Volunteers unearth 57 varieties of Listed buildings in Lymm

VOLUNTEERS from Lymm Heritage Centre have unearthed 57 varieties of Listed buildings in the village, which can now all be viewed via the Lymm Archive.

They include a former pigeon house in Millbank, a sandstone block by the fuel stop on Higher Lane and a cast-iron milepost on Booths Hill Road.

They all feature in Lymm Archive’s new collection of photographs, which aims to celebrate the village’s fifty-seven entries in the National Heritage List for England.

To view the collection, you need to open the website https://thelymmarchive.co.uk/ and find the icon “Listed Lymm”. From there, you can drill down through the different groupings or select the map and click on an icon. This will lead you to an image, a little information about the entry and a link to a fuller description on the Historic England website.

It’s just the latest project from the volunteer team at Lymm Heritage Centre.

Listing buildings and sites all have special architectural and historic interest. They are protected by laws that aim to ensure they can be handed on, essentially unchanged, to future generations.

Most of these sites, buildings and structures are private property that cannot be entered without the owner’s permission. The good news is that most can be easily seen from public roads or footpaths. For those that can’t…well, the Lymm Archive collection includes an image for you to look at.

Among the stars of the collection are, of course, Lymm Cross – the village’s only Grade 1 structure – and the complex of buildings and other features at Lymm Hall. This includes the moat, an icehouse, and two cockpits – places where people came to watch the cock fights and gamble on the outcome. And there are some you might not have thought of, like the waterpoint case by the canal at Agden or the modern house of a 20th century architect in Danebank Road.

Being listed doesn’t mean no change can take place. Buildings need to be maintained and adapted to meet modern needs. Changes are managed through the local planning system and in consultation with Historic England.

Equally, being listed doesn’t guarantee that the building will be maintained in pristine condition. For example, it is particularly difficult for a business to maintain a redundant building that happens to be listed. Heritage England maintains a Heritage at Risk Register. At present, none of the Lymm listings appear on it – but you may disagree.

The list can evolve and this is where you could play a part. Perhaps there’s a historic building or structure you think has been missed off the list; or perhaps a site that should be scheduled. What about the remains of the slitting mill for example which is considered to be the best-preserved site of its type in the country. The assessors will be looking for historic and architectural features of national importance, not necessarily that it is old and looks nice.

If you consider that the list should be changed by adding or removing an entry, or if you are concerned that a listed building is at risk, email [email protected]

Historic England has a scheme called “Enriching the List,” which invites members of the public to add to the information held about each entry. If you have any stories, photographs or information – about past occupiers for example – please contact the Heritage Centre. Who knows we may put it all together in a new book!

PICTURED: In essence a giant pair of semi-detached houses, Brookfield and Fourways, once the homes of John Crosfield and George B Dewhurst, were designed to look like one mansion, The building is just one of Lymm’s 57 listed buildings and sites.