Memorials of old Cheshire

by Unknown

THE HALF-TIMBERED ARCHITECTURE OF CHESHIRE

By C. H. Minshull

“He that hewed timber out of the thick trees: was known to bring it to an excellent work.”

ALBEIT this paper is to confine itself to the domestic or secular side of the subject, and this quotation might even more suitably serve as his text by the author treating exclusively of the ecclesiastical examples of timber-framed buildings, yet its appropriateness may warrant these words forming a sort of superscription for what is after all part and parcel of one theme.

While it may be conceded that Cheshire can count many extant memorials of greater historic importance and of longer lineage than any of those remaining recorded in that particular kind of “black and white” coming within our present immediate purview, it may nevertheless be claimed that these specimens of the carpenter’s craft constitute by no means the least charming and characteristic of the county’s architectural possessions.

The “post and panel” work, the “magpie” style, to use the sobriquet sometimes familiarly applied to it, so plentifully strewn throughout its length and breadth, does certainly bring a very distinct contribution to the picturesqueness of the Palatinate, whose now fertile plain, studded with these timber structures, is where buildings of this traditional type most do congregate. Indeed, it is a question whether they do not serve to connote Cheshire quite as much as that prosaic product the cheese, which has made the name and fame of the county a household word! Another proof of the identification of the county with the kind of buildings under consideration is that when a building is referred to as being in the “Cheshire style,” the description is always understood as implying a half-timbered erection, and at the same time goes to show that its designer has been paying his tribute of imitation to and admiration of the manner and method, which formerly was so felicitously employed in several parts of the country, but in none more extensively than in Cheshire—a fact happily still capable of demonstration in the frequency of surviving examples.

Many a piquant touch of contrasted colour does the landscape owe to these delightful buildings, one of whose attractive qualities resides in just that faculty of focussing the eye they so eminently possess. Here it may be a cluster of quaint cottages, or perhaps a single cottage of comely proportions nestling in some sequestered spot, or one of those moated granges or sturdy farmsteads that dot the countryside; or there it may be a more elaborate and ornate example, some “stately home,” attesting the skilful handiwork of the faber lignarius who centuries ago followed his calling with such excellent and enduring results, his fitly and soundly framing of the building together having enabled it to withstand the action of time and weather—if so be by good fortune it managed to escape that more fatal enemy fire, whose ravages are no doubt responsible for the disappearance of many an architectural treasure, which, had a more resistant material been employed, might have survived to shed additional lustre on the county, already so renowned for its half-timbered treasures.

The explanation of the prevalence of this species of building, and of Cheshire having become par excellence a centre for it, is, of course, to be found in the fact of the county having possessed an abundance of raw material in the “thick trees” ready to the hand of the hewer.

In his Story of some English Shires, as told by the late Dr. Mandell Creighton, speaking of the physical features of Cheshire, he says: “Three great forests covered much of the surface of the ground. From Chester to the sea stretched the forest of Wirral, from the Mersey to the Dee extended the forest of Delamere, and the forest of Macclesfield formed an impenetrable barrier between Cheshire and Derbyshire”; and he adds a remark not altogether irrelevant to the matter in hand: “There was so little agriculture that the men of Cheshire used to leave their homes and serve as harvesters in districts where corn was grown, in the same way as did Irish labourers in our own days.” These copious sources of timber have long since disappeared, and the once afforested area has given place to those broad acres under cultivation now covering the county.

In Domesday Book, under Cestrescire, these forests are often referred to, but we are left to conjecture what were the trees growing in them; doubtless there was the ash and the elm, and also “the monarch oak, sole king of forests all,” ready to hand for those who, in the elder days of the carpenter’s art, erected the dwellings from which those later buildings now being considered are either lineal or collateral descendants. The earliest extant of these may only carry us back some 500 years, but this had not only Norman but Anglo-Saxon progenitors. It is well known that the latter employed both in their churches and houses timber as their staple building material, and although all these have perished there remains the testimony of their language; the Saxon word “timbran” signified to build with wood, and builder meant carpenter. Their rude halls may be regarded as the origin of the old English timber-built houses.

