Little Moreton Hall facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Little Moreton Hall |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Little Moreton Hall's south range, constructed in the mid-16th century. The weight of the third-storey glazed gallery, possibly added at a late stage of construction, has caused the lower floors to bow and warp.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Little Moreton Hall, also known as Old Moreton Hall, is a beautiful old house in Cheshire, England. It's a special kind of house called a moated half-timbered manor house. This means it's surrounded by water and built with a wooden frame that you can see from the outside.
The first parts of the house were built around 1504–1508 for a wealthy landowner named William Moreton. His family kept adding to it over many years, until about 1610. The house looks quite unusual, with three parts that aren't perfectly even, forming a small, cobbled courtyard.
Some people say Little Moreton Hall looks like it's "lifted straight from a fairy story, a gingerbread house." Its top-heavy look, "like a stranded Noah's Ark", comes from the Long Gallery. This long room runs along the entire top floor of the south side of the house.
The Moreton family owned the house for nearly 450 years! In 1938, they gave it to the National Trust, a charity that protects historic places. Little Moreton Hall and its stone bridge are very important. They are listed as a Grade I building, which is the highest protection in England. The land it stands on is also a protected Scheduled Monument. The house has been fully fixed up and is open for visitors from April to December each year.
Long ago, in the mid-1500s, the Little Moreton Hall estate was huge. It covered about 1,360 acres (550 hectares). It had a cornmill (for grinding grain), orchards, gardens, and even an iron workshop called a bloomery with water-powered hammers. The gardens were left empty for a long time. But in the 1900s, they were replanted to look like they would have in the past. Since no one knew exactly how the original knot garden looked, they used a design from a 17th-century book.
Contents
The History of Little Moreton Hall
The name Moreton likely comes from old English words meaning "marshland" and "town." Little Moreton was named to tell it apart from a nearby larger area. The Moreton family has lived in this area since 1216. Over many generations, they gained more and more land through marriages and purchases. For example, they bought land cheaply after the terrible Black Death in 1348.
By the time Queen Elizabeth I was ruling, William Moreton II owned two water mills and 1,360 acres of land. This included lots of farmland, pastures, meadows, and woods.
The current house was built in stages. The oldest part is the north side, built between 1504 and 1508. This section includes the Great Hall. Later, a service wing was added to the west. Around 1508, the east side was extended to add more living spaces, including the Chapel.
In 1546, William Moreton's son, also named William, rebuilt the west wing. This new part had service rooms downstairs, a porch, and several rooms upstairs. In 1559, William added a new floor to the Great Hall and two large bay windows facing the courtyard. These windows were built so close they almost touch!
The south wing was the last major addition, built around 1560–1562 by John Moreton. This part includes the Gatehouse and a very long room on the third floor called the Long Gallery. This gallery seems to have been added after construction had already started. A small kitchen and Brew-house were added around 1610, which was the last big change to the house.
The Moreton family faced tough times during the English Civil War. They supported the King (the Royalists), but most people around them supported Parliament (the Parliamentarians). In 1643, Parliament took over Little Moreton Hall and used it to house their soldiers. The family managed to get their house back, but they were left with huge debts. They tried to sell the whole estate, but could only sell some parts.
By the late 1670s, the Moreton family no longer lived in the house. They rented it out to farmers. The Dale family lived there for over 100 years, starting in 1841. By 1847, much of the house was empty and falling apart. The Chapel was even used to store coal!
In the 1800s, artists became very interested in Little Moreton Hall because of its romantic, old look. Elizabeth Moreton, who was a nun, inherited the house in 1892. It was almost ruined. She fixed up the Chapel and may have added steel rods to help support the Long Gallery. In 1912, she gave the house to her cousin, Charles Abraham, who was a bishop. She said it must never be sold.
Charles Abraham opened Little Moreton Hall to visitors. He charged a small fee, which the Dale family collected. They also gave tours. Abraham continued the work of preserving the house. In 1938, he and his son gave the house to the National Trust. The Dale family continued to live on the estate until 1945 and helped care for the house until 1955.
The National Trust has done a lot of work to repair and restore the house. They replaced the roof and brought back some of its original look. You might notice the house is black and white today. This look was actually made popular by the Victorians! Originally, the oak beams would have been natural wood, turning silver as they aged. The walls would have been painted a yellowish-brown color. In 1977, they found that the roof tiles were loose, so they started a big repair project. Any new wood used was left in its natural state.
