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ABSTRACT
The architects Stott & Sons were responsible for the works of the Linotype Company at Broadheath near Altrincham, Cheshire, in 1896–9. A housing estate was developed in association with the works from 1897. This was laid out on the lines of later garden suburb planning with curving roads and short terraces, providing superior housing for the workforce. The houses, in four types of varying size and rental value, are of picturesque cottage style of somewhat eccentric appearance. Census records show that occupancy of the types of houses depended more on family size and the number of wage earners rather than place in the works’ hierarchy. There was mildly paternalistic thinking behind the estate, but provision was also influenced by commercial motives and a lack of existing housing. A second stage of housing was designed by the company's own drawing office following disagreements with Stott & Sons. The estate was never completed to its originally intended size, although it survives largely intact and is now a conservation area.
Acknowledgements
In addition to the acknowledgements made in Part 1 of this paper, the author is grateful to Hazel Pryor of the Altrincham History Society who arranged for Jill Groves, their publications officer, to supply a copy of the report by Graham Colledge and who also put me in contact with Graham Colledge who helped with a number of questions. Again, all unacknowledged illustrations are by the author.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Roger N. Holden, ‘The Work of Stott & Sons for the Linotype Company at Altrincham: 1 The Works’, Industrial Archaeology Review 44, no. 1 (2022): 2–18. See and for location and overall site plans.
2 Clare Hartwell, Matthew Hyde, Edward Hubbard and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Cheshire (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011), 102; Michael Nevell, The Archaeology of Trafford (Stretford: Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council, 1997), 130.
3 Gillian Darley, Villages of Vision (London: Granada, 1978); Mervyn Miller, English Garden Cities: An Introduction (Swindon: English Heritage, 2010). No contemporary references can be located in The Builder or Building News.
4 Science and Industry Museum, Manchester (SIM), YA1997.20/2/1/1, Linotype Co. Ltd, Directors’ Minute Book, 8 December 1896–18 May 1903, 115–16 (interleaved).
5 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 187–8 (interleaved).
6 Graham L. Colledge, ‘Development of the Linotype Estate, Altrincham, 1896 to 1932’ (unpublished report, May 2016, copy held by Altrincham Local History Society); Graham L. Colledge, ‘Development of the Linotype Estate, Broadheath 1896–1932’, Altrincham History Society Journal 36 (2016): 18–20.
7 Michael Nevell, ‘Legislation and Reality: The Archaeological Evidence for Sanitation and Housing Quality in Urban Workers’ Housing in the Ancoats Area of Manchester Between 1800 and 1950’, Industrial Archaeology Review 36, no. 1 (2014): 48–74; Michael Nevell, ‘Excavating “Hell Upon Earth” Towards a Research Framework for the Archaeological Investigation of Workers’ Housing: Case Studies from Manchester, UK’, Industrial Archaeology Review 39, no. 2 (2017): 48–74; Rosemary Banens, ‘Workers’ Housing at the Former BBC Site in Chorlton-upon-Medlock, Manchester’, Industrial Archaeology Review 43, no. 2 (2021): 95–113.
8 Geoffrey Timmins, ‘Housing Quality in Rural Textile Colonies, c. 1800-c. 1850: The Ashworth Settlements Revisited’, Industrial Archaeology Review 22, no. 1 (2000): 21–37; Geoffrey Timmins, ‘Housing Industrial Workers During the 19th Century: Back-to-Back Housing in Textile Lancashire’, Industrial Archaeology Review 35, no. 2 (2013): 111–27.
9 Joanne Harrison, ‘The Origin, Development and Decline of Back-to-Back Houses in Leeds, 1787–1937’, Industrial Archaeology Review 39, no. 2 (2017): 101–16.
10 John McGuinness, ‘The Technology and Construction of Houses Built for the Munition Workers of the First World War’, Industrial Archaeology Review 43, no. 2 (2021): 147–60.
11 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 11–12.
12 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 34.
13 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 49.