The oldest form of rectangular house was erected in “bays,” the simplest form of construction being the house of one bay. Two pairs of bent trees (whence the term “roof tree” seems an outcome) were set up in the ground about 16 feet apart, each pair making a sort of pointed arch, united at their apexes by a longitudinal beam. The gable end of many an old Cheshire cottage shows the persistence of this traditional type.

Before bringing under review some few of the many specimens the county contains, a word or two with regard to their method of construction may not be out of place. Scarcity of stone and difficulties of transit account for this material being so sparingly used. Upon a few courses of stonework forming a plinth, horizontal beams were laid, and into these angle posts and intermediate uprights were framed. These carried the sill of the upper storey, whose floor joists were often made to project, producing the “overhang,” frequently coved, which is one of the most effective features of the style.

It is not, however, so much the general disposition of their main timbers as the varied patterns and devices of the panels filling in the intervening spaces that provides one of the distinguishing characteristics of these Cheshire buildings. As one may often determine a person’s native place by his dialect, so do these lozenges and other chequer patterns enable one to recognise the place of their origin; they are, as it were, a sort of idiomatic architectural expression. When the carpenter had finished the skeleton of the structure, there remained, to complete the wooden walls, the filling in of the interstices of the framing. For this purpose, what is known as “wattle and daub” was commonly employed. By this primitive process clay could be used in its natural state. The method was to make a foundation by interlacing osiers or hazel twigs, thus forming a sort of basket work, and then to daub over with clay mixed with straw or some stringy weed, and upon this put a thin coating of plaster on both the inside and outside faces. In his Cheshire Glossary, Colonel Egerton Leigh remarks, “The daub seems to have given a name to a trade,” and in support of this statement a quaint old couplet is quoted:⁠—

“The mayor of Altrincham and the mayor of Over,

The one is a thatcher, the other a dauber”;

and then follows this favourable comment on the old process: “Clay, being a non-conductor, makes a warm house in winter and a cool one in summer.”

Whether this “post and panel” work originally presented the study in black and white it now does, is open to question. Most likely the tarring of the timbers was resorted to rather with the object of preservation than with the intention of producing the contrasted effect between the wood and the plaster, now so conspicuous a characteristic. It may be that the dark brown and yellow ochre colour combination one sees in the corresponding manner of building on the Continent was more like the original appearance of these Cheshire buildings. Space forbids going into side issues and demands the taking into consideration some of the specimens of the “excellent work,” in which the county is so rich as to make the task of selection by no means easy.

The mere enumeration of notable examples would occupy many pages, and to deal with them in detail according to their deserts would call for a treatise instead of this cursory survey. But for a complete chronicle, is there not Ormerod’s magnum opus?—that mine of information and monument of industry which is indeed itself one of the county’s “memorials”; and for pictorial treatment there is that gallery of vivid illustrations, Nash’s Mansions of the Olden Time, wherein are to be seen, splendidly set forth, several of Cheshire’s celebrated “stately homes,” both as regards their outward aspect and their interiors, and containing, moreover, counterfeit presentments of their former occupants in their habits as they lived.

Any one unable to visit the actual building and desirous of getting an idea of their peculiar charm, aye and the splendour, of these fine old halls of Cheshire, would be well-advised to turn to that artist’s views of Bramall, of Adlington, and of Moreton, which constitute a trio of half-timbered treasures not perhaps surpassed by any buildings of their kind in any other county, or indeed country.

By right of seniority, as well as by reason of uniqueness, Baguley or Baggily Hall, in the neighbourhood of Stockport, claims first consideration. In Parker’s Domestic Architecture, remarking upon the difficulty of finding timber houses of the fourteenth century, Baggily is referred to as a “rare example.”

BAGGILY HALL, CHESHIRE.

On this account and because of its intrinsic interest, it is now illustrated by two sectional views and by a sketch of the interior showing the purely Gothic spirit of its open-timbered roof, and giving an idea of the massiveness of its oakwork.

