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Little Moreton Hall, also known as Old Moreton Hall, is a moated 16th and 17th-century half-timbered manor house 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of Congleton, in Cheshire, England. The earliest parts of the house were built for the prosperous Cheshire landowner William Moreton in about 1504–08; the remainder was constructed in stages by successive generations of the family until around 1610. The building is highly irregular, with three asymmetrical ranges forming a small, rectangular cobbled courtyard. A National Trust guidebook describes Little Moreton Hall as being "lifted straight from a fairy story, a gingerbread house". The house's top-heavy appearance, "like a stranded Noah's Ark", is due to the Long Gallery that runs the length of south range's upper floor.

The house remained in the possession of the Moreton family for almost 450 years, until ownership was transferred to the National Trust in 1938. Little Moreton Hall and its sandstone bridge across the moat are designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building; the ground on which Little Moreton Hall stands is protected as a Scheduled Monument. Now fully restored, the house is open to the public from April to December each year.

At its greatest extent, in the mid-16th century, the Little Moreton Hall estate occupied an area of 1,360 acres (550 ha) and contained a cornmill, orchards, gardens, and an iron bloomery with water-powered hammers. The gardens lay abandoned until their 20th-century re-creation. As there were no surviving records of the layout of the original knot garden it was replanted according to a pattern published in the 17th century.

History

The Moreton family's roots in the area can be traced to the marriage in 1216 of Lettice de Moreton to Sir Gralam de Lostock, who inherited land at Little Moreton. Succeeding generations of the de Lostocks adopted the name of de Moreton. The family fortune was substantially increased when they acquired vast tracts of land cheaply in the aftermath of the Black Death epidemic of 1348. Little Moreton Hall first appears in the historical record in 1271, but the present house dates from the early 16th century.

The earliest part of the house is the north range which was built between 1504 and 1508 for William Moreton, who died in 1526. It comprises the Great Hall and the northern part of the east wing. A service wing to the west, built at the same time but subsequently replaced, gave the early house an H-shaped floor plan. The east range was extended to the south in about 1508 to provide additional living quarters, as well as housing the Chapel and the Withdrawing Room. In 1546 William Moreton's son, also called William (c. 1510–63), replaced the original west wing with a new range housing service rooms on the ground floor as well as a porch, gallery, and three interconnected rooms on the first floor, one of which had access to a garderobe. In 1559 William had a new floor inserted at gallery level in the Great Hall, and added its large bay window looking onto the courtyard.

The south wing was added in about 1560–62 by William Moreton's son John (1541–98). It includes the gatehouse and a third storey containing a 68-foot (21 m) long gallery, which appears to have been an afterthought added after construction work had begun. A small kitchen and Brew-house block was added to the south wing in about 1610, the last major extensions to the house.

The fortunes of the Moreton family declined during the English Civil War. As supporters of the Royalist cause, they found themselves isolated in a community of Parliamentarians. The house was confiscated by the Parliamentarians in 1643 and used to billet Parliamentary soldiers, although the family was successful in its petition for restitution. The Moretons survived the Civil War with their ownership of Little Moreton Hall intact, but financially they were crippled. They tried to sell the entire estate, but could only dispose of several parcels of land. William Moreton died in 1654 leaving behind debts of £3,000–£4,000, which forced his heirs to remortgage what remained of the estate. The family's fortunes never fully recovered, and by the late 1670s they no longer lived in Little Moreton Hall, renting it out instead to a series of tenant farmers. The Dale family took over the tenancy in 1841, and were still in residence more than 100 years later. By 1847 most of the house was unoccupied, and the deconsecrated chapel was used to store coal. Little Moreton Hall was in a ruinous condition; its windows were boarded up and its roof was rotten.

During the 19th century Little Moreton Hall became "an object of romantic interest" among artists; Amelia Edwards used the house as a setting for her 1880 novel Lord Brackenbury. Elizabeth Moreton, an Anglican nun who inherited the house following the death of her sister Annabella in 1892, began restoration of the house, which by then was almost derelict. She restored and refurnished the Chapel, and may have been responsible for the insertion of steel rods to stabilise the structure of the Long Gallery. In 1912 she bequeathed the house to a cousin, Charles Abraham, Bishop of Derby, stipulating that it must never be sold. Abraham opened up Little Moreton Hall to visitors, charging an entrance fee of 6d collected by the Dales, who conducted guided tours of the house in return.

