Description
Cage
History: it is known from extant records that the Cage was in existence by c1580; it was dismantled in 1734 and rebuilt in 1737. The construction date and purpose, however, of the original building are shrouded in mystery. The only known early document relating to the Park is the Terrier of 1465 (Original at Lyme) which lists by ditch and hedge each rented field on the entire Legh estates. But the Leghs lived then in Burtonwood and their park at Lyme was in hand and so of little significance. The entry reads, "In the first place the said Peter holds the aforesaid manor of Lyme ...... that is to say, one fair Hall with a high chamber, kitchen, bakehouse and brewhouse, with a granary, stable and a bailiff's house, and a fair park, surrounded by palings, and divers fields and hays contained in the same park with the woods, underwoods, meadows, feedings and pastures thereto belonging which are worth to the said Peter œ10 a year".
The suggestion occasionally made that this "one fair hall" may be the original Cage seems highly unlikely. Given the inclement weather at Lyme the Leghs would surely have chosen to build their Hall in a more sheltered site. The only painting which is thought to depict the original Cage shows a tower, not a building likely to contain a kitchen, brewhouse and bakehouse. It would therefore seem far more probable that the Cage was built as a hunting lodge, a common feature of parks of this period. This is also the opinion of Lady Newton (1917) who states that Piers Legh V (1455 - 1527) built the Cage, and Disley Church, about 1520, but gives no source for her evidence. Beamont also gives no source for his assertion that Piers V built the Cage in 1524 and that it was probably built as a keeper's lodge (Beamont 1876).
Another popular ornamental device of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a detached banqueting house, and it has been suggested that the Cage was built for this purpose. The presence of an elaborately carved ceiling in the first floor room is used to support the argument. But this ceiling has been alluded to only once, by a visitor in this century. Another suggestion is that the ceiling was installed by Wyatt c1815, thus making it rather too late for a detached banqueting house.
The painting in the Stairwell at Lyme of the Horse and Groom is assumed to be the only depiction of the pre-1740s Cage. The painting dates from the mid-seventeenth century and shows a tower-like building with a gatehouse facade, giving it the appearance of a fortification and the only windows shown appear to be in the upper storeys. However, the assumption that the building is the original Cage may be erroneous, as it might actually depict the building shown on Pollett's map as Further Lodge (now known as the Stag House). Lady Newton quotes from Pococke's Travels.... "There are no buildings in the park except one, which at a distance has the appearance of an obelisk and an old castle whited up which is seen at a great distance" (Lady Newton 1917, 391). Lady Newton takes the obelisk to be the Cage but makes no comment on the castle.
In the 1720s Peter Legh X commissioned the Venetian architect, Giacomo Leoni, to extend the Hall. It is apparent from the accounts of his steward, Peter Steele, that the Cage was included in the overall building scheme though there is no evidence that Leoni was directly involved. There are four payments (three of which are highlighted below) which relate to work on the Cage recorded by Steele (B/JJ/6 D298 21):
1734. To (Peter Platt) for getting and working the architrave doorcase into the New Kitchen, Bareing, getting and working two Slips and two Coves for the fireplace in the Stone Parlour, bareing and getting stone laid in the three ? to the south, bareing and getting stone used in the pedestall on the island upon the Great pond, for taking down the Cage, and for small stone used in the Stone Staircase in the inner Court and at the sough in the turfhouse meadow. œ18/1/1d;
1735/6 Paid then to Edward Balguy & Thomas Rhodes their Bills of part(icular)s for leading water up to the Cage - for making Morter for rebuilding of the Cage - as appears by receipt œ1 10 (0);
1737 Paid then to Peter Platt Mason his bill for masons work in Rebuilding Lyme Cage in the years 1733, 1734 and 1735 and for Stone Got by him and used in the said work as appears by the said bill and by receipt œ320 13 7«.
These accounts make it plain that the same masons employed on the building works in the Hall, both in and out, were also involved with the Cage and were used all over the Legh estates in Cheshire and Lancashire. Steele's disbursements show that stone from Dalton near Lancaster, yet another property belonging to the Leghs, was being transported to Manchester and was being used by Peter Platt.
The new Cage is shown for the first time in Thomas Smith of Derby's 1745 painting, a View in the Park at Lyme, in the possession of Mrs Fryer. The earliest known map which shows the position of the Cage is Burdett's of 1777 ( LP1116). Pollett's 1824 map (GMCRO E17/210/167) for Thomas Legh is the first to show signs of an avenue of trees going from the Hall towards the Cage.
No evidence has yet been found to show if any work was done on the Cage by Wyatt during the early nineteenth century, but one of his drawings (GMCRO - uncatalogued) shows the principal floor of the Cage; unfortunately the drawing only shows the walls. There is a possibility that Wyatt designed the elaborate rosette on the ceiling remembered by Elsie Hodgkinson and referred to in the listing (Laurie 1979).
