Honresfeld, Halifax Road, Littleborough

Designed in 1873 for local mill owners Alfred and William Law, and built by Dove Bros of Islington for a cost of just over £5,000. The name of the house is a variant of ‘Hundersfield’, an old name for the district. Both the Laws were bachelors and after their deaths the property passed to a nephew, Sir Alfred J Law, who served terms as MP for Rochdale and High Peak. In the 1950s it was turned into a Leonard Cheshire Care Home, and it stayed with that organisation until 2016, when it became vacant. The house is locally listed but was not considered significant enough for national listing by Historic England.  Why Ferrey was chosen as the architect is not known. He did very little work in the North of England, and the nearest similar building is Chase Cliffe House at Crich in Derbyshire, built in 1859 for the three sisters of Francis Hurt, MP for South Derbyshire. [RF]