The original Oak Bank House was built in a redundant quarry
by John Briar in 1854, a very large and imposing house. He established
a delightful landscape of fine trees around the house which is
his legacy to us today. The house was damaged by fire in 1905
and never fully repaired. It ceased to be occupied by 1935 and
it was demolished around the end of WWII. The Oak Bank site was
then used
for some years to store thousands of tons of Bollington's coal
supplies. After that ceased the site was locked up and forgotten
until 1983 by which time it had gone completely wild. Personal
reminiscences.
|
 Charles
Frederick Price and his family at the front door of
the house (left) probably c.1918. Charles
Price was the gardener. One would expect that his wife
was the housekeeper. They lived in the Lodge Cottage at
the bottom of the drive.
Notice the fine carved stonework in the door frame -
there is a suggestion in one paper I have seen that this
was the work of Alfred
Gatley, the famous Kerridge sculptor,
in which case its loss when the house was demolished
was indeed a great loss. |
|
  20A
Shrigley Road is the original Lodge Cottage (left) at the
end of what was then a private drive to Oak Bank House.
John Briar's JB monogram can be seen on the gable end (left
and right). The leftmost section of the cottage was added
in the 1980s very much in keeping with the original structure.
|
|
 The
Price family living at Oak Bank Lodge cottage (left), in
the 19thC, perhaps about 1870, when the children, some
of whom appear in the top picture, were young children.
Ten of them lived in this three bedroom cottage! Notice
the curved door to the right - it is still there today
visible in the picture above left, albeit rebuilt in modern
times.
|
Personal reminiscences
Your webmaster has lived at Oak Bank since 1984. I had
recognised it as an interesting location for a house but
had never ventured into the site until one day in 1983
when, for the first time since I had known the site, the
gates were open and there were signs of activity. I went
up and almost all of the site was overgrown to such an
extent that it was impossible to see out over the village!
However, I knew where White Nancy should be. I was sufficiently
impressed to buy the house the construction of which was
shortly to begin. If you want to see how good the view
is look at the pictures in Wallpaper -
all those showing Kerridge Hill were taken
from my garden. When we cleared the site to create the
garden we discovered just how much coal was left! There
were heaps of nutty slack all over the garden. Some I removed
but many are buried beneath the modern planting. No excavation
is completed without a few shovels of coal. |
Conservation
This street is in the Bollington Conservation
Area. |
A small group of houses built on the site of Oak Bank House. The Coach House is the original building for that purpose dating from the 1850s and restored to domestic use in the early 1980s. Four detached houses were built in 1983-5 on the site of the original house. A further property was built a few years later and another is presently under construction. 
