 Little Moreton Hall
There can be few houses in England that possess an 'olde worlde' charm more
appealing than this striking black and white timber-framed building.
Resting sedately beside the clear, still waters of the moat, Little
Moreton Hall represents the classic chocolate-box picture that many
believe are just figments of an artist's imagination. Even more surprising
is that this romantically crooked old manor house stands just yards
from the busy main road between Kidsgrove and Congelton, on the borders
of Cheshire and Staffordshire.
On land owned by the Moreton family for 700 years, the house was built by three generations over a
period of some 120 years. The earliest surviving structural work at Little Moreton Hall can be seen in
the east wing and the great hall and, despite extensive remodelling over
the centuries, very little appears to have changed since the original
house was first constructed in the mid 15th century. It is
interesting to note that the carpenter who carried out the modernisation
work in the 1550s, Richard Dale, is immortalised with an inscription
on the bay windows. Most of the stained glass in the leaded light windows
is from the 16th century and demands a close inspection to
appreciate the variety of colours and patterns made by these tiny, thin
pieces of unbleached glass.
As Little Moreton Hall was developed
and enlarged, it formed a delightful hotch-potch of buildings around
a central courtyard. Looking at the external elevation of the building,
from any angle, it is nigh impossible to find a perfectly straight
edge anywhere, and many of the glass panes appear blown
and distorted under the pressure of the heavy stone slate roof. A peculiar
sensation of slight giddiness and loss of balance might be experienced
whilst trying to negotiate the uneven floor surfaces which, in turn,
appear to be pushing the walls outwards on either side. This is not
an hallucination. The sturdy timber floors do have very pronounced dipping
and swelling boards, and the huge overhead beams have put so much strain
on the walls over the years that they have slowly buckled beneath the
weight. Although this contorted structure seems on the verge of total
collapse, it has miraculously survived intact, with hardly any obvious
additional bracing or supports to spoil the intricate external decoration.
By the early 18th century, the Moretons had vacated their family home, deciding to let
it to tenant farmers. Less than 100 years later many of the buildings
were being used for storage purposes, with only a small area remaining inhabited
by the tenant. Suffering from neglect and decay, Little Moreton Hall was
substantially restored by Elizabeth Moreton at the end of the 19th
century, with continuing maintenance and stabilisation work undertaken
by her cousin and heir, Bishop Abraham during his time at the hall.
Extremely proud of the fact that the family home had never been sold, and wishing
to secure the future of such an outstanding example of period architecture,
Bishop Abraham presented it to the National Trust in 1938. |