14 SIM YA2014.3001/860, Cottages with One Living Room, Stott & Sons drawing no. 14620 (Type 1 houses); SIM YA2014.3001/859, Medium and Smaller Cottages, Stott & Sons drawing no. 14543, February 1897 (Type 2 and 3 houses); YA2014.3001/853, Larger Cottages, Stott & Sons drawing no. 14544, February 1897 (Type 4 houses).
15 SIM YA2014.3001/851, Semi-detached Dwellings, Stott & Sons drawing no. 14542, February 1897.
16 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 61–2.
17 Here the houses in the first part of the estate are referred to as types 1 to 4, and in the second part of the estate as types 5 & 6. Sometimes these are referred to as ‘patterns’ or ‘styles’ rather than types. SIM YA2014.3001/848, Plan of Estate, 14/9/1964, refers to types 1 to 6 as Type A, Type B Smaller, Type B Medium, Type C, Type D and Type E respectively. These designations have been added to some of the original plans.
18 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 71.
19 Linotype and Machinery Limited, Works and Industry of Linotype and Machinery Limited (n.d., c. 1906), 21.
20 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 91, 94.
21 Holden, ‘Linotype 1: The Works’; SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 126–7.
22 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 67, 98.
23 Colledge, Linotype Estate, . No explanation can be given for the curious numbering of Lawrence Road and Lock Road with the numbers on Lawrence Road starting at 21 and on Lock Road at 30.
24 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 208–9.
25 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 292.
26 SIM, YA1997.20/5/1/1/1/1/1 Linotype and Machinery Ltd, Directors' Minute Book, 1903–10, 157.
27 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 242.
28 Colledge, Linotype Estate, Table 3.
29 Holden, ‘Linotype Company: 1 The Works’, .
30 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 251, 319.
31 SIM, YA1997.20/5/1/1/1/1/3, Linotype and Machinery Ltd, Directors' Minute Book, 1916–23, 176–7.
32 SIM, YA2014.3001/826, Housing Scheme Proposed Layout No. 2, 30 July 1920. This is the sole available plan; there is no Layout No. 1.
33 Holden, ‘Linotype Company: 1 The Works’, .
34 Colledge, Linotype Estate, 8.1.
35 Colledge, Linotype Estate, 9.2. The houses retained were presumably 71 and 73 Woodfield Road, on the corner of Weldon Road (SIM, YA2014.3001/848).
36 SIM, YA2014.3001/862, Plan of Estate. This plan has Stott & Sons Drawing Number 15511. The house drawings dated February 1897 have drawing numbers 14542–4, the one dated 10 April 1897 has number 14620.
37 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 136.
38 SIM, YA1997.20/2/1/1, 108.
39 Don Bayliss, ed., Altrincham: A History (Altrincham: Willow Publishing, 1992), 68.
40 SIM, YA2014.3001/861, Estate Boundary Plan, 6 July 1898.
41 SIM, YA2014.3001/862.
42 SIM YA2014.3001/849, Plan of Broadheath Estate, traced 24 March 1905, from litho copy with additions. This is evidently derived from SIM YA2014.3001/862, which does not show these road junctions.
43 Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council, Linotype Estate Conservation Area — Supplementary Planning Document SPD5.7: Conservation Area Appraisal (March 2016), 32–3, treats them all as being of one style, which they label Style 1. Possibly the compilers did not realise that there were three variations or they may have felt that the differences were not great enough to treat them separately. For this reason, and also because non-company-built houses on Weldon Road are included, the Style numbers used in the Conservation Area Appraisal do not relate to the type numbers used here; type 1 houses are labelled as Style 5 (p. 37).
44 Ron Brunskill, Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture (London: Faber & Faber, 2nd edn, 1978), 22–4.
45 Stefan Muthesius in the Foreword to Helen Long, The Edwardian House (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), xiii.
46 For a recent discussion of working-class housing in Victorian Lancashire see Geoff Timmins, ‘Bettering the Lot of the Masses? Working-Class Housing in Victorian Lancashire’, in Working-Class Housing: Improvement and Technology, ed. P.S. Barnwell and Marilyn Palmer (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2019), 29–45.
