1653 Almshouses. {1} A block of six cottages, only one now occupied, the year 1653 shown on one keystone. {2} The almshouses were demolished in December 1980. {3} Near the park is an almshouse for six poor people, founded in 1653, by William Welby, who died in 1709. It is endowed with a yearly rent-charge of £18 12s. out of the Denton estate. {4} The Welby Almshouses were wilfully demolished amid national publicity in 1980. Pevsner had described them as 'what may well be the most delightful almshouses in in England'. They were dated 1653, eight linked cottages with shaped gables crowned with stone ribbons ending in a double-curve flourish. {5} In 1786 William Welby gave the deed of a house built in 1653 for six poor widows with provision for its support. These almshouses were built in local ironstone with Dutch gables. In 1980 the building, despite being listed, was demolished by the Welby Estate. {6}