Little Moreton Hall

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Little Moreton Hall, a fine example of an English timber-framed manor house.

Little Moreton Hall is a manor house 4 miles SW of Congleton, Cheshire. It is one of the best known timber framed buildings in England and is in the care of the National Trust.

Little Moreton belonged to Moretons, a family of landowners, for nearly five centuries. It is a highly irregular building which rambles around three sides of a small cobbled courtyard. The exterior walls are made of white daub between dark wooden beams, which are set in a variety of patterns. It has a moat and an unusual Elizabethan knot garden.

The earliest part of the building is the great hall which dates from around 1450. The adjacent kitchen wing was added in about 1480. The east wing of the building was dates from about 1559 to 1570. This part of the house includes the chapel and the withdrawing room. At the junction of the east wing and the great hall there is a striking pair of gabled bay windows, which were signed by the carpenter:

"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."

Gabled windows by carpenter Richard Dale, located in the central courtyard of Little Moreton Hall

The last major extension was the south wing of c. 1570–80, which includes a gatehouse and a third storey containing a 68 foot long gallery. The rest of the house has only two floors, and the structure has struggled to support the extra weight at this end ever since, resulting in a considerable tilt. It is now propped up with concealed steel beams. A small domestic block was added to the south wing in around 1600, completing the structure.

The fortunes of the Moreton family declined during and after the English Civil War, in which they sided with the royalists. In the Little Moreton Hall was let to tenant farmers, and little or no attempt was made to modernise it. In the 19th century its antiquarian value began to be appreciated and Miss Elizabeth Moreton started to restore it. The building, however, was never again occupied by the Moreton family. In 1912 Elizabeth Moreton bequeathed the house to a cousin, Charles Abraham, Bishop of Derby, who continued the preservation effort until 1938, when it was transferred to the National Trust.