attempting to establish cultural identities and older countries to re-establish theirs. In England the new bourgeois, according to European historians, assumed a new national identity and instead of the rumbustious, cavalier character personified by Falstaff, Squire Weston, Henry VIII and Charles II, the new Englishman, according to Rasmussen, was a colourless prudish aloof slave to convention later to be satirised by Wilde and Shaw.

So when the young Earl of Stamford married an equestrian circus performer of dubious family background one can imagine the outburst of righteous indignation by the residents of Rose Hill resulting in the vicar and parishioners openly shewing their disapproval at this assault on respectability.

The Earl on his part treated the insult and humiliation with the dignified contempt it so rightly deserved, stating that he had other residences and that Dunham Massey Hall would in future be rented to tenants. He would continue to support local charities and protect his tenants but the parishioners of Bowdon would no longer receive his patronage.

This declaration caused concern throughout the rest of the community which relied on the Stamford family for the social life of the area. They sponsored the wakes which could last up to three days involving the congregation cleaning and tidying the churchyard prior to more festive activities which included cock fighting, wresting, archery, chasing slippery pigs, and the Barley Lump, a race for children to Dunham Hall from the church, all competitors being awarded ale and barley bread and ending in the roasting of an ox and much drinking of ale.

The family also sponsored hunting and shooting parties, fishing competitions, and steeple chasing which included the Dunham Massey Stakes, the Altrincham Stakes and the Cavalry Cup, and large parties at the hall brought trade to the locality and produced an atmosphere of festivity and the absence of these events had a very detrimental effect on the community.

With the completion of the first generation of railways, whereby the major cities centres of commerce and industry were linked, the second generation

10 linking outlying towns to the main centre began and so, when in 1849 the new railway line from Manchester to Chester and a new station named Bowdon Station was built at the bottom of the north Downs, the time was ripe for development on a large scale. The Earl, realizing this potential, ordered a feasibility study from which it became evident that the industrial development north of the Mersey, due largely to the cotton industry, had produced rich entrepreneurs interested in purchasing substantial residential properties in healthy and exclusive wealthy districts separated by rural corridors from the squalor of industry they had created, it being essential in bourgeois society for a gentleman to travel to work by train.

It was also noted that these people had pretentious aspirations to emulate the stately homes of aristocracy with large estate-like gardens with entrance lodges and that Bowdon could provide the sites for such developments as the three conditions Accessibility, Availability and Suitability could be satisfied.

In order to accommodate this new housing market a grand residential scheme was designed in 1857 under the supervision of Maxwell Roscoe, the Estate Surveyor, centred on a new church to be named after the Earl’s beloved late sister Margaret, sited on the most prominent position on the main Chester Road and visible from long distances over north Cheshire.

The lane from the new church leading towards the Parish Church in Bowdon Village was widened and realigned and planted with trees and renamed St. Margaret’s Road, from which other roads radiated to provide access to very large residential plots with a similar layout planned on the north side of the hill behind the new church.

Covenants in the deeds ensured that all new houses conformed in size, value, status and appearance, resulting during the next 20 years in the erection of palatial mansions in large landscaped gardens.

The vetting of house designs was to satisfy the requirements of status and not for aesthetic quality as no guidelines appear to have been produced concerning architectural design.

From the beginning of the 19th century the aristocracy had been greatly influenced in matters of taste by refugees from France, particularly the

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Duke of Wellington who was a great Francophile maintaining that he was fighting Napoleon and not the real France, and Apsley House, his London home, is a fine example of French design.

Taste changed to some degree when Cubitt designed Osborne House for Queen Victoria in the Tuscan style, to be copied widely due to the encouragement of Ruskin, which influenced several houses in Bowdon. The cult of Englishness previously referred to, however, produced a bourgeois reaction against foreign influence to give rise to an idiosyncratic bastard style referred to as “Tudorbethan”, which found favour in Bowdon.

The most spectacular of these palatial homes to be built at this time was named Denzell on the Chester Road, built in 1874 by Robert Scott for his wife and himself. The 10-acre garden is entered through an ornate gateway and entrance lodge, passing a large fountain in formal lawns, up a winding drive between banks of conifers and shrubs to the porte-cochere, a large porch in front of the entrance doors in which travellers might enter or leave their vehicles undercover from the elements.

Earth mounding and tree and shrub planting conceal the main road from the house and grounds and visually link them to Dunham Massey Park on the opposite side of the road, a practice known as ‘borrowed landscape’.

