Former Parsonage Sylvan Grove Altrincham
When Dunkerley’s father died in 1898, he left £500 in his will for the building of a minister’s house for the Unitarian church on Dunham Road in Altrincham and specified that his son Frank be appointed the architect. The family contributed another £500 and the house was built the following year opposite the church at the end of Sylvan Grove. It is a substantial building and shows the influence of the Chester architect John Douglas, to whom Dunkerley had been articled. The minister now lives in a more modest house nearby, and the parsonage is let out. Pevsner offers the opinion that the large schoolhouse alongside the church could also have been designed by Dunkerley, but church documents give it a date which precedes the start of his career. [RF]
Reference Information from Richard Fletcher 22 October 2016