The Shanty, Stable Block, Boundary Wall, Gates and Piers, Marple, Stockport

Summary

House, stable and coach house. 1895-96 by the architect Barry Parker for Andrew Macnair. Inter-war conversion of stable to motor house and conversion of coach house to cottage (perhaps at same time).

Description

House, stable and coach house. 1895-96 by the architect Barry Parker for Andrew Macnair. Inter-war conversion of stable to motor house and later conversion of coach house to cottage.

MATERIALS: pink sandstone rubble stone; red sandstone ashlar; decorative half-timber framing; small, brown tiles.

PLAN: the house has a rectangular plan with a hall to E half rising through two storeys and containing a first-floor balcony (now enclosed) on the S side, stair and landing on the W side with an inglenook beneath, and an organ gallery on the N side (pipe organ now removed). The W half of the ground floor contains the entrance vestibule, dining room, and kitchen (originally sub-divided into kitchen, scullery and pantry); the first floor contains two bedrooms (one presently sub-divided) and a bathroom, all opening off a corridor from the hall landing. A staircase on the N side rises to a second-floor landing and two further bedrooms and a bathroom (perhaps originally a dressing room). There is also a small coal and wood store basement beneath the NW extension and added W porch.

The separate former stable block and coach house has a motor house on the W side replacing the stable, and a two-storey cottage replacing the coach house on the E side.

EXTERIOR
The house: the house is set back from Church Lane to the W with a double-pitched roof running E-W with a brick ridge stack towards the W side and a second brick stack towards the centre on the N pitch of the roof. The main elevation faces S and is of four bays and two storeys. The first floor of the two central bays is jettied to project slightly with half-timbered box framing with curved braces and a gable with timber soffits and bargeboards. It has two two-light windows with timber mullions. Beneath the half-timbering the wall is constructed of shaped and coursed rubble stone with a recessed open porch to the left and a three-light window to the right. The porch has a chamfered Tudor arch of red ashlar. The main entrance door has full-width decorative ironwork strap hinges with vertical battens to the lower half and a segmental-arched light to the upper half with a decorative pattern of leaded coloured glass. Small-pane leaded glazing flanks the upper half of the door and the full-width of the porch above the doorway. The full height of the first bay is built of shaped and coursed rubble stone with a three-light window on each floor. The ground floor of the fourth bay is built of shaped and coursed rubble stone with a three-light window. The three-light windows all have red ashlar frames and slender, chamfered mullions with metal frames and replacement leaded double glazing. The first floor of the fourth bay is the original position of the balcony. It now has a row of six lights with single-pane glazing and timber mullions over half-timbered box framing. Above the gable is a small inserted dormer window in the main pitched roof.

The E gable wall is built of shaped and coursed rubble stone with half-timbered box framing to the gable apex and timber soffits and bargeboards. A central window with timber mullions and transoms and incorporating a half-glazed door rises though two floors up to the half-timbering. The door is flanked by a light on each side with a grid four panes wide by three panes high above. It opens onto a stone patio with three steps into the garden (not original). At first-floor level on the left-hand side, in the position of the former balcony return, is a row of three lights with single-pane glazing and timber mullions over half-timbered box framing. The half-timbered gable apex has a horizontal, five-light window with timber mullions. The window has replacement metal frames with single-pane glazing.

The N elevation has a long horizontal dormer window with an overhanging pitched roof to the centre of the wall. The windows have timber frames and replacement leaded double glazing. The wall beneath has irregular fenestration. The ground floor has two three-light mullion windows of differing sizes and a four-light mullion window to the right-hand side. On the first floor there is a pair of single-light windows above the smaller three-light window and a three-light mullion window above the four-light window. All the window apertures have red ashlar frames with metal window frames with replacement leaded double glazing. At the right-hand end of the elevation is a small, single-storey, flat-roofed extension. It overlaps the ashlar stone frame of the four-light mullion window with its left-hand return wall and steps down at its right-hand end. It is also built of shaped and coursed rubble stone with a coped parapet to the higher section and a stone-flagged roof to the lower section. There is a single-light window in the N side with a red ashlar frame and a doorway in the lower section.