Census returns from the second half of the nineteenth century reveal that the Cage was then used as housing for Park staff. The wages' records (GMCRO E17/209/59-82) also prove that its residents were highly paid compared with other workers, so the Cage must have been a residence of some importance. The earliest of these dates from 1861; a shepherd, Thomas Ollerenshaw, his wife Margaret and their daughter Sarah Ellen were in residence (PRO RG9/2576). The last residents were the Felthams who moved in about 1916 and are likely to have moved out in the late 1920s.
From the late 1920s the Cage seems to have been left to deteriorate. From the photographic evidence it would appear that the windows were blocked with wood before the estate was handed over to the National Trust in 1946. But Cage Hill continued to be used during traditional celebrations. The last of these during the family's ownership was in 1935 when a beacon was built and lit to celebrate the silver jubilee of King George V.
During the Second World War the Cage was used as a lookout by the Disley Home Guard. They were allowed to use the ground floor room for shelter and for cooking on the open fire. By the end of the war, vandals as young as 12 were already breaking down the door and damaging the interior. A new deposit of Legh papers (GMCRO E17/add) shows that Lord Newton instructed solicitors in Macclesfield to prosecute the youthful miscreants.
The work done on the Cage between c1950 and c1970 is remembered by those who carried it out, but the sequence and the dates remain vague. In the late 1950s Stockport Borough Council, who then held the lease, were so concerned that vandals might be killed that they decided to strip out all the rotting floors and other timbers and to leave merely the shell of the building standing. The work was done by Alan Rawlinson and Ernest Sidebotham. Some time around the late 1950s or the early 1960s the appearance of the roof was changed when the chimneys pots were removed and were replaced with cupolas. The Cage Chronicle has a photograph of the deterioration in the domes before the work was carried out.
General external appearance: the Cage is a large square sandstone structure, constructed of coarse squared buff sandstone rubble with ashlar sandstone dressings. It has attached square corner towers, approximately at the points of the compass and has three storeys. A chamfered plinth runs around the base of the building on all sides, there are raised rusticated quoins, and an applied ashlar band at the first floor. The band is a plain, square, string course and, set back slightly from the string course, a course of large ashlar blocks almost double in height, and above that again and stepped out slightly, cavetto moulding. The entablature is projecting and heavily moulded and has an ashlar blocking course with central balustrading.
In the centre of the east and west elevations there are round- headed doors with moulded abaci, comprising a square abacus above a quarter ovolo moulding with square footing directly above the jambs. The voussoirs are of two sizes, arranged alternately, with an outsize keystone. Within these embrasures are semi-circular headed doorcases with rusticated surrounds and Tuscan pilaster capitals. The east, south and west faces each have a sundial inscribed with phrases of a moralistic nature. All four faces, above and below the level of the sundial, have two blocked window openings, the lower is long and rectangular, the upper square. The north and south faces also have ground floor openings similar to those in the towers.
The corner towers have stepped bases, and corners that are emphasised by projecting ashlar blocks laid in side alternate fashion with one course of rubbled stones between. The towers are topped by domed cupolas, which are shown, in a nineteenth century illustration, to be topped with ?square chimneys. The towers also have unornamented square openings, now blocked, on each floor.
Internal appearance: the building has three storeys but the floors are missing; however, there are main beams, two for each storey, running east/west which are in situ. Four columns support the first-floor beams; these are square sectioned, and comprise banded masonry with Tuscan capitals, which are also square in section. The second and third floor beams are supported by stone corbels with cyma reversa ogee mouldings.
Ground floor: the central room is undivided but there are corner turrets, with rooms in the south-eastern and north-eastern turrets of the ground floor. A diagonal flight of stairs leads up from the ground floor to a spiral staircase in the south-west corner tower. At ground level the floor is slabbed and there is a fireplace in the north-west corner. The walls are of coursed rubble; it was formerly plastered and covered with wooden panelling, which survives in places particularly on the south and east sides. The main east and west doorways were formerly under round arches; however, little of the west door survives and the east entrance is bricked up. The north and south ground floor windows were formerly three-light with wooden casements.
First floor: the principal room was on the first floor; there is panelling on the north and west walls. It formerly had a panelled oak ceiling with a huge, central, carved rosette. The first floor walls step in slightly from ground floor. All four elevations formerly had 12-light Georgian sliding sash windows; the frames survive on all four and there are wooden mullions and transoms in the east and west elevations. There is a fireplace in the north-eat corner in brick with shallow segmental arch, but appears to be a later insertion.
Second floor: the second floor is stepped back from the first floor. The windows in all four main faces, under segmental brick arches, are all blocked. The fireplace is under a monolithic lintel across the opening of the north-east turret. There is a room in the south-east turret.