There being but few surviving specimens for the purposes of further illustrating the period between the reign of Edward III., when Baggily was built, and that of Elizabeth, certain almshouses from Commonhall Lane, Chester, dating from about the time of Henry VII., may with advantage be here adduced. Unfortunately they are no longer standing, but, before they were pulled down some forty years ago, drawings were made which have rendered possible their reconstruction by means of this sketch; and by the reproduction of the window details to show the distinctive character of this earlier type of timber work.

ALMS HOUSES: COMMONHALL LANE, CHESTER.

It is on reaching the spacious times of Queen Elizabeth that there is no longer any paucity but a positive profusion, and there ensues an embarras de choix in the examples available.

Her reign and that of her immediate successors constituted what may perhaps be called the classic era of half-timbered architecture. A period of not much more than a hundred years sufficed for the style to attain its zenith and reach its decline and passing in the seventeenth century.

The frequency with which one comes across the royal cipher E. R. and the many corroborative arms and date panels, both in Cheshire and elsewhere, bring to mind the marvellous outburst of energy and activity that marked her times in all departments of life, one of whose outlets was in the building operations of the period, and especially in the domestic direction, some of the evidences of which we are now concerned with. England, as has been truly said, is awake after the slumber of the Middle Ages, and for a brief period the national life blazes with unprecedented brilliance and splendour.

Adherence to the traditional manner of timber building in Cheshire would be accounted for and be encouraged by the abundant supplies of the requisite raw material still available; for this and the adjoining counties of Shropshire and Lancashire, where this type of building also flourished, were at a safe distance from the iron-smelting works and ship-building yards which made such inroads on the woods and forests in other parts of the kingdom.

In the attractive appearance of those Elizabethan erections, that Baconian dictum (certainly challengeable, at all events, from an architect’s standpoint), “houses are built to live in and not to look on,” found plenty of contemporary refutation in the picturesque and delightful halls of this county.

As in the Edwardian Baggily Hall, so in its Elizabethan successors the “great hall” continued to be the chief feature, the principal pivot, so to say, of the general plan. But, whereas in the earlier examples it was invariably open right up to the roof, it gradually began to be divided into two storeys by the interposition of a floor. One consequence of this change was the disappearance of the minstrels’ gallery and the dais. The cause of the decline in importance of the great hall may partly have been the introduction of Italian ideas, but was mainly due to the alteration in the habits of life. The progress of civilisation brought with it the multiplication of apartments, and hence the space once entirely occupied by the lofty hall could no longer be afforded.

BRAMALL: THE PORCH E´. END.

BRAMALL:
A CORNER OF THE SOUTH WING.

An exemplification of this is provided by Bramall, where the “great hall” has a flat ceiling, and above this is the drawing-room; an apartment growing rapidly into importance in Elizabethan times. This upper chamber, as is the case of Bramall, becomes more handsomely treated with raised plaster and other ornament, and is, moreover, much loftier than the hall below it. Access was by means of a spiral staircase of solid blocks of oak. Bramall, like other contemporary halls of its class, was originally built in quadrangular form; but when peaceful times came, the owners, desiring a more open outlook, secured this by doing away with one side of the quadrangle, and with it swept away the gate-house. The south-eastern wing contains, as houses of this period commonly do, a domestic chapel and also the fine banqueting room. One of its most noteworthy features, “the long gallery,” of which Ormerod gives a sketch, has disappeared. Bramall originally belonged to the Bromeales or Bromhals, but passed by marriage to the Davenports as far back as the reign of Edward III. From the sketches an idea of the general rich character of the timber framing can be gathered. Rivalling it in some respects, one may next mention Moreton or Little Moreton Hall, near the Staffordshire border. It is surrounded by a moat spanned by a stone bridge, and sentinelled by a gatehouse of striking proportions, through which one enters the courtyard, where the many-angled bays at once arrest attention.

MORETON OLD HALL: GATEHOUSE.

By whom they were contrived or, at all events, actually constructed, and when, can be learned from the inscriptions carved above the upper windows, which run thus:

“God is al in al thing.”

“This windows whire made by William Moreton in the yeare of Oure Lorde mdlix.”

“Richard Dale Carpeder made thies windows by the Grac of God.”

MORETON HALL.
IN THE COURTYARD.

