Aston: Historic Architecture in Detail

Anyone looking for a hotel in Aston and choosing the destination for its architectural history will find a range of historic features here: religious architecture, residential and agricultural buildings, and traces of landscape and engineering history. The architectural forms and dates range from the late 16th century to the early 19th century. This makes it possible to understand the history of the area through specific details, rather than reducing it to a single architectural style.

Dovecote and Aston Old Hall

The dovecote at the site of Aston Old Hall dates from 1691. It is made of brown brickwork in Flemish bond on a sandstone plinth and contains more than 800 nesting boxes. Here, a precisely dated architectural form meets an unusually large interior structure. The former wing of Aston Old Hall tells a different architectural story: the altered building dates from the late 16th century and is now used as a gamekeeper’s house and storage space. There are signs of an oak timber frame beneath the plaster. Together, the two buildings show how varied the surviving structures and uses at this site are.

Church, House and Gatehouse

St Peter’s Church in Aston by Sutton is listed as a Grade I church. Its chancel dates from around 1695, while the nave was completed in 1736. The two building phases give the church a different chronology from a building assigned a single date.

Aston Lodge was built in 1824. The house has brown brickwork in English garden-wall bond and a hipped slate roof. The roof is formed around a flat-roofed section covered in lead. At Top Lodge, the gatehouse of the former Aston Hall, the date and appearance do not quite belong to the same period: it is attributed to Samuel Wyatt and dated to the 1790s according to the information provided, yet it also looks like a building from the early 19th century. The gates, plinths and railings include seven sandstone piers, as well as wrought-iron gates and railings.

Further Architectural Details

The listed well south of Aston Lodge is made of red sandstone and probably dates from around 1800. Its approximate date is important: it places the well in time without claiming an exact year of construction. Bankfield Farm adds another type of building to the picture. The former farmhouse dates from the late 16th or early 17th century and is now divided into two flats. The former farmhouse, gatehouse and church therefore represent distinctly different functions and forms of architecture.

Landscape History and Engineering Structures

Around 1793, Col. Henry Hervey commissioned Humphry Repton to produce one of his famous Red Books in Aston by Sutton. This commission adds a landscape-history perspective to the architectural story. The south portal of the Preston Brook Tunnel is also located near Aston. This canal tunnel portal is attributed to James Brindley and was built around 1777. It offers a distinct perspective on architectural history: alongside the church, house and gatehouse, an engineering structure takes centre stage.

A documented historic walk during a landscape day in 2014 led from St Peter’s Church in Aston by Sutton into the Weaver Valley. The description at the time gives an approximate length of four miles and describes the walk as easy. If you would like to use this route as a guide, check the route details locally; the description refers to the landscape day at the time.

If historic architectural forms play a part in choosing your destination, Aston offers several different points of interest: from the brick bond and nesting boxes of the dovecote to the church’s building phases and the differing dating information for Top Lodge. For a trip that also takes in landscape or engineering history, Repton’s commission and the nearby tunnel portal offer further subjects to explore.

Discover more destinations: Wilmslow, Rowton, Handforth, Mobberley, Bollington, Nantwich, Cuddington, Ellesmere Port

For the broader travel overview: Cheshire.