Abraham carried on the preservation effort begun by Elizabeth Moreton until he and his son transferred ownership to the National Trust in 1938. The Dale family continued to farm on the estate until 1945, and acted as caretakers for the National Trust until 1955.

House

The 100-year construction of Little Moreton Hall spanned the period of the pre-Reformation, post-Reformation, Elizabethan, pre-Renaissance and Renaissance, but except for some Renaissance decoration such as the motifs on the gatehouse, and Elizabethan fireplaces, the house is resolutely medieval in design. It is timber-framed throughout except for three brick chimneybreasts and some brick buttressing added at a later date. Simon Jenkins has described Little Moreton Hall as "a feast of medieval carpentry", but the building technique is unremarkable for Cheshire houses of the period – an oak framework set on stone footings. Diagonal oak beams creating chevron and lozenge patterns adorn the façades, completed by rendered infill and Flemish bond brick, or windows. The windows contain 30,000 leaded panes known as quarries, set in different patterns of squares, rectangles, lozenges, diamonds, circles and triangles that complement the decoration on the timber framing.

The house stands on an island surrounded by a 33-foot (10 m) wide moat, which was probably dug in the 13th or 14th century to enclose an earlier building on the site. There is no evidence that the moat served any defensive purpose, and as with many other moated sites it was probably intended as a status symbol. A sandstone bridge leads to a gate house in the three-storey south range. Each of the two upper floors here is jettied out over the floor beneath. As is typical of Cheshire's timber-framed buildings, the overhanging jetties are hidden by coving, on which a recurring quatrefoil decoration can be seen. The garderobes in the two-storey tower to the left of the gate house empty directly into the moat. The gate house leads to a rectangular courtyard, with the Great Hall at the northern end.

Ground floor

The original purpose of some of the rooms in Little Moreton Hall is unknown. Architectural historian Lydia Greeves has described the interior of the house as a "corridor-less warren, with one room leading into another, and four staircases linking different levels". Some of the grander rooms have fine chimneypieces and wood panelling, but others are "little more than cupboards".

The Great Hall at the centre of the north range is entered through a porch and screens passage, a feature common in houses of the period, designed to protect the occupants from draughts. As the screens are now missing, they may have been free-standing, like those at Rufford Old Hall. The Great Hall's roof is supported by arch-braced collar trusses; the now flagged floor would probably originally have been rush-covered earth, with a central hearth. The gabled bay window overlooking the courtyard was added in 1559. The original service wing to the west of the Great Hall, behind the screens passage, was rebuilt in 1546. A hidden shaft was discovered during a 19th-century investigation of two secret rooms above the kitchen, connecting them to a tunnel leading to the moat. The entrance to the tunnel has since been filled in. The east wing now houses the gift shop and restaurant.

A doorway behind where the family would have sat at the far end of the hall leads to the Parlour, known as the Little Parlour in surviving 17th-century documents. Together with the adjoining Withdrawing Room and the Great Hall, the Parlour is structurally part of the original building. The wooden panelling is a Georgian addition, behind which the original painted panelling was discovered in 1976. It consists of Biblical scenes, some of which were painted directly onto the plaster and others on paper that was then pasted to the wall. "Crudely drawn" but nevertheless "elaborate", the paintings tell the story of Susanna and the Elders from the Apocrypha, a "favourite Protestant theme". A private staircase between the Parlour and the Withdrawing Room leads to the first floor. The bay window in the Withdrawing Room was added in 1559, at the same time as the one in the Great Hall. The pair of windows bear the following inscription underneath their gables:

God is Al in Al Thing: This windous whire made by William Moreton in the yeare of Oure Lorde MDLIX. Richard Dale Carpeder made thies windous by the grac of God.

The Moreton family's wolf head crest appears in the late 16th-century stained glass in the Withdrawing Room, as well as in the painted panelling in the Parlour.