47 The terminology and typology used in describing these houses is taken from Stefan Muthesius, The English Terraced House (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 86–100.
48 Muthesius, English Terraced House, 46.
49 Trafford MBC, Conservation Area Appraisal, 58.
50 Muthesius, English Terraced House, 54 has a photograph of this typical arrangement.
51 The plans for the type 2 and 3 houses use the term ‘pantry’ rather than ‘larder’ as used for the type 1 and 4 houses. Although formally there may be a difference between the two, this difference in terminology seems to be arbitrary and of no significance in this case.
52 This decoration must have been added later since a photograph of 1899 shows the houses without, but it does appear in a later photograph. Linotype Company, The Linotype Company's Works, Broadheath, near Manchester: Souvenir of the Inauguration on Friday, the 14th July, 1899 (1899), 11; Linotype and Machinery Limited, Works and Industry of Linotype and Machinery Limited (n.d., c. 1906), 21.
53 Neil Jackson, Jo Lintonbon and Bryony Staples, Saltaire, the Making of a Model Town (Reading: Spire Books, 2010), 72–96, 186.
54 One of the Type 5 houses on Lock Road had 13 occupants on the day of the census, but four of these are given as visitors.
55 SIM, YA2014.3001/850. Linotype Co. Ltd, Proposed Dining Rooms and Club House, Stott & Sons drawing no. 14546, n.d. [1897].
56 The drawing for the Dining Rooms and Club House (SIM, YA2014.3001/850) carries number 14546, the drawing for the semi-detached houses (SIM, YA2014.3001/853) carries number 14544 and is dated February 1897.
57 Trafford MBC, Conservation Area Appraisal, 38–9 designates these as style nos 6 and 7 respectively.
58 SIM, YA2014.3001/857, Plan of Cottages — style no. 5; YA2014.3001/858, Plan of Cottages – style no. 6.
59 Muthesius, English Terrace House, does not use the term tunnel-backs.
60 On the drawings (SIM, YA2014.3001/858), the cross-section in fact shows this room as a bathroom, while the plan shows the bathroom in the rear extension. A later drawing (SIM, YA2014.3001/848) confirms that they were built as on the plan with the front room as a small bedroom.
61 Edward Hubbard and Michael Shippobottom, A Guide to Port Sunlight Village (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2nd edn, 2005), 15; 1:2,500 Ordnance Survey Cheshire sheet 13.16, 2nd edn, 1899 (surveyed 1897).
62 Miller, English Garden Cities, 3, 18.
63 Michael Harrison, Bournville: Model Village to Garden Suburb (Chichester: Phillimore, 1999), 42.
64 Lucy Caffyn, Workers’ Housing in West Yorkshire, 1750–1920 (London: HMSO, 1986), 120–6. The New Crofton estate has since been demolished.
65 Tony Crosby, Adam Garwood and Adrian Corder-Birch, ‘Workers’ Housing in Essex’, Industrial Archaeology Review 30, no. 2 (2008): 101–25.
66 Hubbard and Shippobottom, Port Sunlight, 33–5.
67 Muthesius, English Terraced House, 99.
68 Trafford MBC, Conservation Area Appraisal, 42.
69 Kathryn A. Morrison and John Minnis, Carscapes: The Motor Car, Architecture and Landscape in England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), 327–8.
70 SIM, YA2014.3001/848.
71 SIM, YA2014.3001/848.
72 Trafford MBC, Conservation Area Appraisal, 10–12.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Roger N. Holden
Roger Holden is an independent researcher, a member of the Association for Industrial Archaeology and the Newcomen Society, with an interest in the Lancashire cotton industry on which he has published a number of books and papers in relevant journals. His first book was about Stott & Sons, the Oldham mill architects, which originated as an MPhil thesis, and his most recent was Manufacturing the Cloth of the World: Weaving Mills in Lancashire, published in 2017. Correspondence to: Roger N. Holden, 35 Victoria Road, Stockport SK1 4AT, UK. Email: [email protected]