Rival Reviews: Little Moreton Hall
Intricate by design, derelict by accident. A remarkable survivor of Tudor England.
The entrance of the Great Hall on a cloudy Cheshire day.
Little Moreton Hall lives up to its name immediately. It’s a compact pile surrounded by a small moat and ornamented by a simple hedge garden and a touch of lawn. It’s also a little wonky, but that’s only fair, it has been standing for over 500 years.
The hall was built between 1504-08 by William Moreton, a prosperous landowner who wanted to show off this fact, and the shambling structure you can see today is the result of various extensions by the Moreton family up until 1610, when the money ran out.
Little Moreton follows the traditional Tudor style of oak framework in chevron and lozenge - the rhombus not the coughdrop - patterns, laced across wattle and daub walls on a sandstone plinth base. Though stereotypes of Tudor houses almost always feature black beams and white walls, the beams themselves would have been their natural silvery hue in the hall’s hayday, and the black paint covering them now is likely a fanciful Victorian addition (what’s new?). The building sits on its own island, though it's likely the moat was built to enclose an earlier building, and would have served as a status symbol rather than a means of defence (the Tudor dynasty was famously touchy about their subjects building fortified residences).
The building’s creation coincides with the start of the English Renaissance, and nods to this are integrated into the structure, notably the fancy motifs on the Gatehouse and liberal use of glass. In fact, much of the 16th century glazing is still kicking to this day. Don’t let this fool you however, the architecture is pretty unremarkable for the time, though the layout itself is highly unusual. The hall is also allegedly haunted by a grey lady, but isn’t everywhere?
The House partly surrounds a courtyard, and the consequence of over a century for various add ons has created a mismatched, matchbox effect with little cohesion. Windows face each other, which would have undoubtedly made for awkward eye contact on occasion, some rooms are grand and imposing, some barely larger than a wardrobe, and the upper floors squash those beneath.
The Long Gallery’s preservation is endless.
One of the most distinctive things in fact about Little Moreton Hall however is that it's conspicuously wonky. There is one primary reason for this; the house is very top heavy. The roof consists of gritstone roof slabs, much heavier than slate, which is not local to the area and thus would have required large expenditure to transport (The Moreton’s were wealthy, but let’s be reasonable here!). Some of the larger slabs weigh up to 15 stone, and the total weight of the roof is estimated at 32 tons, the equivalent of 5 fully grown elephants or one fully grown sperm whale. Understandably this weight has pressed down on the oak trusses, pushing the walls apart and destabilising the framework, which show opening joints later filled with plaster. The National Trust has since been shoring up the roof with steel beams, but the pressure is still evident in the house’s charming, and slightly concerning, tilt.
However, another cause of the wonky architecture is the late addition of a second floor and the long gallery, which was added without the designer being particularly bothered about the impact of the additional load on the floors below. This is evident in the settlement (read: buckling) beneath the long gallery, which itself tilts and weaves like a 17th century galleon in a tropical storm and gives the distinct impression that a stiff breeze might send it flying, Wizard-of-Oz style, across Cheshire.
One other prolific aspect of the hall is the plethora of burn marks that cover the house, over 250 in all. More than almost anywhere else in the country. These burn marks, known as taper marks, were created near any points of 'weakness' in the building; fireplaces, windows and doorways, where evil spirits could enter. Such marks resemble tear drops and had been dismissed by most antiquarians as accidental until the early 2000s. Though most of the taper marks in the hall are at eye level, suggesting they’ve been made in situ by residents of the house rather than builders or craftsmen, If indeed these were all accidental it's a wonder that the wood framed hall survived at all. Eventually, research carried out by the historians John Dean and Nick Hill revealed that creating the distinctive marks was actually pretty difficult: a poker had to be applied at a certain angle and held for up to 15 minutes, the resulting charcoal scraped away and the poker applied again to blacken the wood. A pretty tedious process.
Demon trapping in the parlour.