The W gable wall is built of shaped and coursed rubble stone. The ground floor has a single-light window and a three-light mullion window to the right-hand side. To the left-hand side is an extension comprising a single-storey, flat-roofed porch with coped parapet with the lower section with stone-flagged roof to left. Both are built of shaped and coursed rubble stone and the right-hand return wall of the porch overlaps the ashlar stone frame of the single-light window. The porch has a doorway with a narrow window with leaded panes to its left with combined ashlar frames; the door architrave has moulded detailing to the upper part of the frame; the window has a chamfered frame. The timber door is part-glazed with six small-pane lights. On the first floor above the porch is a three-light mullion window and there is a horizontal, six-light window to the gable apex. All the multi-light windows have ashlar frames and mullions, with metal window frames and replacement leaded double glazing. The gable has timber soffits and bargeboards.

The motor house and cottage: the two buildings adjoin and both are built of shaped and coursed rubble stone with small, brown tile roofs. The S-facing elevation has the motor house projecting forward on the left-hand side. It is single-storey, of two bays with an overhanging hipped roof. Each bay has a three-light window with ashlar stone frames and mullions and small-paned, leaded glazing. The right-hand return is blind; the roof hip on this side overlaps the front elevation of the cottage. The cottage (former coach house) is of two storeys. The gabled first floor is jettied to project slightly with half-timbered box framing with curved braces and a central two-light window and timber soffits and bargeboards. The rubble-stone ground floor beneath has a doorway to the left and a window to the right, both with monolithic rubble stone lintels. The timber door is part-glazed with six small-pane lights. On the right-hand side of the gable is a two-storey, single bay of rubble stone, hipped to the E. It has a single, ground-floor window with a monolithic rubble stone lintel. All the windows have uPVC frames and leaded double glazing.

The W elevation of the motor house faces onto the road. It has a wide, Tudor-arched opening with red ashlar stone frame and large, timber, double doors with strap hinges beneath a shaped timber lintel. The right-hand door has two port-hole windows; the left-hand replacement door is due to have two similar windows inserted. Above is a half-timbered, gabled, dormer dove-cote with three openings with perches.

The rear, N elevation is of rubble stone with no timber detailing to the gable. There are three similar, tall rectangular windows on the ground floor with a smaller window at the left-hand end. There is also a window in the gable apex.

The E elevation of the cottage rises through two storeys on the left-hand side with a hipped roof and is single-storeyed beneath a cat-slide roof on the right-hand side. There is a first-floor window to the left and a ground-floor window to the right.

INTERIOR: the interior retains many original fixtures and fittings such as fluted timber door architraves with plain corner blocks and two panel doors with central rails and opposing diagonal boarding above and below, some with decorative iron hinges, similarly detailed smaller cupboard doors with single panels of diagonal boarding, and fluted timber fire surrounds with plain corner blocks and cast-iron grates to the first-floor bedrooms. Many of the iron window frames have original decorative ironwork fittings.

The main room is the hall. This is a spatially complex, double-height room. It has wooden parquet flooring. On the N side is a deep inglenook with a low ceiling. This is framed by heavy, turned timber posts supporting posts and rails with curved bracing. The left-hand side of the inglenook is formed by a quarter-turn stair with quarter-pace landing. The inglenook has fixed, timber benches on each side and an original, beaten copper chimney hood to the fireplace. The space beneath the quarter landing has built-in shelving and cupboards with decorative iron hinges. The stair has a timber balustrade with pierced splat balusters. The two windows in the S elevation have fixed window seats with low-level book shelves between. The NE window also has a fixed window seat. At first-floor level the N side (former organ gallery) has a timber balustrade with similar splat balusters; there are similar balustrades round the head of the stair on the landing over the inglenook, with several posts with curved braces rising to the ceiling. In the NW corner of the landing is a curved, timber settle facing a fireplace with a beaten copper fire chimney-piece with cast-iron grate and slightly sunken hearth of small, green-glazed tiles.

On the S side is the balcony which has an original half-timbered wall with a continuous row of windows with timber mullions and rails and small-pane leaded glazing overlooking the hall.

The dining room has fixed window seats, timber framing to the window apertures, a timber band at picture rail height, and joists.

The kitchen retains the original external back door (now opening into the porch), which is a plank and batten door with external iron, wavy strap hinges.

