In the February 6, 1926 edition of Country Life, an architectural writer was mourning to loss of yet another country home: ‘Manchester has lost Agecroft, just as London is losing Waterloo Bridge, because of the apathy of the great mass of inhabitants, who, in plain words, do not deserve fine buildings’.
The striking traditional timber hall, built in the era of Henry VII, had been photographed for the magazine in 1902 by its original photographer, Charles Latham, himself an aged and somewhat gnarly Lancastrian by all accounts.
By the mid 1920s, Agecroft Hall was in a perilously similar state to London's Waterloo Bridge — which shut in 1924 and was later demolished and rebuilt.
His beautiful photographs of the hall — shown here — capture an already-lost era of wood paneling, carved furniture and creaking beams, which, by the 20th century, stood incongruously in the shadow of the rapidly expanding industrial heartland of Manchester.
The accompanying text tries to cover over the inevitable fate of the beautiful black and white house, talking of ‘dead oaks, which have been killed, it is said, by smoke and fumes’, and how fortunate it is that a close by pond has been: ‘formed by the sinking of the ground, owing to coal mines below’. It all sounds rather Monty Python: ‘just a flesh wound’.
The family held on to their ancestral home as long as they could, but by 1925 the writing was firmly on the decaying walls. The house was sold, but for once at least, not completely destroyed. Dismantled piece by piece, Agecroft Hall was shipped to the USA for one Thomas C. Williams, who used the fabric to create his own, scaled down, steel framed version of the property, complete with 20th century conveniences such as garages and bathrooms.
Williams’s re-imagination of Agecroft still stands to this day in Richmond, Virginia, where it serves its new community as a museum and gardens.
The Country Life Image Archive contains more than 150,000 images documenting British culture and heritage, from 1897 to the present day. An additional 50,000 assets from the historic archive are scheduled to be added this year — with completion expected in Summer 2025. To search and purchase images directly from the Image Archive, please register here.
Williams’s re-imagination of Agecroft still stands to this day in Richmond, Virginia, where it serves its new community as a museum and gardens.
The Country Life Image Archive contains more than 150,000 images documenting British culture and heritage, from 1897 to the present day. An additional 50,000 assets from the historic archive are scheduled to be added this year — with completion expected in Summer 2025. To search and purchase images directly from the Image Archive, please register here.
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