Cyber Diary

Little Moreton Hall - National Trust (Sunday 18th April 1999)
Author: Nigel

When you finally get round to joining the National Trust you know you've crossed that boundary into middle-age. This place will be imprinted on my memory as being the place where we crossed that boundary, yes we are now fully fledged National Trust members. My mind excites at the thought of many more days spent trudging though freezing cold houses and marvelling at the state of someone's oversized garden.

Enough of that, what about  Little Moreton Hall.

Well, not a bad place I must admit. Its not far from Kidsgrove, North Staffordshire (although the hall is just in Cheshire) and is probably the finest example of a complete Tudor Mansion still standing. It was originally built in the early 1500's and has only really been modified to stop it falling down. In addition to its rarity value its key architectural feature is the fact that its lines are far from straight, in fact its decidedly higgledy-piggledy, hence the strengthening work I hinted about above. The apparent reasons given for its instability were as follows:

• Use of green Oak timbers (i.e. not dried) which apparently are prone to twist as they dry out
• Weak foundations, the property has sunk into the ground it was built on at various points
• The roof is tiled with Macclesfield stone, not slate, the weight placing undue pressure on the walls of the property

There's a moat around the mansion and a very nice small garden round the back with box hedging. The guide was excellent and brought the past alive with many analogies and he explained the origins of many of todays well known phrases like 'chairman of the board', 'board meetings' and 'ring a ring o roses'.

Overall impression.

If you haven't seen a Tudor mansion before, you will be impressed, its an amazing building. Make sure you have a guide it really makes the visit worth while.

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