As previously stated, the hall of Adlington stands in the midst of an undulating and well-timbered park, from the higher parts of which the views are extensive and pleasingly diversified. It is a remarkably fine example of the ancient manorial residence of the time when the power of the feudal chief had waned and the great landowners were no longer under the necessity of cooping themselves up in their fortified strongholds—a type of building that is rapidly passing out of existence, and, with the exception of the part rebuilt in the middle of the last century, furnishes an excellent illustration of a style of architecture which, if not altogether peculiar to, was certainly nowhere else practised so commonly or on so extensive a scale as in Cheshire and Lancashire. The timber-work is remarkable for its strength and solidity, an evidence that our forefathers were by no means economists in the use of their building materials; and, though the lighter ornaments of architecture which give grace and beauty to the more stately fabrics of brick and stone raised in other parts of the country, may not be apparent, there is yet a rude magnificence and ingenuity of construction, as well as excellence of decoration, that make it well deserving of examination.
The principal front has a southward aspect; it is the latest built and most pretentious part of the mansion, but, withal, the least interesting. It is of brick, with a portico of four columns in the centre, surmounted by a frieze, bearing the inscription, “Charles and Hester Legh, 1757,” with a pediment above, in which is a shield with the Legh arms quartered with those of Corona, and an escutcheon of pretence over all on which is the coat of Lee of Wincham.
On entering, the first thing that meets the eye is the ponderous oaken door, thickly studded with iron nails and black with age, which stirs the fancy with images of the strife with Roundhead and Cavalier, for it bears abundant evidence of the rude assaults of Colonel Duckinfield’s troopers in the shot-holes with which it is pierced in several places. Over the door within the vestibule is written, Sic vos nunc vobis mellificatis apes, one of the four lines by which Virgil exposed the imposture of Bathyllus. At the further end of the corridor we enter the courtyard, on the opposite side of which is the great hall, one of the finest in the county, if, indeed, it has its equal, with its projecting porch, its long lofty windows, its high-pitched roof, and quaint chequer work of black and white. Over the doorway as we enter we notice the old black letter inscription which Thomas Legh placed when, as he tells us, he “made this buyldinge in the year of or lorde god 1581.”
The “hall” itself is an admirable and almost perfect specimen of the period when that apartment constituted the chief feature of every mansion, serving not only as an audience chamber on occasions of state and ceremony, but as the place where the owner and his family, with his guests and dependents, assembled daily at the dinner hour, and where, in fact, the public life of the household was carried on. Though perhaps not so large as in some of the baronial mansions of the country, it is yet a noble apartment, and sufficiently spacious for the hospitalities which in bygone days the lords of Adlington maintained. It occupies the entire height of the building, the form being that of a parallelogram, and, being the master feature of the house, is superior in architectural adornment, as well as in the amplitude of its dimensions, to any of the other rooms. The floors are laid with polished oak, and the walls, which are elaborately carved and ornamented, support a roof of dark oak acutely pointed and open to the ridge piece. The framework of this roof is divided by massive principals into bays, the collar braces being so arranged as to form a series of fine Gothic arches, springing from bold projecting hammer-beams that terminate in carved figures of angels holding heraldic shields, each being in turn connected by a hammer-brace with the main timbers of the walls. The daïs, or high place, which undoubtedly had its position at the further end, and where the master and mistress with their chief guests sat above the salt, as Chaucer relates in his “Marriage of January and May”—
And at the feste sitteth he and she
With other worthy folk upon the deis
has disappeared, and the screen which separated the lower end from the passage communicating with the buttery and the kitchener’s department has been subjected to considerable alterations, though the original form may be distinctly traced, and much of the exquisitely ornamental panel work remains, though now well-nigh hidden from view. These panels, though mutilated in places, are deserving of careful examination; the design of the tracery is very beautiful, and the carving, where not broken, remains almost as sharp and as fresh as the day it left the workman’s hands, save that time has given that sombre tint which so well harmonises with the ancient character of the house. Above the screen a gallery, the front of which is ornamented in arabesque work, extends the entire width of the apartment; in it is an organ elaborately painted and decorated, which, from the two shields of Corona and Robartes on the top, would appear to have been erected during the occupancy of John Legh, who married Isabella Robartes, and died in 1739, and no doubt it was at this time the original screen was subjected to so much injury. In addition to the organ gallery there are two small side galleries near the opposite end, each lighted by a dormer window, to which, in time past, the ladies of the household and the more honoured guests could retire to witness the revelries of the assembled retainers below.
Though it can no longer be said that—
With heraldry’s rich hues imprest
On the dim window glows the pictured crest