William Moreton used what is today known as the Exhibition Room as a bedroom in the mid-17th century; it is entered through a doorway from the adjoining Withdrawing Room. Following William's death in 1654 his children Anne, Jane and Philip divided the house into three separate living areas. Anne, whose accommodation was in the Prayer Room above, then used the Exhibition Room as a kitchen. The adjoining Chapel was begun in 1508, although the chancel was probably not added until the mid-16th century. Accessible by a doorway from the courtyard, the Chapel contains Renaissance-style tempera painting, thought to date from the late 16th century. The stained glass in the east wall of the chancel is a 20th-century addition, installed by Charles Abraham, the last private owner of Little Moreton Hall, as a parting gift on his transferring ownership of the building to the National Trust.

The Corn Store adjacent to the Chapel, accessible from the main entrance, may originally have been used as accommodation for a gatekeeper or steward. By the late 17th century it had been converted into a grain store by raising the floor to protect its contents from damp. Five oak-framed bins inside may have held barley for the Brew-house, which is now used as a toilet block.

First floor

The Guests' Hall and its adjoining Porch Room occupy the space above the entrance to the courtyard and the gatehouse. They can be accessed either through a doorway from the adjacent Prayer Room or via a staircase at the south end of the courtyard leading to the Long Gallery on the floor above. The first-floor landing leads to a passageway between the Guests' Hall and the Guests' Parlour, and to the garderobe tower visible from the front of the house. A "discreet doorway" near the entrance to the Guests' Parlour allows access to the Brew-house Chamber, which sits above the Brew-house. The Brew-house Chamber was probably built as servants' quarters, and originally accessed via a hatch in the ceiling of the Brew-house below.

In the mid-17th century the Guests' Hall was referred to as Mr Booth's Chamber, after Jack Booth of Tremlowe, a cousin and family friend of the Moreton's and a regular occupant. Its substantial carved consoles have been dated to 1660, and were inserted not just for decorative effect but to support the weight of the Long Gallery above. What is today known as the Prayer Room, to the northwest of the Guests' Hall and above the Chapel, was originally the chamber of the first William Moreton's daughter Ann, whose maid occupied the adjoining room.

The first floor rooms in the east wing and most of the west wing are not open to the public, having been converted into accommodation for the National Trust staff who live on site.

Upper floor

Running the entire length of the south range, the Long Gallery is roofed with heavy gritstone slabs possibly from Tegg's Mill quarry near Macclesfield, the weight of which has caused the supporting floors below to bow and buckle. The crossbeams between the arch-braced roof trusses were probably added in the 17th century to prevent the structure from "bursting apart" under the load. The Long Gallery was always sparsely furnished, and would have been used for exercising when the weather was inclement and as a games room – four early 17th-century tennis balls have been discovered behind the wood panelling.

The Long Gallery has almost continuous bands of windows along its longer sides to the north and south, and a window to the west; originally there was a corresponding window to the east, which is now blocked. The end tympana have plaster depictions of Destiny and Fortune, copied from Robert Recorde's Castle of Knowledge. The Upper Porch Room leading off the Long Gallery, perhaps originally intended as a "sanctuary from the fun and games", was furnished as a bedroom by the mid-17th century. The central panel of its fireplace contains the Moreton coat of arms quartered with that of the Macclesfield family, celebrating the marriage of John de Moreton to Margaret de Macclesfield in 1329.

Contents

Only three pieces of original furniture have survived: a large refectory table, a large cupboard described as a "cubborde of boxes" in an inventory of 1599, and a "great rounde table" that is also listed in the 1599 inventory. The refectory table and cupboard are on display in the Great Hall, and the round table in the Parlour, where its octagonal framework suggests that it was designed to sit in the bay window. Except for those pieces, and a collection of 17th-century pewter tableware in a showcase in the west wall of the Great Hall, the house is otherwise displayed with bare rooms.

Gardens and estate

By the mid-16th century the Little Moreton Hall estate was at its greatest extent, occupying an area of 1,360 acres (550 ha) and including three watermills, one of which was used to grind corn. The contours of the pond used to provide power for the cornmill are still visible, although the mill was demolished in the 19th century. The Moreton family had owned an iron bloomery in the east of the estate since the late 15th century, and the other two mills were used to drive its water-powered hammers. The dam of the artificial pool that provided water for the bloomery's mills has survived, although the pool has not. The bloomery was closed some time during the early 18th century; the pool and moat were subsequently used for breeding carp and tench. By the mid-18th century the estate's main sources of income came from agriculture, timber production, fish farming, and property rentals.