The next owner Samuel Lamb laid out tennis and croquet lawns and hot houses for vines, peaches and orchids under the direction of Lord Rothschild’s former gardener, aided by 16 under-gardeners.

A courtyard with greenhouses, stables and other offices featured a clock tower and housed two riding horses and six carriage horses under the protection of the head coachman and under-coachman, with cottages for some male staff.

Dismissed correctly by Pevsner as debase, Denzell, unlike most of the adjoining property, was not in pseudo-English style but influenced by Flemish design with ogee gables, a steep-pitched roof with decorative tiling and oriel window and turret enclosing a staircase.

The interior was richly decorated with coffered painted ceilings and stained glass windows and the family were served in the house by a butler,

12 parlour maid, lady’s maid, serving maid, cook, kitchen maid and house maid.

Denzell has been identified as Mr. ’s house, Grosmont in Howard Spring’s novel “All the Day Long” which gives a nostalgic and graphic account of life in Bowdon at that time.

Smaller semi-detached houses on the fringe of the development were of pleasing simple classical-based design but most of the larger dwellings were of idiosyncratic conception with little or no respect for classical rules of architecture from previous periods such as proportion, harmony, contrast, texturing colour, suitability for purpose or, most important, good manners in architecture. The concept of a street as a unity was unacceptable to Victorian individualism.

Rooms were lofty to reduce internal pollution from gas lighting and colours were dark due to the its staining, and even very large houses had only one bathroom.

Undoubtedly the buildings at this period of outstanding architectural quality are St. Margaret’s Church and the Downs Congregational Church. St. Margaret’s, which was consecrated in 1855, became the parish church of Dunham Massey and was a rather squat building in Early English Gothic style with a very tall elegant spire, buttressed and pinnacled, and a beautiful timber ceiling but it was unfortunately extended westward and never completed and the spire was dismantled due to instability. The Congregational Church, which was built to serve the growing Nonconformist population, in the Strawberry Hill Gothic idiom, was completed a few years prior to St. Margaret’s.

The Earl is often lauded for his business acumen in connection with the Bowdon project but consideration might be given to his wife and her possible involvement. The opinions of the inhabitants of Rose Hill are well known locally but her reputation was different elsewhere. To the servants and tenants she was kind, considerate, understanding and warm hearted. To the hunting fraternity, to which the Earl was addicted, her equestrian skills overshadowed any consideration about her past and her amiable character helped her with their wives. She established her own stables to produce some of the best blood stock at the time and proved to

13 be an exceptional business woman, so it is only fair to think that she might have had considerable influence in Bowdon development.

The new residents were dubbed Cottentots as most of them had been drawn to the North West of England by the growing economy resulting from the expansion of the cotton industry and the ancillary trades. Often portrayed as uncouth northern nouveau-riche most of them were in fact more like Richard Cobden, the educated son of a south-country farmer who came north and, by hard work and business acumen, built a lucrative business with time to devote to the wellbeing of others, and from census returns many of the Bowdon residents at the time came from all parts of Britain and elsewhere, bringing their servants with them to produce a unique cosmopolitan society.

Early in the development neighbours began holding soirées and inviting distinguished guests which developed into dining clubs where gentlemen met monthly at one of the members’ houses to have dinner and discuss matters of interest in an atmosphere of geniality and freedom of expression in the presence of an honoured guest. On suitable occasions ladies were allowed to be present.

From these beginnings clubs such as the Roundabout Club, the Sixty Club, and the Bowdon Literary and Science Club were formed to satisfy specific cultural needs, and musical evenings were held when Mr. Hallé brought “his band” to play at evening functions which encouraged musicians such as Wagner’s protégé Hans Richter and Tchaikovsky’s friend Adolf Brodsky to live in Bowdon and entertain eminent musicians from all over Europe. Bartok, a regular visitor, compared Bowdon favourably with the Vienna Woods.

Interest in science lead to the building of observatories and laboratories in many of the private gardens, and sporting facilities were provided when a bowling and tennis club were formed and a golf course built at Dunham Massey between the deer park and the canal. The croquet club was later to gain national acclaim.

In 1860 the parish church, St. Mary’s, was rebuilt and enlarged, together with a new vicarage to the designs of the architect W. H. Brakspear who also designed a large domed chapel for the Methodists.

