Fred unearths tale from the past

For Fred Owen, a retired chartered chemical engineer, hopes that the history that surrounds Knutsford's historic court house could contribute towards persuading the Lord Chancellor's Department not to close it.

During research into the origins of the impressive, sandstone building, he discovered that some of the cobbles, which make up the car park, are volcanic.

They were brought to the North West of England between the Pennines and the Irish Sea to Cheshire by glaciers from the Lake District and Scotland.

"In the last Ice Age, the ice of the glaciers ripped lumps from the rock over which it travelled southwards from the mountains of Scotland and the Lake District," he said.

"These lumps of rock, angular in shape and of all sizes, were embedded in the glacial ice."

When the ice melted about 10,000 years ago the lumps of rock settled, with the sand and clay, (for which the area is famous) on to the eroded sandstone rock beneath the glacier.

The cobbles were collected from the countryside, sorted by size and used to build streets.

"In this area there is no rock younger than 250million years old, other than the glacial deposits," said Mr Owen.

Other, quite different cobbles were carried by a large fast-flowing river from the south, probably from Brittany in France. They are metamorphic, liver-coloured and round.

"They have features that tell us they were once buried several kilometres in the earth's crust, but they came from the same desert formation as the sandstone of the Sessions House," he said.

Yet the Lord Chancellor's Department may now bury the Grade II listed cobbles - that is, if it decides to keep the court open.

"One of the costs listed for improving the court is to re-surface the car park," said Mr Owen, of Bexton Road, Knutsford.

"Does this mean destroying these beautiful and interesting cobbles and replacing them with concrete or Tarmac? An unnecessary cost if ever there was one and sacrilege too."

The age of the cobbles, though, wasn't the only thing that Mr Owen discovered during his research.

The stone - used to build the Sessions House - may have come from a quarry in Runcorn, but Mr Owen may never have known that fact had it not been for a bit of bother in 1816 - the year building work started. For the builder, William Heap, ended up suing the magistrates who had awarded him the contract.

"They believed he was overcharging and refused to pay him," said Mr Owen.

Trouble began shortly after magistrates decided to press ahead with their plans to build a House of Correction in Cheshire on July 18, 1816.

A national competition was arranged for architects to submit plans and costs for the jail, which was to house 150 inmates.

George Moneypenny, an experienced jail builder and former inmate, was declared the winner.

He was awarded a prize of £50 for his design at an estimated cost of £30,814 14s 14d - and Heap was given the task of building it.

Moneypenny and Heap together hired a pony and trap to tour the area to identify sandstone quarries, which could supply enough high quality stone to complete the building.

"They visited Kerridge, Alderley, Styal, Morley, Lymm, Kelsall and Runcorn, but frustratingly no record was found of their final choice," said Mr Owen.

But 63-year-old Mr Owen, who studies earth science at university part-time, refused to give up.

He discovered that although building progressed well, the magistrates kept changing the specification.

"Moneypenny and Heap took verbal directions from the magistrates, who it appears expected them to do the extra work within the original estimate," said Mr Owen. When Heap eventually submitted his bills, magistrates believed he was overcharging and refused to pay him.

They appointed arbitrators to check the quality of Heap's work and the quantities of materials and labour used.

The arbitrators reported that the quality was up to, and sometimes exceeded, the specification and could find no reason for him not to be paid.

But the magistrates still refused to pay and appointed different arbitrators.

During the dispute they also sacked Moneypenny.

Ultimately Heap had to pursue the magistrates in two court actions at the King's Bench in Westminster, one for the unpaid bills of £19,000 and the other for defamation of character and loss of business resulting from the magistrates' bad publicity.

The jury found in favour of Heap in both cases and he was awarded £238,589 7s damages on the second count.

But that payment also paid dividends in helping Mr Owen to discover where the sandstone originated.

"It was probably because great details of the accounts had to be collected for these court actions that the wealth of information in the County Record Office provided the links to the exact quarry from which the stone came," he said.

The records show that the stone came from Runcorn by boat up the River Weaver to Wincham and then by horse-drawn cart to Knutsford.

The heavier blocks - some of which weighed five tons - were carried on specially-built carts drawn by teams of eight horses.

"Heap hired a crane from Manchester for two years to be based at Wincham wharf to unload the stone from the boats," said Mr Owen.

But it was Knutsford historian Kath Goodchild, who helped to pinpoint the exact quarry where the stone had come from. The mother of two had kept detailed handwritten notes for a project that she had done in the early 1990s at Manchester University.

"She had taken them during eight visits to the County Record Office," said Mr Owen.

"They were a treasure of fascinating information and put me on the track to identifying the quarry."

Geoffrey Tresise had written a paper about the famous fossil finds of the 1840s in the Runcorn quarries.

Quarrying had begun there in medieval times and Mr Tresise had listed the names of 26 quarries in the 19th century.

"Remarkably, though, only two were in operation at the time the Sessions House was built," said Mr Owen.

Timothy Grindrod owned one, William Wright the other.

"On careful re-scrutiny of Kath's notes I found a record of the wages of a stonemason, who Heap had appointed to select, scabble and list dimensions of the stone to be located at the quarry of none other than Grindrod," said Mr Owen.

The quarry was Mill Brow, which had opened in 1806.

It was located in the northeastern corner of Runcorn with easy access to boats on the Mersey estuary and then on to the River Weaver.

"The National Stone Centre had had no detailed information, but had advised that stone would not generally have been carted for more than about three miles from a quarry to a building site at the time the Sessions House was built unless there were waterways nearby," said Mr Owen.

"And they were right. Wincham to Knutsford is about five-and-a-half miles."