Vying with these charming bays in interest and importance, there is occupying the entire length of the main wing a magnificent room on the topmost (the third) floor which, tradition has it, was graced by the presence of Queen Elizabeth, and danced in by her Majesty.

It is at such places as Moreton Hall, with its fine ballroom, to quote some reflections which resulted from an architect’s—the late Mr. H. Taylor, of Manchester—study of this old house, we see the provisions made in the past for enjoying life in the country. In this old house the disturbed state of former times is brought vividly to our minds if we have sufficiently narrow shoulders to creep through the sliding panel into the apartment which was a harbour of refuge for those whose life was in danger. When hotly pursued, the fugitive escaped down a sort of well and through an underground passage. At Moreton Hall, built when Italian ideas were creeping into the country, it is instructive to notice how the architect was apparently puzzled by the conflicting principles of our humble and beautiful Gothic and of the more pretentious Italian style, e.g. the ballroom, which is on the third storey, has an open-timbered, pointed roof, with a thrust upon the walls. This thrust he evidently thought it not proper to counteract by buttresses as his brethren a hundred years before would have done, and from this cause the stability of the building has for some time been threatened. The inhabitants at Moreton, we cannot but feel, must have been put to sore inconvenience many a time, inasmuch as no one had then invented corridors, and so there are four or five staircases. This arrangement must have been very disagreeable on a wet night, as the bedrooms could only be reached from different sides of the building by crossing the courtyard with or without candles or lanterns. Much as one is tempted to linger at Moreton, there is that other member of the famous triad of half-timbered treasures on this side of the shire awaiting consideration—Adlington. This is the home of one of Cheshire’s oldest families, in whose possession it has remained for many centuries. Of considerable exterior interest and entered by an admirably-proportioned, two-storeyed porch, it is, however, the interior of the great hall that constitutes its chief glory. A very noticeable feature is the cove-shaped panelling that runs right across one end and contains a large number of shields of arms of the various families connected with the house of Legh.

The roof is of remarkably fine character with principals of hammer-beam design, and is a most effective and decorative piece of richly-moulded carpentry and carved work; the whole having an obviously Gothic character.

Upon some other “memorials” in this part of the county, all deserving to be dealt with at length, a very brief reference is all that can be bestowed—the little priest’s house at Prestbury, with its quaint and curious square-ended bays and four-way gables; Gawsworth Hall, now the rectory, with its remarkable three-storeyed octagonal bay; Handforth Hall, displaying a finely carved doorway; Alderley Edge with its farmhouse, “Eagle and Child” Inn, and cottages, with gables dressed out in the local fashion of draughtboard or chequered devices.

Of these examples it may be said that, while they all may have a certain family likeness, yet each possesses an individuality of its own, needing but a closer acquaintance for recognition and appreciation.

To pass to the opposite corner of the county, the Wirral. Contrary to what might have been expected, having regard to the fact that the whole of this peninsula, “from Blacon Point to Hilbree,” was formerly one continuous thickly-wooded tract, the region yields practically nothing of half-timbered work. The deforesting which took place under Edward III. may be mainly answerable for the absence alluded to.

This district did, however, once possess in a home of the Stanleys, Hooton Hall, what Ormerod describes as “a very large quadrangular building in timber,” and of which he gives an illustration. It was demolished in 1778, and in its stead stands the present stone-built successor.

Mid and Southern Cheshire well make up for the Wirral’s shortcomings.

BROXTON HALL.

To cite but a couple, Carden Hall and Broxton Old Hall. The former must have been a superb example, beautiful alike in situation and in itself; though now somewhat marred by sundry modernisings. Its neighbour, Broxton, has undergone restoration, but retains a good amount of the original framing. As fairly representative of its kind, a detail of a gable is given, “ab uno disce omnes.”

Seeing that several towns capable of supplying scores of opportunities for pursuing our subject—e.g. Stockport, Sandbach, Middlewich, and Nantwich—have been left out of sight, it is obvious that not a tithe of the county’s wealth has been touched upon in this slight survey.

If, however, none of these towns has been laid under tribute, a similar course with respect to the capital city would be indefensible.