The Design of the House
Little Moreton Hall was built during the English Renaissance, but its design is mostly medieval. It has some Renaissance touches, like designs on the Gatehouse, Elizabethan fireplaces, and lots of glass. The whole house is made of timber (wood) except for three brick chimneys and some brick supports added later.
One historian called Little Moreton Hall "a feast of medieval carpentry." The way it was built was common for houses in Cheshire at the time. It has an oak frame set on stone foundations. The outside walls are decorated with diagonal oak pieces that make zigzag and diamond patterns. The older parts have a herringbone pattern with four-leaf shapes. The newer parts, like the south range, have lighter wood and more varied patterns.
The spaces between the wooden beams are filled with plaster or brick, or windows. The windows are amazing! They have 30,000 small glass panes, called quarries, arranged in squares, rectangles, diamonds, circles, and triangles. Much of the original 16th-century glass is still there, showing the beautiful color changes of old glass. You can even see old scratches on some panes. The roof frame has decorations, and some of the chimneys have patterns made with blue bricks.
The house sits on an island surrounded by a 33-foot (10 m) wide moat. This moat was probably dug in the 1200s or 1300s for an older building. It wasn't really for defense, but more to show off how important the family was. A stone bridge leads to the Gatehouse, which is in the three-story south part of the house. Each of the upper floors here sticks out over the one below.
The Gatehouse leads into a rectangular courtyard. The Great Hall is at the north end. A two-story tower next to the Gatehouse holds the garderobes (old toilets), which emptied right into the moat! One historian described the inside of the house as a "corridor-less warren." This means rooms lead into other rooms, and there are four staircases connecting different levels. Some grander rooms have beautiful fireplaces and wood panels, but others are quite small. We don't even know what some of the rooms were originally used for.
Exploring the Ground Floor
You enter the Great Hall through a porch and a "screens passage." This was a common feature in old houses to block drafts. The porch has fancy carvings. The Great Hall's roof is held up by wooden trusses decorated with carved dragons. The floor, which is now stone, would have originally been dirt covered with rushes, and there would have been a fire pit in the middle. The big window overlooking the courtyard was added in 1559.
The original service area behind the Great Hall was rebuilt in 1546. It held a kitchen, buttery (for drinks), and pantry (for food). In the 1800s, a hidden shaft was found in two secret rooms above the kitchen. It connected to a tunnel leading to the moat, but the tunnel entrance has since been filled in. Today, the west side of the house has a gift shop and restaurant.
Behind where the family would have sat in the Great Hall is a doorway to the Parlour. This room, along with the Withdrawing Room and Great Hall, is part of the original house. The wooden panels you see today were added later. But underneath them, in 1976, they found original painted panels! These paintings look like marble and have scenes from the Bible, like the story of Susanna and the Elders. The Moreton family's wolf head symbol and the initials "J.M." suggest these paintings were done before John Moreton died in 1598.
A private staircase connects the Parlour and the Withdrawing Room. The Withdrawing Room has carved wooden panels from the 1500s and a wooden ceiling. The bay window in this room was also added in 1559, just like the one in the Great Hall. Underneath these windows, there's an inscription that says:
God is Al in Al Thing: This windous whire made by William Moreton in the yeare of Oure Lorde MDLIX. Rycharde Dale Carpeder made thies windous by the grac of God.
This means "God is All in All Things: These windows were made by William Moreton in the year of Our Lord 1559. Richard Dale, Carpenter, made these windows by the grace of God." The fireplace in this room is decorated with female figures and has Queen Elizabeth I's royal crest. It would have been painted and gilded (covered in gold) long ago.
The Exhibition Room was used as a bedroom by William Moreton III in the mid-1600s. After he died, his children divided the house into three living areas. His daughter Ann used this room as a kitchen. The Chapel, started in 1508, is also on the ground floor. It has Renaissance-style paintings from the late 1500s, showing scenes from the Bible. The chancel (the part of the church near the altar) was added later and has a much higher ceiling. The stained glass in the chancel was added in the 1900s by Charles Abraham as a gift when he gave the house to the National Trust.
The Corn Store next to the Chapel might have been a room for a gatekeeper. By the late 1600s, it was used to store grain, with a raised floor to keep it dry. The Brew-house, where beer was made, is now used as public toilets.
Up to the First Floor
The Guests' Hall and its Porch Room are above the entrance to the courtyard and the Gatehouse. You can reach them from the Prayer Room or by a staircase leading to the Long Gallery on the floor above. The first-floor landing leads to a hallway between the Guests' Hall and Guests' Parlour, and to the garderobe tower. A doorway near the Guests' Parlour leads to the Brew-house Chamber, which was probably for servants.
