Norbury Booths was the home of the Legh family for over 600 years, first in a fourteenth-century moated, timber-framed, quadrangular house, and from 1745 in a nearby Georgian house (architect unknown), built by Peter Legh (1723-1804). Peter Legh married Anne (d1794) eldest daughter and co-heiress of Peter Wade of Middleton, Cheshire, in 1744, perhaps prompting the rebuilding works. There is only one extant design for the house from the Adam office, and this is a chimneypiece design for the drawing room dated 1764.

The house was enlarged and refaced by Legh’s grandson, also Peter Legh (1794-1857) to designs by Edward Habershon, and it remained in the possession of the Legh family until it was sold in 1917. Since 1983 the house, and various modern buildings in the park, have been used as serviced office space.

Literature:
A.T. Bolton, The architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1922, Volume II, Index pp. 4, 78; C. Hartwell, M. Hyde, E. Hubbard, and N. Pevsner, The buildings of England: Cheshire, 2011, p. 428; J. Brooke, 'Legh, Peter (1723-1804) of Norbury Booths, Cheshire', The history of Parliament online, 2012

Frances Sands, 2012