Approximate Locations
Thornycroft Hall
OS Grid Reference: SJ 86626 71174
Latitude / Longitude: 53°14′15″N , 002°12′07″W
Pyethorne Wood
OS Grid Reference: SJ 86862 71051
Latitude / Longitude: 53°14′11″N , 002°11′54″W
Tower on Thornycroft Pools
OS Grid Reference: SJ 86950 71084
Latitude / Longitude: 53°14′12″N , 002°11′49″W
Also known as Siddington Manor, Thornycroft Hall was built in the late eighteenth century, and was then altered c 1830, for the Thornycroft family in a muted Neo-Classical style. During the mid-twentieth century it was run as a children’s home run by an order of nuns. Since 1979, it has been owned by the Siddington Trust and acts as a Christian retreat and conference centre operated by the Opus Dei Prelature. The grounds of the hall feature a lodge on the Pexhill Road, to the north, and, to the south, two man-made lakes known as Thornycroft Pools which are separated by Pyethorne Wood.
The house, lodge, pools and wood all feature in a very anxious scene in Weirdstone, Chapter 19 – Gaberlunzie. Having realised that the course of the Fanshawe Brook would take them north towards Henbury and Alderley Edge, the fugitives took the advice of Gowther and attempted to cross “two hundred and fifty yards of exposed parkland” on the Thornycroft estate.
They tried to minimise their danger by dropping to the ground and hiding beneath their muspell cloaks every time birds, sent as spies of the morthbrood, flew over. Susan described the acute tension:
“‘The lodge was bad,’ said Susan, ‘but after the strain of that drive I nearly collapsed when we had to walk out in full view of the big house and all those staring windows.'”
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p196.
Although not noted in the book (possibly due to the weather conditions or so as not to interrupt the tension), the lodge at Thornycroft may have also been the first point on the journey where Colin, Susan, Gowther, Durathror and Fenodyree could have snatched a glimpse of Shuttlingslow.
Drained after the physical and mental effort of slogging up the Fanshawe Brook and then crossing the open ground in front of Thornycroft Hall, the travellers recuperated in Pyethorne Wood.
Left on watch by himself, Colin gazed out from the woods, across the water, to an island within the easternmost of the Thornycroft Pools. Upon the island Colin glimpsed a crumbling structure and was shocked to see Gaberlunzie appear there:
“It was a square tower, old, ruinous, so hemmed in by trees that if Colin had had anything other to do than sit and look about him for an hour and a half, he would never have noticed it.”
Garner, A., 1960 (1989 edition), The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. William Collins / Lions. London. p199.
Historic mapping, including the 1897 Ordnance Survey map (reproduced above), shows this tower as standing by at least the nineteenth century. It was probably built as a folly or parkland eye-catcher: once common structures on estates from the late-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries. Modern mapping and satellite imaging shows that the tower still stands, close to the south-eastern tip of the island, although it is far from the public gaze as the pools are surrounded by inaccessible private land.