Opening off the first-floor landing at the head of the stair is an angled two-way door; the door can either close off the bedrooms from the hall or close off the stair up to the second floor being hinged to fit in architraves for both doorways. The original door has decorative strap hinges, a lower panel of diagonal boarding and a large glazed light of leaded small panes.

The SW, first-floor bedroom has a built-in cupboard next to the fireplace.

The second floor has a timber balustrade with similar splat balusters and beams over the two flights of the dog-leg stair with half-pace landing supporting stairs shaped cut-out timbers.

The motor house and cottage: the motor house is comprehensively fitted out with a tiled floor with an inspection pit, fully-tiled walls with brick-shaped glazed tiles of rich brown to mid-height with stepped pattern and white above up to eaves level with tiled, mid-point pilasters supporting an iron cross-girder. The ceiling is boarded out.

There are no fixtures or fittings of interest in the cottage.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 15 September 2021 to correct owners name and to amend the description.

History

The Shanty was built in 1895-96 to designs by Barry Parker for the Manchester industrial chemist Andrew Macnair, who formulated the green and blue stains often used for Parker’s furniture. On 10 May 1895 the architect M H Baillie Scott had published a design for a house in Bedford for Carl St Amory in ‘The Building News’. This showed a two-storey hall with obvious medieval influences, notably the exposed timber studwork of the first floor with an inglenook fireplace to the main interior room. In July the same year Parker first published his own interpretation of this design with a similar spatial concept and character in the Bedales’ School magazine, where his younger brother Stanley was then being educated. Construction on the actual house began in late 1895. Plans and photos of the hall were subsequently published in 1901 in ‘The Art of Building a Home. A Collection of Lectures and Illustrations by Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin’. The text states that ‘a special effort was made to obtain one room giving some sense of space in a house not large enough to contain several large rooms’. The hall was treated as the main living room, carried through two storeys to provide an organ gallery, a landing and a balcony all within the hall, reached via a staircase with the stairs arranged to screen the fire and form a deep ingle with a low ceiling beneath the landing. The low ceiling continued under the organ gallery and balcony, with the central part of the hall being open to the full height and lit by a great E window. The published plans show that this arrangement took up half the interior, with a small dining room, a kitchen, scullery and pantry on the ground floor, and two bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor. There were two further bedrooms on the second floor. Historic photographs confirm that the first-floor balcony in the SE corner was originally open to the exterior with a timber balustrade with shaped, splat balusters. The plan shows it was glazed to the inside, overlooking the hall.

An original plan and elevations for the separate stable block survives signed by Barry Parker. It shows a single-storey stable with a ridge louvre to the left with the stable door on the S side. The two-storey coach house is shown with large, S-facing, timber double doors. The first-floor hay loft has timber studwork, a pitching door with decorative, iron hinges and a louvre over. At the E end a deep, cat-slide roof covered a small, single-storey coal shed with an earth closet on the N side. There appears to have been an intention to link the two latter to the back door in the W elevation of the house by a narrow, walled yard. It is unclear whether the yard was built.

The house was designed set back and looking away from the road to take advantage of the view of the Peak District to the E, framed by Manchester on the left and Kinder Scout on the right. The separate stable and coach house block was brought forward to flank the frontage. The 1901 publication also stated that architects must not allow trivial conventions ‘like the old commonly accepted idea that the front of the house should be to the road, to betray us into sacrificing solid advantages as sunshine and a pleasant view’. This layout can be seen on the 1:10560 OS map revised in 1907 and published in 1911. The rectangular house is set towards the centre of the plot with a narrow, rectangular stable and coach house building abutting the N boundary and close to the road.

The 1:10560 OS map revised in 1917-18 and published in 1923 shows that by this time the flat-roofed porch had been built against the W side of the house. A small garden building had also been built in the NE corner of the plot (no longer extant). By the time the 1:2500 OS map had been published in 1934 the property had its present footprint. A small extension had been built wrapping round the NW corner of the house. The W side of the narrow stable building had also been widened on its S side. This suggests that the original stable was largely rebuilt in the inter-war period to provide a motor house. It is not known whether Parker undertook the conversion; he had designed electric light fittings for the house for Macnair in 1906. The coach house was later converted to domestic accommodation. The appearance of the W boundary wall facing the road suggests that it was built or altered in several phases. The 1934 OS map also shows only the northern of the two semi-circular planters flanking the drive; it is likely that the decorative gate piers of the widened entrance for the motor house are later additions dating from this alteration.

