Hi Delta,
If it's not any trouble I would be really interested in the reply you receive from Cheshire Records Office.
Earlier this year I contacted them enquiring about an ancestor who had been in Macclesfield Parkside Asylum. I was told that I might want to wait as they were busy digitising Asylum records with a view to putting them on line later in the year.
As there wasn't any great rush I decided to wait.
I can't locate the email they sent to me but I'm fairly sure they were starting 1877 to the early 1900s.
I phoned them just a couple of weeks ago to see if things had changed and was again informed that they would be on line before the end of the year.
So it will be interesting to see if they tell you the same thing.