The Homestead, Victoria Park, Manchester

One of the rare individual houses built in Victoria Park in the early twentieth century was originally named “The Homestead” but is now numbered 14 Scarsdale Road. It was commenced on 2 August 1906 and completed in February 1907, built in a distinctly arts and crafts style unlike anything else in the district. 

The Manchester Library archives show that the house was an early work by Arthur Henry Walsingham of 62 Market Street Manchester. Better known for the design of a series of Pendleton Co-operative Industrial Society branch stores, The Homestead remains his first and only known domestic work. Built by Smith and Thompson, builders and joiners of 2 Booth Street Chorlton-on-Medlock, the house has a butterfly plan. Externally it features grey rendered brick walls, battered buttresses, wide overhanging eaves, and decorative brickwork on the chimneys, all typical of the Arts and Crafts.

The first owner was Julius Frith, a lecturer in electrical engineering at the University of Manchester. Born in Chesterfield, he was also the youngest son of the famous Victorian photographer and publisher, Francis Frith.  Julius remained at Scarsdale Road until sometime during the 1920s when he moved to a house on Brooklands Road in Sale, which he also named The Homestead.

Reference    Manchester Archives
Reference    Manchester Group of the Victorian Society. Newsletter, Christmas 2024
Research     Richard Fletcher, David Hilton