There is no clear cut reason why taper burn marks would be a particular deterrent for evil ghoulies and ghosts, though it may be tied to the significance of candles in religious ceremonies. For example, it was tradition on the Twelfth Night after Christmas to walk room by room with a candle to dispel evil spirits, or use one to mark the cross on a ceiling to put off witches. The Tudors feared the night and the dark. From the time of Henry VIII there was a period of religious turmoil as the Tudor dynasty flipped between religious affiliations faster than an F1 pit stop. People felt they could no longer turn to the church as a remedy for their worries, indeed they probably didn't even know which church they could even enter without being accused of high treason. Candles brought light to this darkness.
Certainly the Moretons appeared more worried than most.
Before the early 17th century the family left very little impact on the historical record. Evidence suggests that they were at least canny enough to snap up vast acres of land following the Black Death epidemic in the 14th century, which wiped out one third of the English population and left much of the English landscape rudderless and ownerless. At this time the gentry could support an extremely comfortable lifestyle on farming the land; the Spanish colonization of South America and subsequent looting of gold back to Europe had introduced the concept of inflation for the first time to England and as money became worth less, prices rose. Those who controlled the sheep controlled the wealth. There is no evidence that the Moretons were ever titled, but would have been just one of many families that benefited from this new status quo. Little Moreton Hall was the symbol of affluence and aspiration for status that reflected this. Little Moreton Hall’s consistent add ons over this period shows the family remained comfortable.
However, one thing we do know is that fortune really failed the Moreton family at the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, where the family was associated with the Royalist faction in a predominantly Parliamentarian area. This is what is known as an error of judgement. The Hall was duly confiscated by the government and reigning patriarch William Moreton III and his son Edward were promptly imprisoned in the early stages of the war and not allowed to return to the estate upon release.
The running of the estate was therefore passed along to William’s daughters Anne and Jane, who rented the hall back from the government at extortionate rates, real central-London prices. As a result, by the time William returned to Little Moreton Hall he was indebted beyond repair. His children would be the last Moreton’s to live at the hall. The house was then rented for over 200 years, first to relatives and then to a procession of tenant farmers. Ironically, the survival of the hall in its earliest form can be attributed to the neglect of these tenants; with little interest from the owners, the Tudor building survived in its original state rather than being modified to suit more modern tastes.
One prominent tenant farmer, Thomas Dale, inhabited the estate with his wife Ann and their fourteen children (poor Ann) for over 70 years between 1880 and 1955. There is much local interest in the family as Dale is a very common family name in the area, not a shocker considering the amount of children they had. The Dale’s started first as tenants for the Moretons and then as caretakers following takeover by the National Trust. During this time the hall was the centre of a working farm, but from 1913 the house was open to the public and the family operated a tearoom and gave tours of the property every day of the year. Good job there were enough of them.
The lack of interest in renovating the hall however also halted any regard for repairing it too. In 1887, a concerned party wrote to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, established to oppose the destructive 'restoration' of ancient buildings occurring in Victorian England, stating that the Hall was ‘falling to pieces for want of the most ordinary care. The wall's sinking so as to bulge the panelling as much as two feet.’ The strongly-worded letter did what most do however: no good. By the time Elizabeth Moreton inherited the house in 1892, it was close to complete collapse.
Luckily Elizabeth was a wealthy woman, with a keen interest in preserving her dynastic hall. Her main feats were restoring the Chapel and installing metal tie rods in the Long Gallery, which stabilised the particularly wonky South Range. Upon her death, the hall was bequeathed to her cousin, Reverend Charles Thomas Abraham. Though the Rev was committed to Little Moreton's continued survival, the amount of work the pile required proved too rich for his blood and in 1937 he all but threw the hall at the National Trust. Since then work to preserve and shore up the house has been ongoing.
We arrive at Little Moreton Hall on a grisly Sunday morning, just in time for a talk about the house’s origin and development run by an enthusiastic volunteer in appropriate Tudor garb. Though obviously large enough to be livable, the house feels miniature; compact and confined. The layout is warren-like, rooms opening into each other rather than passing by passageways. Tudor residences tended not to include corridors, which were slowly integrated into architectural layouts from the 17th century to separate the social classes. Not that that matters now; almost the whole house is open to the public.
Can you guess the word being created on this redux?
The fact that Little Moreton Hall was left in its unaltered Tudor state has meant that several unique Tudor features are still evident. My companion and I discovered many of them.