In the mid-1600s, the Guests' Hall was called Mr. Booth's Chamber, named after a family friend who often stayed there. The large carved supports in this room, which help hold up the Long Gallery above, were added around 1660. The Prayer Room, above the Chapel, was originally the bedroom of William Moreton's daughter, Ann.
The floors on this level are made from a special plaster mixed with straw and oak. This would have helped protect against fires. Many of the first-floor rooms are not open to the public. Some are now used as homes for the National Trust staff who live at the house. The Education Room, above the restaurant, was once a solar (a private living room) and is now used by school groups.
The Famous Long Gallery
The Long Gallery runs along the entire south side of the house on the top floor. Its roof is made of heavy stone slabs, which have caused the floors below to bend and warp over time. Historians describe it as "a gloriously long and crooked space, the wide floorboards rising up and down like waves and the walls leaning outwards at different angles." Wooden beams were likely added in the 1600s to stop the structure from "bursting apart" under the weight.
The Long Gallery has almost continuous rows of windows along its north and south sides, and a window at the west end. A window at the east end is now blocked. The ends of the gallery have plaster figures of Destiny and Fortune, copied from a book from 1556. The sayings read: "The wheel of fortune, whose rule is ignorance" and "The speare of destiny, whose rule is knowledge." The Long Gallery was usually quite empty. It was used for exercise when the weather was bad and as a games room. Four old tennis balls from the early 1600s were found behind the wood panels!
The Upper Porch Room, off the Long Gallery, might have been a quiet place away from the games. By the mid-1600s, it was used as a bedroom. Its fireplace has figures of Justice and Mercy. The middle panel shows the Moreton family crest combined with the Macclesfield family crest, celebrating a marriage from 1329.
What's Inside the House Today
Only three pieces of the house's original furniture have survived. These are a large dining table, a big cupboard (possibly for spices), and a "great rounde table." The dining table and cupboard are in the Great Hall. The round table is in the Parlour, and its eight-sided shape suggests it was made to fit in the bay window. Other than these pieces and some 17th-century pewter dishes, the rooms are mostly empty. This helps visitors imagine what the house was like long ago.
Gardens and Estate
By the mid-1500s, the Little Moreton Hall estate was at its largest. It covered 1,360 acres and included three watermills. One mill was used to grind corn. The shape of the pond that powered this mill is still visible, even though the mill was torn down in the 1800s. The Moreton family also had an iron workshop (bloomery) since the late 1400s. The other two mills powered its water-driven hammers. The dam of the artificial pond that supplied water for the bloomery, called Smithy Pool, still exists, but the pond itself is gone. The bloomery closed in the early 1700s. After that, the pond and moat were used to raise fish like carp and tench. By the mid-1700s, the estate made money from farming, selling timber, fish farming, and renting out properties.
We know there was a garden at Little Moreton Hall from old records in the early 1600s. These records mention a gardener and buying seeds. Philip Moreton, who managed the estate in the mid-1600s, left a lot of information about the garden inside the moat. He wrote about a herb garden, a vegetable garden, and a nursery for fruit trees. These trees would later be moved to the orchard, which is probably where the orchard is today.
In the 1900s, the gardens, which had been left empty for a long time, were replanted. They were designed to look like gardens from the Tudor period. The knot garden was planted in 1972. Its detailed design came from a book published in 1670. You can see the intricate knot design from one of two original viewing mounds. These mounds were common in 16th-century formal gardens. One is inside the moat, and the other is to the southwest. Other parts of the grounds include a yew tunnel and an orchard. The orchard grows fruits that people would have eaten in Tudor times, like apples, pears, quinces, and medlars.
Superstition and Haunting Stories
During the last major restoration work, 18 old boots and shoes were found hidden in the building's structure. They all dated from the 1800s. Hidden shoes were sometimes placed to ward off evil spirits, ghosts, or witches. They were also thought to help women in the house have children.
Like many old buildings, Little Moreton Hall has ghost stories. People say a "grey lady" haunts the Long Gallery. A child's sobbing has also reportedly been heard near the Chapel.
Visiting Little Moreton Hall Today
Little Moreton Hall is open to the public from mid-February to December each year. The ground floor of the west side has been changed to include a restaurant and a tearoom. A new building holds the visitor reception and shop. Services are held in the Chapel every Sunday from April to October.
Little Moreton Hall is also a popular place for filming. In 1996, it was used as a setting for a TV show called The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders.
See also
In Spanish: Little Moreton Hall para niños
- Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire
- List of Scheduled Monuments in Cheshire
- Listed buildings in Odd Rode