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The attendance of less-privileged members of the congregation at St. Margaret’s Church was caused very acute embarrassment to the rich attendees, but my Great Uncle, Robert Wright-Trenbath, provided a solution when he built St. John’s Church in 1867 specifically to fulfil the spiritual needs of the poor. This worthy aim however was somewhat defeated when local residents made their servants use it for compulsory church attendance, and reports survive describing women in carriages following their domestic staff walking to St. John’s Church and then driving to St. Mary’s Church when they were satisfied that their instructions had been obeyed.

After morning service the adult members of St. Mary’s congregation gathered at the newly-built Stamford Arms Hotel to await the vicar who would join them for a glass of madeira or sherry before parading along the Firs or Green Walk for brief conversations and it is recorded that the display of fashion with men in frock coats and top hats carrying silver- topped canes accompanied by their wives in elegant tight-waisted dresses and coats with elaborate hats was a sight to behold.

When sufficient time had elapsed to allow the domestic staff to return home and serve the dinner, the families would go back to their respective houses and sit down to the family meal when the conversation was often in French. The use of a foreign language was not an elitist whim but a practical method of introducing young children to a new tongue while providing practice for the adults, as it must be remembered that those employed in the were required to have a good working knowledge of at least one foreign language if they wished for promotion in their arenas.

A water tower and a small reservoir were constructed on the Devisdale Common to provide adequate supply of domestic water but the inefficiency of the sewerage system caused a dysentry epidemic resulting in many deaths, including G.P. Dr Paterson, father of Helen Allingham, the eminent Victorian painter. In spite of this Bowdon was noted as a very healthy place and residents from Manchester who could afford it often came to Bowdon for summer holidays and Elizabeth Gaskell regularly stayed with her daughters at Moss Farm, especially if they were

15 recuperating from illness, as the nice clean local rural air was highly praised for its remedial effects.

As a result of this, nursing homes opened locally and Dr Arthur Ransome, a noted local physician, opened the first purpose-built sanatorium in the world for the treatment of tuberculosis on the Higher Downs, Altrincham.

During the Middle Ages local springs were considered to have remedial and medicinal properties and a hydro was built near to one of these which provided visitors with therapeutic treatment for many ailments.

At this time charitable organisations brought underprivileged children annually from slums in the north on barges on the Bridgewater Canal to Dunham Park for a day out in clean country air. In most cases it was the nearest any of them would get to having a holiday and Elizabeth Gaskell wrote a graphic account of one such visit, describing the very heart- rending conditions of the children.

The building of Bowdon College drew fee-paying pupils away from Bowdon Grammar School which was considered to be too inaccessible and which closed, to be replaced by Seamon’s Moss School for non-paying boys and the opening of Hall School provided education for girls.

To fulfil the sanitation and salvation needs of non-resident staff, houses, shops, a school and club were built at Bowdon Vale near to the and as the housewives found it lucrative to take in washing, a communal drying area was provided, and the smell of washing was so pungent the area became known as “Soapy Town.” No public house was allowed as the tenants were expected to patronize the Griffin Inn under the watchful eyes of their employers who drank at the adjoining Stamford Arms.

The church organised welfare and moral guidance through voluntary councillors and a number of women were district visitors advising girls and young women on housewifery, augmented by Mothers’ Meetings. A Men’s Club and Lads’ Club provided physical exercise and sports facilities and edifying and uplifting talks by successful parishioners. A workshop catered for handicrafts and a Penny Bank encouraged thrift.

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At New Year a dinner was given for elderly couples to sit down to “a renowned repast of roast beef or goose, plum pudding and mince pies, with music interspersed with words of wisdom where pretty things both grave and gay, sublime and ridiculous were said, and on leaving each guest could choose a present of tea or tobacco.”

Many tenants resented this patronizing attitude which resulted in disharmony and in 1897 the committee had no alternative than to “take things in hand and gain a marked increase in attention and a decided improvement in general conduct.” No wonder the tenants on the Dunham Massey Estate made it known that their lord would never sup with a cotton lord.

During this period Altrincham had developed as a thriving and vibrant market town and the land at Broadheath, north of the town, had been developed with warehouses and workshops along the banks of the Bridgewater Canal. Further industrial expansion took place when a railway line between and Warrington was constructed through Broadheath giving access to Liverpool.

This was followed by the building of houses for workers between Altrincham centre and Broadheath and also on vacant land near the market place. The housing was not of the standard of that at Bowdon Vale but at least the tenants were free from the tyranny of the bourgeois landlords and produced some very interesting characters remembered at the time.

Towards the end of the 19th century Great Britain had led economically and militarily as the World Super Power but a cycle of booms and slumps in trade due to foreign competition undermined confidence for the first time.

