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| Park Green House | The War Memorial | |
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| Park Green showing Frost's Chapel | Park Green showing Park Green Mill |
Park Green House, for many years the surgery of a group of general practitioners, is a late 18th century house with a Venetian window overlooking Sunderland Street. At the far end of Park Green is the mill of W. Frost and sons, with 13 bays across and four storeys. The war memorial was designed by J. Millard in 1921.
To the right of the War Memorial is Park Green Mill built in 1785 to utilise the power of the river Bolliin which runs behind it. To the left is Chapel Mill, formerly Frost's Chapel, which began in 1858 but became a mill in 1940.
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| St. Paul's from corner of Brook Street and Green Street | Silk weavers' houses in Paradise Street, 10 Feb 2005 | |
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| St. Peter's, Windmill Street | All Saints, Brough Street |
St. Paul's was built 1843-4 as part of a government scheme to build churches in the new urban areas. They are known as Commissioners' Churches or Waterloo Churches. There was a grant of £1,000 to the total cost of £5,400. The earliest Commissioners' churches were fully funded but this led to some extravagance and excess. The rules were changed so that the local community had to raise part of the money and the grant would not cover a tower. St. Paul's is built of stone from Kerridge.
There are several examples of houses of this type in Macclesfield, Leek in Staffordshire and Cromford in Derbyshire. They have an upper storey with large windows to give good light for fine work. These cottages in Paradise Street near the centre of the town are a particularly fine example. They were built in 1826-7. They were last used by weavers in the 1930s.
The church was built in 1849 but the tower was not completed until 1910. The church is undergoing restoration at the moment (June 2005).
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| St. Peter's War Memorial Hall, Windmill Street | Former Technical School | |
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| The Chadwick Library | Macclesfield School of Art, 1877 |
On the west side of the bottom end of Mill Street is a comples of buildings connected with education. At the extreme left, in red brick, is the former Macclesfield Useful Knowledge Society (not shown in my pictures). Until 1817 this Georgian building was the vicarage for St. Michael's. Hence the old name of Parsonage Green for the adjacent area. The building was purchased in 1850 by the Macclesfield Useful Knowledge Society. This society was an offshoot of the Roe Street Sunday School. Two years later, the art department became the School of Design and in 1880 it was used in part as premises for the newly formed Girls' High School. In 1891, The Society for Useful Knowledge spawned the Technical School (later to become the Technical College). This school rented rooms from the Society but in 1895 government funds enabled it to purchase the premises from the Society for Useful Knowledge with which it amalgamated in 1896. Subsequently the Techical College became part of Macclesfield College of Further Education.
Immediately next to the Macclesfield Useful Knowledge Society is the stone extension for the Macclesfield Technical School, built in 1899. It is now 'The Society Rooms'. To the right is the Chadwick Free Library, built in 1874-6 as a gift from David Chadwick, MP for Macclesfield. It was designed by James Stevens. The library was closed in 1994 when larger premises were obtained in Jordan Gate. The building is now the Registry Office. Round to the right of the library, in Park Lane, is the former Macclesfield School of Art, built in 1877. It became Macclesfield College of Further Education. When the college concentrated on its newer premises at the top of Park Lane the building became the Silk Musuem, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Sources:
108 Steps around Macclesfield, a walkers guide, by Andrew Wild, Sigma Press,
1994
Streets and Houses of Old Macclesfield, by John Earles,
published in 1915 and reprinted in a limited edition of 750 copies by MTD Rigg
Publications in 1990
The Buildings of England, Cheshire, by Nikolaus Pevsner and Edward Hubbard,
Yale University Press, 2003, ISBN 0 300 09588 0
Macclesfield
Page 1: Town Centre
Macclesfield Page 2: Town Centre
Macclesfield Page 3:
Halls
Macclesfield Page 4: The
Canal
Macclesfield Page 5:
Christ Church
Macclesfield Page 6:
St. Michael's, the Exterior & Nave
Macclesfield Page 7:
St. Michael's the Savage Chapel
Macclesfield Page 8: Nonconformist
Chapels
Macclesfield
Page 9: Some Macclesfield Mills