The earliest reference to a garden at Little Moreton Hall comes from an early 17th-century set of household accounts referring to a gardener and the purchase of some seeds. Philip Moreton, who ran the estate for his older brother Edward in the mid-17th century, left a considerable amount of information on the layout and planting of the area of garden within the moat, to the west of the house. He writes of a herb garden, vegetable garden, and a nursery for maturing fruit trees until they were ready to be transferred to the orchard at the south and east of the house, probably where the orchard is today.

During the 20th century the long-abandoned gardens were returned to their Tudor condition. The knot garden was replanted in the early 1980s, to a design taken from Leonard Meager's Complete English Gardener, published in 1672. The intricate design of the knot can be seen from one of the two original viewing mounds, common in 16th-century formal gardening, one inside the moat and the other to the southwest. Other features of the grounds include a yew tunnel, and an orchard growing fruits that would have been familiar to the house's Tudor occupants – apples, pears, quinces and medlars.

Present day

Little Moreton Hall is open to the public from April to December each year. The west wing has been remodelled to include a restaurant, tearoom and a gift shop, and services are held in the Chapel every Sunday from April until October. Along with many other National Trust properties, Little Moreton Hall is available for hire as a film location; in 1996 it was one of the settings for Granada Television's adaptation of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders.

Superstition and haunting

The last major restoration work on the house was carried out in 1990–92, during which 18 "assorted boots and shoes" were found hidden in the structure of the building, all dating from the 19th century. Concealed shoes were placed either to ward off demons, ghosts or witches, or to encourage the fertility of the female occupants. Like many old buildings, Little Moreton Hall has stories of ghosts; a grey lady is said to haunt the Long Gallery, and the sounds of a child sobbing have reportedly been heard in and around the Chapel. The National Trust offers evening ghost tours around the house each Halloween.

See also

• Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire
• List of Scheduled Monuments in Cheshire (1066–1539)

References

Notes

1. The house was known as Old Moreton Hall during the period when it was rented out to tenant farmers, from the late 1670s onwards.
2. Little Moreton Hall is built on the site of a much earlier medieval building, the remains of which are believed to have survived in the ground under the present house. A "significant range of decorated and glazed medieval floor tiles" was discovered in a test pit dug in 2009.
3. Many older sources, such as Pevsner & Hubbard (1971), suggest that building work began in c. 1450, or towards the end of the 15th century, but tree-ring analysis shows that the earliest parts of the house were built in the first decade of the 16th century.
4. The floor had been removed by 1807.
5. Elizabeth Moreton (1821–1912) had become a Sister of the Community of St John Baptist in 1853.
6. The house has never been sold throughout its 500-year history.
7. Margaret de Macclesfield was an heiress to the estate of John de Macclesfield.

