(Header Image Credit: Hilda Gaddum / Garner, A., 2018, Where Shall We Run To?. 4th Estate. London. p97.)
Approximate Location:
OS Grid Reference: SJ 84819 78234
Latitude: 53.18.03.N Longitude 002.13.45.W
St Mary’s Clyffe features in the pivotal scene during which Colin and Susan retrieve Firefrost from under the noses of Selina Place and Grimnir (Weirdstone, Chapter 9: St Mary’s Clyffe). In Weirdstone, Chapter 3: Maggot-breed of Ymir Gowther states that Selina Place’s house is: “…one of the big houses on the back hill – a rambling barn of a place it is, stuck on the edge of a cliff.”
The house is clearly shown, on the map that accompanies the book (reproduced below), to the north of a road which branches off Macclesfield Road and then runs parallel. This is Woodbrook Road – which the children would probably have been familiar with as Gowther likely took this route when he brought Colin and Susan from Wilmslow to Highmost Redmanhey.
Alan Garner noted in his childhood memoir that his great-great-grandfather, Robert Garner, had been one of the stonemasons responsible for cutting the rockface back to create Woodbrook Road (Where Shall We Run To? 2018, 97).
In a blog post, the writer, Will Vigar claimed to have identified St Mary’s Clyffe by comparing the detail of the gables shown on the map (reproduced above) with those of The Hollies – a Victorian villa at the west end of Woodbrook Road. However, the 1897 edition of the Ordnance Survey map (Cheshire XXVIII.13) reveals that St Mary’s Clyffe lay in the adjacent plot to the east of The Hollies.
A reference in the Manchester Critic to the house reveals that it was built around the year 1872 according to designs drawn up by the architect Joseph Crowther. The latter was himself a sometime resident of Redclyffe Grange on Woodbrook Road.
An architectural description made shortly after the construction of the building states that it was a timber-framed property which stood “on high ground on the face of the ridge” – a phrase which chimes well with Gowther’s observation that it was located on the edge of a cliff.
Garner himself reproduced a pencil-drawn sketch of St Mary’s Clyffe in his boyhood memoir (included as the header image of this webpage) that closely tallies with the description in the Manchester Critic. He also noted that the building “was built on a crag over a straight drop… The house was red bricks and blue bricks in patterns, with spikey tiles sticking up on the roof ridges like on a dragon’s back; and there was old-fashioned woodwork and sharp gables and a carving over the main door saying: GOD’S PROVIDENCE IS MINE INHERITANCE. We knew it must be haunted” (Where Shall We Run To? 2018, 97-98). The last sentence of this recollection is a tantalising glimpse into the mind of the author – did those childhood fears later lead him to specifically select St Mary’s Clyffe as the eerie house of the Morrigan?
A stray reference on the AlderleyEdge.com discussion forum (by Mark Miflin on Tuesday 25th June, 2013 at 23:32) makes note of “The fire that burned down St Marys Cliffe (1973?)“. This is duly confirmed by Garner who stated that: “St Mary’s Clyffe was turned into flats. Several years later it needed repairs, but it was found to be infected throughout with dry rot, and shortly afterwards the Gothic fantasy caught fire and blazed on its crag like the climax of a horror film. In its place was built something bland, not worthy of the setting; but I salvaged a spike of dragon tile” (Where Shall We Run To? 2018, 187).
Sadly, this memorable location from the Weirdstone is no longer standing.