Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Little Moreton Hall









On the way to the canal boat Gerda took us to visit a really old house owned by the National Trust called Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire. It was a magnificent Tudor style timber-framed manor house which has changed little in over 500 years!! It had a moat all the way around it and an old orchard it also had a historic knot garden, which I think means lots of little box hedges in a pattern because that it what it was!! There was a grass covered mound in the garden which has been created from the dirt they dug up to create the moat, this was used to check out who was coming up the road!! They were a suspicious and not very friendly lot in the olden days!! The actual house that has been standing all those years has no foundations and the slate roof tiles weight 200 tons!! As you can see from the photos it looked like "The Little Crooked House" from the outside, the staircase to the second and third floors was very narrow and to tell you the truth I was quite happy to come back down to ground level as it felt a bit wonky up there, although the guide assured us it was safe! It even had a toilet, which was really just a hole from the upper floor down through to the moat, so I am guessing swimming or fishing in the moat wouldn't have been a good option!! It had some elaborately carved timber and painted internal walls and patterned glass windows. And as you can see in one of the photos the builder actually carved his name, and the year he built the additions outside above the windows, a good bit of free advertising!!! Above the kitchen and looking out into one of the big rooms was a loft where the minstrels would have been put to entertain the people below with their music!

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