Inasmuch, however, as Chester’s half-timbering has so often been dealt with from the standpoints of antiquary, artist, and architect, more than an abbreviated review seems unrequired, and anything like a complete catalogue raisonné uncalled for of the possessions of what must once have been a veritable “black and white” city, and can still claim to be one of the chief places for studying the style.

Chronologically the Chester timber buildings may not number any quite comparable to Shrewsbury’s “Butcher’s Row”; howbeit there is at least one example running that noted Gothic specimen fairly close, as regards age, at all events—the house at the corner of Castle Street being probably one, if not the earliest—(pace a placard on the seventeenth-century house in Lower Bridge Street proclaiming it to be the oldest house, adding a mere matter of 600 years by converting the figure six on the beam into a nought! and by this doctored date duping, it is to be feared, many an unsuspecting visitor!).

This corner house is closely associated with the names of those Chester worthies, the Randle Holmes, of heraldic and antiquarian renown. An examination of the mouldings and other details of this house points to it having been erected in Tudor times.

Happily still confronting us in Lower Bridge Street is that old hostelry known as the “Falcon,” and also “The Bear and Billet,” once the town house of the Earls of Shrewsbury and Talbot. The former has a most engagingly picturesque appearance, with an effective row of quatrefoils under the range of many-mullioned windows. Looking at the proportion of the fronts of both these buildings taken up by their ranges of windows, stretching from side to side, brings to mind that Derbyshire doggerel, coined to suit a somewhat like case—

“Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall.”

Some reference must be made to the famous fronts in Watergate Street, where is “God’s Providence House.” About the only piece of the original timber-work remaining is the beam with the inscription reminiscent of the plague, which in 1647 so ravaged the city.

Lower down the street is “Bishop Lloyd’s Palace” with its series of panels containing interesting and quaint renderings of sacred subjects. Further down the street one comes to Stanley Palace, which now has no frontage to the street, and hides the attraction of a fine flank up a passage. This is a notable specimen of Jacobean Renaissance as applied to timber work, showing but few traces of the almost forgotten Gothic which dictated its construction.

Among the minor examples may be mentioned a row of quaint little dwellings in Park Street facing the city walls. Of these “Nine Houses” but six are now standing. They have suffered from the insertion of incongruous sash windows, but this has not deprived them of all their interest. One may still admire the handiwork of the old carpenters who there so effectively employed the billet-moulds to the timbers and the chevron cutting on the beams.

HOUSE: WHITEFRIARS: CHESTER.

Exemplifying a later manner and different treatment, the house in Whitefriars is reserved as the last of this brief review. This bit of seventeenth century work with its widely overhanging upper portion, and the raised plaster ornament in the gables, with the date 1658, may claim to be regarded as not the least interesting of the “memorials” we have been considering.

Those who esteem the half-timbered work as among the county’s chief antiquarian attractions and architectural assets—indeed all who feel the fascination of the style—cannot but welcome the reversion to the type and the revival of the manner in recent years.

Among the patrons of the building arts none was more susceptible to the peculiar charm of this “nogging-work” than the late Duke of Westminster, who caused to be erected on his Eaton estate numerous buildings faithfully reproducing the forms and features of their Cheshire prototypes. In this work his Grace was fortunate in having at command the services of an architect, Mr. John Douglas, than whom no one has been more successful in recapturing the spirit of the old timber-work. To the late Duke’s liking for and desire to keep up the “Cheshire style” of architecture, Chester itself owes much that has been done towards preserving and also perpetuating the traditional character of its buildings. It is a matter for congratulation that the lead given has been so loyally followed, both by the Corporation and by the citizens. Another notable instance of revival is to be seen at Bidston Court in the Wirral; when this fine half-timbered house was built a few years ago, an actual and accurate reproduction of those bays at Old Moreton Hall was embodied therein.

By way of summing up the subject, the following words from Ruskin may perhaps be not out of place:⁠—

“If indeed there be any profit in our knowledge of the past, or any joy in the thought of being remembered hereafter, which can give strength to present exertion or patience to present endurance, there are two duties respecting national architecture whose importance it is impossible to overrate: the first, to render the architecture of the day historical; and, the second, to preserve, as the most precious of inheritance, that of past ages.”

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