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HERE is a pictorial tour of the vandalised -
and now demolished - Stapeley Manor. They were loaned to me by Nantwich
historian Andrew Lamberton. He, in turn, was given them by the family of
the late
Heather Gleave (nee White) who took them around 2004.
The White family are mentioned
in text that accompanied the pictures, and that would have been an
entry in a book that Andrew planned to publish, which would have been called "Lost Houses in Cheshire".
It would have been the third in
a series of "Lost Buildings" books, but it was never
printed.
Andrew said that Chris Dykins
and he visited the family in Audlem and was given
a CD of the pictures - shortly before Heather very sadly died.
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As I wrote this in 2007,
Stapeley Manor was in imminent
danger of demolition despite efforts to save it.
The house was built between
1916 and 1918 for Benjamin Baxter, the Managing Director of a Nantwich
clothing factory which at the time was producing army uniforms, giving
rise to the nickname of the house as Khaki Manor. On Mr Baxter’s death
in 1937, he was succeeded by his son, Jim, who carried on running the
business into the 1960s.
It is known that the
house was sold to two Nantwich businessmen, a local solicitor, Mr Norman
Afford and a Mr Birchall who divided the house into two separate halves.
In 1957, Mr Birchall sold his half to Mr and Mrs White and part of this was sub-let
to Mr and Mrs Harrison who stayed until the 1960s.
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Mr Afford later sold his half
to two
spinsters, Dora and Ilma Evans, and their cousin, Sydney Thomas. When
the last remaining survivor had died in 1980, their nieces sold the half
to the White Family and it again became one single property.
The White family moved out in
1981 when they sold the manor to Raymond and Nigel Davies who were
developing Stapeley Water Gardens on
an adjacent site.
Nigel lived at the manor until his sudden
death in America in 1988 and then Raymond moved in and stayed there
until around 1998.
It was then rented out and the last family left
around 2003. It remained empty and was subsequently vandalised as most
of the pictures below show. |