Added to the economic difficulties, a new social problem identified as the “Servant Problem”, caused widespread concern both locally and nationally, with leading articles in the Times.

In the 19th century to be in domestic service was considered to be prestigious as servants were well fed, housed and dressed and worked under more pleasant conditions that those working in factories or on farms, and listening to conversations while waiting on table could be uplifting

17 and even provide opportunities for advancement, as noted in Thackeray’s “Yellow Blush Papers” but the conditions imposed by bourgeois Victorian Society made service less acceptable when alternative forms of employment arose.

The nation-wide shortage of domestic staff through changes in industry, whereby women could now find work in light industry, the new telephone exchanges, in offices and the ever-increasing number of shops to work in, more congenial environments and freedom from celibacy, resulted in the very large houses suffering domestic neglect.

The mansions were by this time fifty years old and their elaborate detailing was proving difficult to maintain, so that the younger generation, faced with all these problems, reacted against the flamboyant ideas of their predecessors and sought more simple life styles.

As a result of these factors the Arts and Crafts Movement made a great impact on Edwardian Society with their respect for the features of modest buildings, creating a vernacular revival whereby houses were preferred to those which looked like palaces and also re-introducing the classical rules of Architecture abandoned in the previous period.

The new dwellings which were more simple and elegant have been named “Dream Houses” of which some excellent examples were built on South Downs Road and also some in Hale to the designs of Edgar Wood. One of the latter, “Royd House”, is often identified as an early feature of the Modern Movement developed at the Bauhaus.

Frank Dunkerley, a local architect and pupil of Voysey, rose high in the profession and designed many of the finest buildings in the district, including the Assembly Rooms built to accommodate the ever-increasing social activities of the area.

With travel and delivery dominated by the railways, road travel declined to the extent that the Chester Road was often deserted for long periods of time and only used by local traffic and, at weekend, by cycling clubs from the north which had been formed at this time, until the introduction of the motor car. This came gradually but presented a formidable problem, not always appreciated today. These horseless carriages with very crude and

18 inadequate steering and braking were a very great danger on the poor roads, with soft surfaces and blind corners and bends making emergency stopping impossible as well as causing horses to bolt, so that stern measures were required to safeguard the general public.

These measures included a speed limit enforced by the local constabulary who devised speed traps to apprehend speeding motorists. One such trap entailed police in telephoning registration numbers and times of cars leaving the town to the police in Altrincham and if any of them arrived locally within a calculated period of time they were deemed to have exceeded the speed limit and so duly prosecuted.

This arrangement annoyed Henry Royce, partner in Rolls Royce, who would leave his home in Knutsford in his latest model and travel north, waving to police officers on duty and then when out of sight drive full speed to Bowdon where he would park by the church and smoke his pipe before proceeding past Altrincham Police Station at a snail’s pace.

When the 7th Earl of Stamford died the title passed to his cousin, an Anglican Vicar in Africa married to a black wife by whom he had a son prior to their marriage. What reaction this might have caused in the parish of Bowdon can only be imagined but as the former Earl had left the estate to his wife for her lifetime and she was unwilling to release a house to the new 8th Earl, he was forced to remain in Africa for the rest of his life.

On the death of the 8th Earl his son claimed the title which was refused on the grounds that he was born out of wedlock and both the title and the estate passed to a distant relation, a man of modest position, married to the daughter of a country vicar.

On the death of the 7th Earl’s Countess, the 9th Earl took up residence at Dunham Massey Hall with his wife, son and daughter with efforts made to mend the rift between the family and the local residents, culminating in a splendid garden party at the hall upon their arrival in 1906.

Vast works of modernisation and decoration were undertaken at the hall, including the reconstruction of the south elevation in a popular Lutyens Style based on Uppark in Sussex, but the architect, Compton Hall, carried

19 out an idiosyncratic treatment of the entrance which the Earl considered vulgar and embarrassed by the derision it caused, dismissed the architect.

The Earl died in 1910 after only four years’ residence, leaving his wife with professional help to administer the Estate on behalf of their son who was under age and at first at school and later at university where he developed left-wing tendencies, further fostered by the Rev. Hewlett Johnson, Vicar of St. Margaret’s Church, a member of the Communist Party and later “Red Dean of Canterbury.”

The volatile economy at the turn of the 20th century, together with the effects of the Boer War and subsequent trade recession marked the beginning of the end of the Cottontot’s influence and the outbreak of the War on the 4th August 1914 saw the end of an era.

