Aston’s architectural history can be read in its buildings: masonry, roof shapes and changing uses give each historic building its own character. The dates range from the late 16th century to Aston Lodge, built in 1824. Anyone interested in architecture can compare individual building phases and materials.
Building Features and Phases
The dovecote on the site of Aston Old Hall dates from 1691. It is made of brown brick laid in Flemish bond on a sandstone plinth and contains more than 800 nesting boxes. The description of this building combines a precise construction date with specific details about its brick bond, materials and size.
St Peter’s Church in Aston by Sutton offers a different point of comparison: its chancel dates from around 1695, while the nave was completed in 1736. The church is Grade I listed. The chancel’s date is approximate, whereas the nave has a stated year of completion—two different ways of placing a building’s history in time.
Aston Lodge is a house built in 1824, made of brown brick laid in English garden wall bond. Its hipped roof is made of slate and wraps around a flat-roofed section covered in lead. Here, both the materials and the shape of the roof are distinctive architectural details.
The Top Lodge of the former Aston Hall is a gatehouse attributed to Samuel Wyatt. It is dated to the 1790s, while also appearing to be a building from the early 19th century. These details should be read together: the recorded date sits alongside a different assessment of the building’s appearance. The gates, plinths and railings at the Top Lodge include seven sandstone piers, as well as wrought-iron gates and railings.
Former and present-day uses are also part of this architectural history. The former wing of Aston Old Hall is an altered building from the late 16th century; it is now used as a gamekeeper’s house and store. There are signs of an oak timber-frame structure beneath the render. Bankfield Farm was a farmhouse dating from the late 16th or early 17th century and is now divided into two dwellings. South of Aston Lodge stands a listed red sandstone well, probably dating from around 1800.
Landscape History and the Weaver Navigation
Another historical thread leads to Humphry Repton: around 1793, Col. Henry Hervey commissioned him to create one of his famous Red Books at Aston in Aston by Sutton. The area around Aston is also home to the south portal of the Preston Brook Tunnel, built around 1777 by James Brindley. These two points offer different perspectives on landscape and engineering history, without implying that they form a single route.
A historical walk explored the history and sights of the Weaver Navigation. During a landscape day in 2014, an approximately four-mile, easy walk led from St Peter’s Church in Aston by Sutton into the Weaver Valley. The walk was part of a historical event in 2014; check the route described locally if you wish to follow it.
Discover more destinations: Tattenhall, Alderley Edge, Wilmslow, Warmingham, Tarvin, Winsford, Cuddington, Whitby.
For the broader travel overview: Cheshire.
