Friday, 31 May 2013
Friday, 24 May 2013
Oakwood Hall - A Gothic Tudor manor like something out of a ghost story by Emily Bronte
Today, the weather being awful I decided to take a short walk through Romiley to Chadkirk a picturesque hamlet on south side of the Ashton Canal. Being battered and blown buy a low depression, I took the wood path back to Romiley from the main fields in chadkirk.
I stopped to take a breather at the top of a steep wooded path and noticed a gap in the fence onto a high field overlooking the hamlet.
Bearing in mind, the atmosphere was fairly tumultuous, with the tops of the trees thrashing hysterically and a loud roar whistling through the straining branches, I was suddenly startled by the sight of a abandoned mansion. A more eerily placed abode could not be fashioned if one set about to build a set for a remake of a Henry Miller novel or Emily Bronte's Gothic masterpiece Wuthering Heights.
Indeed, the Gothic pile was built the year Emily penned her Novel in a style Emily would have been familiar described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as
Maybe it was the weather,or the fact I'd snuck through a gaping hole in a hedge, or the fact the place was utterly deserted, but on first viewing I definitely got sense of unease. Although, it has recently been renovated there is a shabby air of neglect about the place like some terrible history was about to reveal itself. A once ornate looking tree had collapsed in on itself and the windows shimmered as if at any minute a shrunken face would appear appealing to the frightened onlooker to understand the dark secret they taken to the grave.
What a terrible location for a house I thought, unless you were a recluse or wanted to conduct some nefarious deed away from inquisition, why would you want to live here? To begin with, to get here, you have to pass through Romiley Board Mill - a more 'time travel back to the industrial revolution' experience you cannot have in 2013, and then you must travel the long overgrown drive to the house. You can imagine at night creeping through the driveway, the victims of industrial accidents, haunting every bush, lit up in the headlamps of the car.
It's yours apparently, for 1.8 million. The foliage is overgrown and overshadowing, making the lawn seem tiny and then there is the tower, what horrors must have happened up there? Despite the renovation it still has the feel of the religious retreat or the children's home it once was. I can't imagine anyone wanting to live here.
I had to get out of there, I felt like I was being watched, I stumbled, got stung, snagged, fell into a tractor tire print. My head was filled with the imaginings of the empty rooms in the house, so quiet as if I was haunting it in future times. Perhaps, many years from now, someone from the tower room, will look out and see a man scrambling into the hedge, dressed in odd clothes, disappearing completely.
I stopped to take a breather at the top of a steep wooded path and noticed a gap in the fence onto a high field overlooking the hamlet.
Bearing in mind, the atmosphere was fairly tumultuous, with the tops of the trees thrashing hysterically and a loud roar whistling through the straining branches, I was suddenly startled by the sight of a abandoned mansion. A more eerily placed abode could not be fashioned if one set about to build a set for a remake of a Henry Miller novel or Emily Bronte's Gothic masterpiece Wuthering Heights.
Indeed, the Gothic pile was built the year Emily penned her Novel in a style Emily would have been familiar described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as
'Stone Tudor Gothic building by Henry Walters of Manchester 1844-45 for Ormerod Hayworth. His mill was built in 1833-37, it was a cotton gassing mill'.
Maybe it was the weather,or the fact I'd snuck through a gaping hole in a hedge, or the fact the place was utterly deserted, but on first viewing I definitely got sense of unease. Although, it has recently been renovated there is a shabby air of neglect about the place like some terrible history was about to reveal itself. A once ornate looking tree had collapsed in on itself and the windows shimmered as if at any minute a shrunken face would appear appealing to the frightened onlooker to understand the dark secret they taken to the grave.
What a terrible location for a house I thought, unless you were a recluse or wanted to conduct some nefarious deed away from inquisition, why would you want to live here? To begin with, to get here, you have to pass through Romiley Board Mill - a more 'time travel back to the industrial revolution' experience you cannot have in 2013, and then you must travel the long overgrown drive to the house. You can imagine at night creeping through the driveway, the victims of industrial accidents, haunting every bush, lit up in the headlamps of the car.
It's yours apparently, for 1.8 million. The foliage is overgrown and overshadowing, making the lawn seem tiny and then there is the tower, what horrors must have happened up there? Despite the renovation it still has the feel of the religious retreat or the children's home it once was. I can't imagine anyone wanting to live here.
I had to get out of there, I felt like I was being watched, I stumbled, got stung, snagged, fell into a tractor tire print. My head was filled with the imaginings of the empty rooms in the house, so quiet as if I was haunting it in future times. Perhaps, many years from now, someone from the tower room, will look out and see a man scrambling into the hedge, dressed in odd clothes, disappearing completely.
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