Confident of a quick victory young men were eager to take part in what they thought would be an exciting change from their dreary jobs which had a massive response locally. In Chapel Street in Altrincham 161 men volunteered for national service. In 1919 King George V sent a telegram praising the street for raising so many men for the war effort.

Troops left for France, Dunham Massey Hall became a temporary hospital and local industry turned to armament manufacturing. Consternation developed when a German Zeppelin circled over the town, confused by the tower and spire of St. Margaret’s Church and Bowdon Parish Church, before heading north to bomb a slag heap which was mistaken for . A large prisoner-of-war camp was built at Sinderland Green and the inmates given the job of building local lanes to standards for motorcars.

Arthur Cowsill, who later became Clerk of the County Court, joined the Cheshire Regiment and was taken prisoner in Flanders to be interrogated by a former neighbour, Colonel Budenberg, a German citizen who had previously lived in Bowdon. It was a very short happy interlude in the midst of a gigantic catastrophe.

Men returned home from the devastating effect of the carnage disillusioned with the former way of life and a new English persona was noted by foreign observers as a folly, devil-may-care, in plus-fours and monacle, playing golf, driving sports cars and sunbathing in the South of

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France, as depicted by P G Woodhouse, Sapper and others, but a more accurate picture would be of a disgruntled ex-serviceman wounded either physically or psychologically, described by J B Priestley.

In order to combat the effects of the war the government attempted to provide Homes for Heroes and for the first time serious interest was taken in providing affordable housing for the working population in salubrious estates separated by green corridors from the factories, in conditions similar to those enjoyed by their employers, based on Garden Suburb ideas introduced by Sir Charles Ebenezer Howard at Welwyn and other out-of- town developments.

Locally an earlier attempt had been made to repeat experiments at Bournville and Port Sunlight, in landscaping housing and factories together, when Oldfield Hall on the north side of Altrincham was purchased in the 1890s and the Linotype factory built surrounded by a garden with adjoining houses in landscaped roads and well-kept allotments together with sport and social facilities.

Instead of enlarging this very successful scheme it was decided after the First Word War that a Garden City should be developed some distance away from the factories at Broadheath. The young Earl of Stamford, now of age and in a position to direct operations on his estate, was eager for the project to be built on the golf course at Dunham and for Oldfield Lane between Altrincham and Dunham Massey to be widened and realigned as a bus route and for the land between Dunham Massey and Oldfield Hall (now John Leigh Park) developed as private housing.

This suggestion was rejected by the local council as the new housing estate would be too far from Broadheath for workers to return home for midday meals and a compromise was reached whereby the project was sited at Oldfield Brow behind St. Margaret’s Church and known as “the Garden City” until the tenants elected Labour Councillors, after which it became known as “Little Moscow.”

The project was designed by Cundal, a local architect, featuring a circular layout with tree-lined roads radiating from the centre, with provision for shops, a school and a church. The land between here and John Leigh Park was taken for residential development and a developer commenced

21 building houses to the designs of Cundal, which were influenced by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis’ Portmeirion, with pointed villas and designed gardens.

Another builder obtained land along Oldfield Road and built new rather non-descript villas. All of these new houses were provided with electricity, many of them had telephones, and all of them had garages although very many of the new owners did not possess cars.

None of this development however reached fruition after 1930 due to the effects of the Great Depression and work on Oldfield Brow was cut back to such an extent that inadequate an drainage system flooded to cause a diphtheria epidemic in which a number of children died and the local surveyor to be threatened with litigation for incompetence.

The Great Depression, according to Government returns, was felt less in Altrincham than in other towns in the country, with a lower than average rate of unemployment, but in Bowdon the residents were heavily hit by the Cotton Slump, and the large Victorian houses were an encumbrance on their owners and with high maintenance costs and decreasing incomes they were forced to live in very reduced circumstances and many of them offered their houses free of charge to anyone who would take them off their hands.

The contrast between the two districts changed dramatically, Bowdon a picture of gloom and desolation while Altrincham maintained a more vibrant and happy atmosphere as a thriving shopping centre and market with three cinemas and a music hall, numerous public houses and an excellent local train service based on a centralised station which had replaced Bowdon and Altrincham stations in the previous century. The main festive event of the year was the Altrincham Agricultural Show which, as the largest one-day show in the country, was a great incentive to farmers throughout the County and festivities continued well into the night and a police presence was needed to maintain order.