There have been a number of later alterations to the main house, most notable of which externally is the glazing in of the balcony. It is not known when this occurred, but it is not a recent alteration. The original leaded glazing has also been replaced, though the metal frames largely survive. An historic photograph confirms that a glazed doorway is a later incorporation into the great E window, which has also been re-glazed. Internally, the original kitchen, scullery and pantry have been combined into a single space; the NW bedroom on the first floor is presently sub-divided into two small rooms; the original divisions in the bathroom of WC, basin, and bath have been removed and the doorway off the hall landing blocked. The pipe organ on the organ gallery has been removed. The extensive woodwork in the house was stained dark green, but much has been stripped back to the original wood.

At an unknown date part of the small room on the E side of the former coach house has been raised to two storeys to provide a first-floor bathroom for the domestic accommodation.

The northern gate pier flanking the drive and the left-hand gate of a timber, double gate incorporating pierced splat balusters in the stylistic manner of the original house, were not present at the time of inspection.

Barry Parker was articled to George Faulkner Armitage of Altrincham between 1889 and 1892. Subsequently he returned to Buxton in 1894 and designed three houses for his father, a bank manager. He then commenced independent practice in 1895 and his commissions included individual middle-class houses, often with fittings and furniture, the influence of C F A Voysey and M H Baillie clearly evident. Parker's adherence to an Arts and Crafts idiom in his designs is shown through his use of local, vernacular materials, building characteristics and traditional details as well as interior detailing, such as hand-crafted fixtures and fittings and architraves using the stylised, artisan rendering of classical architrave designs from the late C18 and early C19 using reeding or fluting and paterae corner blocks.

In 1896 Parker went into partnership with his brother-in-law, Raymond Unwin, who was married to his elder sister Ethel. Unwin wished to design working-class housing and subsequently Parker and Unwin became renowned for their garden suburb and garden city designs such as New Earswick, N of York, built from 1902 for Rowntree’s Cocoa Company, Letchworth Garden City from 1903, and Hampstead Garden Suburb from 1906. The partnership was dissolved in 1914 when Unwin joined the Local Government Board and Parker again pursued an independent career. He went on to design inter-war housing for New Earswick, council housing for a number of towns, followed by a planning consultancy for Wythenshawe, the garden satellite of Manchester (1927-41). He also wrote and published extensively on house design. Barry Parker has many listed buildings to his name, both larger, middle-class houses and the working-class housing he designed with Unwin.

Reasons for Listing

The Shanty, 135 Church Lane, Marple, of 1895-96 by Barry Parker for industrial chemist Andrew Macnair, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architect: designed by Barry Parker, a well-regarded Arts and Crafts architect who is best known for his partnership with his brother-in-law, Raymond Unwin, and their pioneering development of the Garden City movement;

* Architectural interest: as an early example of Parker’s designs for middle-class houses which already shows both his Arts and Crafts credentials in the careful use of local materials and forms, such as a reinterpretation of a Lake District spinning gallery, and his particular approach to house design, notably his use of double-height medieval-style halls and his designing of the full range of interior fittings;

* Context: The Shanty is set back from the road with a layout which maximises the dramatic, panoramic spread of the Peak District hills to the east, clearly illustrating Parker’s advocacy of designing houses to take advantage of their setting rather than adhering to the convention of facing the street frontage;

* Plan form: a clear illustration of Parker’s individual approach to the internal layout of his middle-class houses and his first use of an open hall as the main living room, incorporating an inglenook, and first-floor galleries with balconies reached by a quarter-turn stair;

* Interior: many high-quality original features designed by Parker survive, including the posts, rails and curved braces of the timber-work in the hall with splat balusters to the staircase and balustrades, beaten-copper hood to the inglenook fireplace and beaten-copper surround to the first-floor hall fireplace, timber fire surrounds to the first-floor bedrooms, built-in window seats, cupboards, bookcases, fixed settles, architraves and doors, many with decorative ironwork hinges;

* Related buildings: the main house benefits from the survival of the former coach house which formed part of Parker’s original design, with an attached inter-war garage, superseding the original stable, carefully designed to complement the pre-existing buildings and retaining a good-quality interior being fully tiled with an inspection pit.

External Links

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