Citations

1. ^ "Little Moreton Hall's Survival", National Trust http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/history/view-page/item1009321/259542/, retrieved 22 November 2012 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
2. ^ "Little Moreton Hall", Pastscape http://pastscape.english-heritage.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=76089, retrieved 26 April 2008 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
3. Fedden & Joekes (1984), p. 19
4. ^ Greeves (2006), p. 226
5. Historic England. "Little Moreton Hall (1161988)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
6. ^ Historic England. "Little Moreton Hall moated site and outlying prospect mound (1011879)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 4 August 2012.
7. ^ "Little Moreton Hall, Cheshire East", Pastscape http://www.pastscape.org.uk/monumentinfo.aspx?a=0&hob_id=76089, retrieved 23 November 2012 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
8. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 28
9. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 2
10. ^ Hartwell et al. (2011), p. 433
11. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), pp. 9–15
12. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 9
13. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 4
14. ^ Fedden & Joekes (1984), p. 155
15. ^ Greeves (2008), p. 201
16. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 29 Cite error: The named reference "FOOTNOTELakeHughes200629" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
17. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 40
18. Lake & Hughes (2006), pp. 37–38
19. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 38
20. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 42
21. "Little Moreton Hall, Cheshire", Royal Institute of British Architects http://www.architecture.com/HowWeBuiltBritain/HistoricalPeriods/TudorsAndStuarts/ElizabethanDevice/LittleMoretonHall.aspx, retrieved 13 November 2007 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
22. Coward (2010), p. 329
23. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 44
24. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 45
25. Jenkins (2003), p. 69
26. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 7
27. Goodall, John, "The Great Hall", BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/great_hall_04.shtml, retrieved 13 November 2007 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
28. Pevsner & Hubbard (2003), p. 21
29. Hartwell et al. (2011), p. 435
30. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 21
31. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 10
32. Smith (2010), p. 270
33. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 11
34. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 13
35. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 15
36. Fedden & Joekes (1984), p. 156
37. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 17
38. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 23
39. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 5
40. "A Marriage Made in Little Moreton Hall", Cheshire Life, 20 April 2011, retrieved 17 November 2012
41. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 6
42. Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 18
43. Hartwell et al. (2011), p. 434
44. Lake & Hughes (2006), pp. 18–21
45. Lake & Hughes (2006), pp. 10–14
46. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), p. 27
47. ^ Lake & Hughes (2006), pp. 24–5 Cite error: The named reference "FOOTNOTELakeHughes200624–5" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
48. Fedden & Joekes (1984), pp. 155, 257
49. "Little Moreton Hall", National Trust http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-littlemoretonhall, retrieved 30 April 2011 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
50. "Sunday service at Little Moreton Hall's Chapel", National Trust http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/history/view-page/item384575/259542/, retrieved 3 November 2012 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
51. "Moll Flanders", perioddramas.com http://www.perioddramas.com/drama/moll-flanders.php, retrieved 10 November 2012 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
52. Hoggard (2004), p. 180
53. Hoggard (2004), pp. 178–9
54. Jones, Richard, "Ghosts of the North Midlands", Haunted Britain http://www.haunted-britain.com/Haunted_North_Midlands.htm, retrieved 28 October 2012 {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
55. Duckworth & Sankey (2006), p. 110

Bibliography

• Coward, Thomas Alfred (2010) , Picturesque Cheshire, Methuen, ISBN 978-1-176-93359-0
• Duckworth, Katie; Sankey, Charlotte (2006), 101 Family Days Out, National Trust Books, ISBN 978-1-905400-02-7
• Fedden, Robin; Joekes, Rosemary (1984), The National Trust Guide, The National Trust, ISBN 0-224-01946-5
• Greeves, Lydia (2006), History and Landscape: The guide to National Trust properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (new ed.), National Trust Books, ISBN 978-1-90540-013-3
• Greeves, Lydia (2008), Houses of the National Trust, National Trust Books, ISBN 978-1-905400-66-9
• Hartwell, Claire; Hyde, Matthew; Hubbard, Edward; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2011) , Cheshire, The Buildings of England, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-17043-6
• Hoggard, Brian (2004), "The archaeology of counter-witchcraft and popular magic", in Davies, Owen; De Blécourt, William (eds.), Beyond the Witchtrials: Witchcraft and Magic in Enlightenment Europe, Manchester University Press, ISBN 978-0-7190-6660-3
• Jenkins, Simon (2003), England's Thousand Best Houses, Studio Books, ISBN 978-0-670-03302-7
• Lake, Jeremy; Hughes, Pat (2006) , Little Moreton Hall (revised ed.), The National Trust, ISBN 978-1-84359-085-9
• Pevsner, Nikolaus; Hubbard, Edward (2003) , Cheshire, The Buildings of England, Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0-14-071042-7
• Smith, Stephen (2010), Underground England: Travels Beneath Our Cities and Country, Abacus, ISBN 978-0-349-12038-6

Further reading

• de Figueiredo, Peter; Treuherz, Julian (1988). Cheshire Country Houses. Chichester: Phillimore. pp. 119–122. ISBN 0-85033-655-4.

External links

• Virtual tour
• Information about the stained glass from the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (CVMA) of Great Britain
• Discovercheshire website (Little Moreton Hall Circular Walk page).
• National Trust site

• Visitor attractions in Cheshire
• National Trust properties in Cheshire
• Grade I listed houses
• Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire
• Scheduled Ancient Monuments in Cheshire
• Historic house museums in Cheshire
• Timber framed buildings