Car ownership grew locally and a few more prosperous residents bought aeroplanes and one of them, John Leeming, landed his plane on the Chester Road to refuel at the local petrol station when he ran out of fuel.

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Following the outbreak of war in 1939 many of the large houses were requisitioned as billets for troops or for storage or for offices. Dunham Lower Park was closed and a military camp built to house Americans when they entered the war and converted to a prisoner-of-war camp for Italians and later for Germans.

Colonel Maurice Buckmaster set up a Special Executive Centre for the training of Secret Agents at Dunham House, attended by Violette Szarbo and Odette Churchill among others. The purpose of the enterprise was so secret that neighbouring residents were unaware of its functions until many years after the war, but it was known to the Germans as one of their agents infiltrated it, to be caught and duly dealt with.

The full impact of the war was felt on the night of 28th August 1940 when Broadheath was targeted as a centre of precision engineering, to be heavily bombed and for an incendiary to set oil storage tanks alight.

The survivors of planes shot down were taken prisoner and it was noted that the pilots were mainly Dutch as the Netherlands airline had regular flights pre-war to Ringway and their crews could navigate the route over the Pennines.

Appalled at the devastating effects of uncontrolled development and the resulting wastage of land the government used the wartime lull in building to produce legislation to control the use of land in the future, and local authorities were required to produce plans designating areas for various types of development and safeguard areas of value to the community.

Cheshire County Council produced a Master Plan which was considered to be one of the best in the country. A feature of the plan to have great impact on Altrincham and Bowdon was named the Bollin Valley Project. This scheme which was eventually controlled by the Countryside Commission provided for administration of the valley which was scheduled as an area of scientific and scenic importance. Intensive conservation was put in hand including planting and maintaining ecological hedges and woodland and the protection of all wild life, and when the was constructed through part of the valley provision was made for it to be built below adjacent ground level, and so

23 out of sight and to provide passages beneath it for badgers and other creatures to cross in safety.

Further events which affected development occurred when three local and adjacent landowners left their estates to the National Trust. Unable to cope with the bequests the Trust accepted Dunham Massey totally, the house and park at Tatton, but refused Tabley which was accepted by the University of Manchester. These three properties in public ownership provided venues for country events previously supported by their owners and as a result of all these events land adjacent to the Bollin valley became very desirable and brought about what Estate Agents called the ‘Golden Crescent’ comprising Bowdon, Hale, and Prestbury and for Harrods to refer to Cheshire as the Home County beyond Watford.

Improved accessibility in the form of motorways and an international airport placed the area in the centre of Britain within easy access of London, Scotland, Liverpool and Yorkshire adding to its amenities.

Post-war prosperity came to Cheshire by the establishment of the Atomic Energy Authority and nuclear research centres at Risley Moss, the building of Warrington New Town, and the development of UMIST as a world centre for technology, followed by the introduction of allied technical industries which attracted Technocrats to replace Cottentots.

When the Upper Park was released by the War Office, the Earl of Stamford consulted Sir Patrick Abercrombie with a view to developing it for high-class residential use and also to rebuild the much-despised entrance to the Hall, but shortages of materials and labour restricted immediate post-war building and a licence was refused to carry out the project, and as the park had been Scheduled under the County Plan as Green Open Space, that project was also rejected. Permission was however granted to convert the park into a golf course to replace the one which was closed during the war.

Post-war development was very slow at first but gained momentum during the next fifty years during which time dwellings were built to satisfy the ever-changing requirement due to constantly-increasing wealth.

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The designation of Victorian Bowdon as a protected conservation area has resulted in most of the mansions being converted into luxury flats and new buildings constructed to, not always successful, pastiche designs.

The negative approach by all post-war governments to transport and the proliferation of out-of-town shopping and living has led to a national gridlock of massive proportions in contravention of the major planning requirement of Accessibility which is set to worsen.

During the last 15 years government policy has been set upon reconstructing and rebuilding inner cities for urban living, with the resuscitation of central Manchester quoted as the prime success, but current reports tend to shew that this experiment is now producing social problems.

At a conference held by the International Architecture Biennale in Venice, the Royal Institute of British Architects on the Social City, they recommended the reconsideration of Urban Policy. Seventy years ago Rasmussen, the eminent Danish architectural historian and philosopher, stated that the British were unique in being rural or suburban dwellers rather than city dwellers like our cousins in Europe, a factor which caused consternation to the Romans when they occupied this country. The development of the ancient Parish of Bowdon during the last 300 years tends to support this theory.

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