Edgar Wood Society to contribute to South Hale Conservation Area Management Plan – Can You Help?

South Hale Conservation Area in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford includes a series of eight Edgar Wood designed detached houses, all closely located to one another. Each house is a highly individual Arts & Crafts design which, taken together, makes for one of the finest groups of Arts & Crafts houses by a single architect in the country. Each house design evolves from its predecessor and the group is remarkable in illustrating how Edgar Wood developed modern art deco architecture from the Arts and Crafts.The earliest house is Halecroft, built  as an Arts & Crafts ‘tour de force’ in 1890 early in Edgar Wood’s career. Then come six houses built between 1901 and 1907, at roughly one a year, which incrementally move toward the art deco style. Finally, the amazing Royd House (pictured above) was designed in 1914, which Edgar Wood built for himself when he left Middleton at the end of the First World War.

All the houses are listed Grade II, except for Halecroft which is Grade II* and Royd House which is Grade I.

The Edgar Wood Society is writing an appreciation of the houses for Trafford Council town planners which, hopefully, will inform the management plan for the conservation area. If you have any information, photos or contacts regarding these buildings, please let us know, we would be very grateful – just Leave a Reply below and we’ll get back to you. Thanks, David.