“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.

He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.

He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,

and they all lived together in a little crooked house.”

Seems very apt for this house!

Little Moreton Hall also known as Old Moreton Hall is a moated half-timbered manor house 4.5 miles southwest of Congleton in Cheshire and a short walk from the Macclesfield Canal.

Built on marshy land the building has subsided over the years giving a very wavy effect to some of the rooms.

The earliest parts of the house were built for the prosperous landowner William Moreton in about 1504–08 and remained in the possession of the Moreton family for almost 450 years.

The hall has been administered by the National Trust since ownership was transferred in 1938 and since we have National Trust membership it needed a visit!

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You can get to the hall by heading across country from Rowndes Bridge No. 86 on the Macclesfield Canal or follow their ‘by road’ directions on the website.

I first tried to visit the hall with Tony and Kerry Fox, from Gisborne NZ, back in July on the way up the Macclesfield but walked all the way there to find it closes on a Monday/Tuesday.

Never mind we did get some shots of the exterior and managed a short chat with the National Trust person who lives onsite.

So … Tony and Kerry you can now see what you missed!

The entrance to the hall from the courtyard

Beautiful paneling and window work. William Moreton who built the hall has his name above the second storey and even the name of the person who made the windows is above the lower floor window panels.

The windows contain 30,000 leaded panes known as quarries, set in patterns of squares, rectangles, lozenges, circles and triangles, complementing the decoration on the timber framing. Much of the original 16th-century glazing has survived and shows the colour variations typical of old glass.

Not sure I’d like the job of window cleaner or maintenance man.

The two-storey tower to the left of the Gatehouse contains the Garderobe (toilet), which empties directly into the moat.

There doesn’t seem to be a straight line anywhere!

Architectural historians have described the upper floor Long Gallery as “a gloriously long and crooked space, the wide floorboards rising up and down like waves and the walls leaning outwards at different angles.”

There isn’t very much furniture in the house either, they say there are only three pieces of original furniture and I don’t think the bed is one of them. It’s more about the building itself.

What a fascinating place … especially if you’re into 16th and 17th century English history. It was well worth the visit!

The rear of the house with it’s maze style garden.

An interesting little window frame built into the brick chimney.

Somewhere in the past they built these brick supporting buttresses to stop the whole building toppling over.

Some purple flowers for Sandra!

Looks like somewhere from a horror movie!