Ever attentive, the room stewards pointed out several of the famous burn marks, including a high beam in the parlour carved with a daisy wheel, which is the only spirit mark intentionally placed by a craftsman, we hope on purpose. The design of a six-petalled flower consists of one singular line, and it was thought if a demon saw the line it would follow it and become trapped. In the same room we were also treated to a fun Tudor game. On one window the family’s crest had been altered to create a Rebus, a kind of visual crossword where each picture represents a word which is then combined for the solution. Not to brag but I did get it right my first try.
Another eyecatcher in Little Moreton Hall was the decorated wall in the little parlour, depicting the tale of Susannah and the Elders, a biblical moral tale about salvation coming to those who put their faith in God, among other designs. It was discovered underneath Georgian panelling, having been placed over the top student landlord-style and hidden until an electrician discovered them in 1976. The wall painting can be dated to between 1563–98, when this type of wall painting was popular among those who could or would not incur the expense of tapestry wall hangings.
Further up the hall we begin to feel a bit sea sick, until the 1990s, only eight people were allowed up to the long gallery and only if they confined themselves to the edge of the room. A stipulation that would not have compelled me to visit. Luckily the National Trust installed a metal brace and now we are able to stand at a 45 degree angle and discuss tennis with the room steward, who informs us that two balls dating from the 17th century have been found behind the Tudor panelling in the room. A room off the Long Gallery is so wonky that the chimney stands at a completely different angle to the room itself, creating an illusion that it is it and not you who is in the wrong. A spirit level proves this not to be the case. The whole area made me queasy and I was happy to descend the stairs.
Its not me, its you. The crooked room with the level chimney.
It was time for a coffee, which we drank in the rain while ducks gleefully ran under our table, unaware we had nothing to offer them apart from a black americano. The gardens of Little Moreton Hall are modest, most of the little island is lawn, with a small knot garden which was planted in 1972. Historical records from the early 17th century indicate that the land inside the moat was predominantly productive, not decorative; Philip Moreton writes of a herb garden, vegetable garden, and a nursery for maturing fruit trees. However, the knot garden is very Tudor, a prominent 16th century element of the formal garden style. It consists of small hedges and flower beds in intricate patterns designed to be viewed from above by occupants of the house. For this reason they were almost always planted close to the property. Other features of the grounds include a yew tunnel and a small orchard growing fruits that would have been familiar to the house's Tudor occupants: apples, pears, quinces and medlars. The cafe uses the fruits to make jam for the tearoom.
Due to the diminutive size of the hall and its garden, after that there is little else to occupy us, and we decide to leave. It’s like spending the day in a dollhouse, and a very enjoyable excursion.
Lunch?
I have long given up on National Trust food. Besides, we had a very delicious brunch before making the trip to the hall. These facts are related.
Is the café in the kitchens or the stables?
The teeny tiny hall actually has one small tea room, original to the Dale family tenure, and a little restaurant entered separately. They have both taken over what used to be the kitchen, buttery and pantry range of rooms. Out of interest, the toilets are now in the old brew house.
Can I take my kids?
The whole house feels kid-sized, so I probably would.
Can I take my dogs?
Why do we even still ask this? There will never be a day when the centuries old heritage property allows anything but service animals inside and Little Moreton Hall offers no exceptions.
Walks?
There are a few walks surrounding the hall that would make for an enjoyable excursion but the weather was too miserable for us to explore this fully.
Well, what did you think?
Little Moreton Hall was a gem for many reasons. It is rarer than you might think to see a house of this era so little altered (restaurants in Tudor kitchens aside) and for this reason only it is probably worth the visit.
The house is not exceedingly furnished, indeed only three pieces that survive are original to the Moreton home, but what really sings is the small details. The burn marks are especially interesting and because there are so many they really stand out, the sheer number of wolves (part of the Moreton family crest) integrated into the designwork of the facade is also prominent and the original features such as the windows lend the house a lived in atmosphere that can often feel lacking at staged historical homes. If you get motion sick or are scared of (or falling from) heights, the Long Gallery may not feel worth standing in, but it’s certainly a unique experience I’m glad I could partake in.
Sorry to the Moreton family, but I’m really glad you aligned yourself to the wrong team, got thrown in jail and lost all your money and your house, because I had a really nice day out here.