Watling Gate Leys Road Timperley Park
Watling Gate was built in 1904 by Lt Col Charles Edward Newton for his own use. Main Contractor Robert Carlyle of Manchester. Cost £2500. The Colonel drew up his own plans after visiting and photographing many Cheshire halls before designing the house. (Letter from Frank Bell, Parish Clerk of Timperley to WG Bosworth, Chief Librarian of Altrincham dated 27 July 1939). It stood in a 25 acre estate called Timperley Park but most of the land was sold for housing development in the 1920s, with only the house and a small plot of land surrounding it being retained by the family.
Recent Designs in Domestic Architecture - "Watling Gate", Timperley, Cheshire, is built in a rural setting, immediately to the south of that portion of the famous Roman highway, the Watling Street. Simplicity is the keynote to the design, and homely comfort with an entire absence of bijou residence "prettiness" has been the aim of the architects from first to last. Based upon the general lines suggested by many an old Cheshire homestead, the plain colour wash of the walls, and the soft toned, grey flag slates of the roof combine to produce a home which harmonises admirably with its landscape environment. A conspicuous feature of the interior is the large hall or "house place", with its open timber roof and cosy chimney corner. The withdrawing room opens out of this chamber on the same level, and the dining room is also reached by a set of some five or six steps down, with the kitchen offices on the same level. The main staircase heads up to the bedchamber gallery, bounding two sides of the hall and only 6 feet above floor level. The illustration of the hall on page 136 gives a very fair idea of the ample proportions and homely character of this interior. Another feature of the house is a large roof garden or sun bath, approached only by a staircase from the bathroom. The architects, Messrs Newton and Bayley, of Manchester, have, in this as in other country homes designed by them in Cheshire and Oxfordshire, studiously avoided the importation of outside materials, and relied entirely on local materials and, as already mentioned, they have, as regards design, made a point of following local tradition. [The Studio 5 March 1910]
LISTING TEXT House.c.1910. By Newton and Bayley. Brick with stone slate roof. C17‑style.Hall‑House plan with screens passage, central house‑part open to the roof, 2‑storey cross‑wings on either side that to the left projecting at front and rear, and a single‑storey wing at rear. Single‑storey lean‑to canopy on timber posts to entire front elevation. Four two-light casement windows to gabled cross-wing. Two five-light timber mullion and transom windows to house‑part, that to the upper level being a dormer window. 3‑light mullion and transom window to right hand bay with 5‑light dormer window. Stone capped chimney stacks, that to the crossing with 4 diagonally set shafts in a cross formation. Interior: panelled passage and house‑part. Gallery to two sides of house‑part reached by staircase with splat balusters. Inglenook fireplace with gallery above. 3 exposed queen‑post trusses and exposed joists etc. An interesting and complete example of the local vernacular revival
Shortly after the township of Timperley amalgamated with Altrincham Urban District Council, Lt Col CE Newton, the last male member of the family, bequeathed the house and land to the newly‑created Altrincham Borough Council, In 1938, following his death, the Borough Council resolved to use the house as a public art gallery and museum with separate, self‑contained living accommodation units for the use of the chief librarian and a resident caretaker, and also to develop the grounds as a public park, to be called Newton Park. Following internal alterations, the art collection and museum exhibits from the old Altrincham Urban District Council were transferred from Altrincham and housed, together with the Newton Collection of museum exhibits, in the new Watling Gate Art Gallery and Museum. The building was officially opened on 23rd August 1939, by the Mayor of the new borough, Alderman W Waterhouse.
ALTRINCHAM'S NEW PUBLIC ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM - Watling Gate is in Leys Road, Timperley and was left to the town by the late Lt. Col. Charles Edward Newton who in 1923 gave over £1000 towards the cost of library extensions and in 1936 gave the town its first permanent art gallery. Colonel Newton also gave the land in Timperley now known as Newton Park, and in many other ways helped to provide constructive pleasures for a rapidly growing population. Not the least of the additions he made in the district was the house itself, which lies only a couple of hundred yards from the line of Watling Street. Col. Newton designed it himself, and it was built in 1904, after he had visited many Cheshire mansions gathering ideas and impressions for a home which was to be representative of the County's distinctive domestic architecture. It is a low building surrounded by lawns and gardens, roofed with thick creamy stone and colour washed in a rich comfortable shade. The grounds contain a lily pond and a large vegetable patch which is to be laid out soon as an 'old English' garden. The panelled rooms radiate from a large lofty hall or 'house part' with a gallery running round it and so far as possible they are being left in their original state. [Altrincham and Bowden Guardian, 20th August, 1939]
The art gallery is included the original drawings Roger Oldham used to illustrate T.A. Coward's Picturesque Cheshire