Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

Our expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Crowds flock around the Skylon and Dome of Discovery at the Festival of Britain South Bank Site on 12 May 1951. Both structures were dismantled at the end of the Festival in 1952. Photographer: Aerofilms Ltd, Image reference: Source: Historic England Archive EAW035702
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Former Odd Whim Public House

35 and 37, Park Square, Ashton under Lyne, OL6 9RT

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1390685
Date first listed:: 15-Oct-2003
List Entry Name:: Former Odd Whim Public House
Statutory Address:: 35 and 37, Park Square, Ashton under Lyne, OL6 9RT

User submitted image — Uploaded by Barrie Price This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1390685
Date first listed:: 15-Oct-2003
List Entry Name:: Former Odd Whim Public House
Statutory Address 1:: 35 and 37, Park Square, Ashton under Lyne, OL6 9RT

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: 35 and 37, Park Square, Ashton under Lyne, OL6 9RT

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Tameside (Metropolitan Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SJ 95506 99940

Details

This List entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 18/11/2019

1478/0/10026

PARK SQUARE No 35 and 37 Former Odd Whim Public House

(Formerly listed as Former Odd Whim, PARK SQUARE, MOSSLEY ROAD (off), previously listed as MOSSLEY ROAD, Odd Whim)

16-OCT-03

II Former public house, but built originally as a gatehouse to a Millenarian scheme centred around Ashton-under-Lyne by John Wroe. 1825 with later alterations.

Exterior: red brick, painted to front. Slate roof. Main front with projecting recent extension to ground floor. Right-hand part of building comprises a formerly symmetrical square house with a pyramidal roof: this is of two bays to the entrance front and of three bays (the outer ones blind) to the right-hand return. The ground floor extension obscures the former entrance, which comprised a pedimented Ionic doorcase set between large windows. Segmental window arches remain on the side and rear walls. The left-hand continuation of the building, with two windows at first floor level, is contemporary with the rest of the building and is not an extension.

Interior: not inspected, believed to be considerably altered.

History: this is the only building to survive associated with the Millenarian visionary John Wroe (1782-1863). A successor to Joanna Southcott, Wroe founded a cult called the Christian Israelites which gained a considerable following in the 1820s: he prophesied that the sanctuary in which the godly would survive the Apocalypse should be built in Ashton-under-Lyne. In 1825 a grand sanctuary (now the site of the town's sorting office) and four gatehouses were built: this is the only building to survive from this unique instance of a built Millenarian scheme. Wroe's notorious behaviour led to his departure from Ashton in 1830 following an inquest held in this building, but his cult endured elsewhere, particularly in Australia. The building was subsequently used as a cholera hospital in 1832 (with associated burials believed to be in the vicinity) before becoming a public house in 1837, known as The Odd Whim. It changed its name to the Stamford Park Hotel in c1880. The ground floor front extension is of a late C20 date.

Wroe was the subject of the 1991 novel by Jane Rogers, 'Mr Wroe's Virgins'. A metal plaque has been erected by the Tameside Metropolitan Borough.

Assessment of importance: the Odd Whim is listed for special historical interest rather than for architectural importance, having undergone adverse alterations to its fabric. Nonetheless, it represents a unique survival of a building erected as part of a Millenarian scheme and is a remarkable reflection of popular religion during an epoch of social, economic and political upheaval.

[DNB, under 'John Wroe'; J.F.C. Harrison, 'The Second Coming' (1979); Edwin Butterworth, 'An Historical Account of the Towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Stalybridge and Dukinfield' (1844); Winifred Bowman, 'England in Ashton-under-Lyne' (1960); Ed Green, 'Factors accounting for the Popularity of the Christian Israelite Church from the 1820s' (MA thesis, School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies, University of Portsmouth 2003).

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 490629
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.