The 100-year construction of Little Moreton Hall coincided with the
English Renaissance, but the house is resolutely medieval in design, apart from some Renaissance decoration such as the
motifs on the Gatehouse,
Elizabethan fireplaces, and its "extravagant" use of glass. It is
timber-framed throughout except for three brick chimneybreasts and some brick buttressing added at a later date.
Simon Jenkins has described Little Moreton Hall as "a feast of medieval carpentry", but the building technique is unremarkable for Cheshire houses of the period – an oak framework set on stone
footings. Diagonal oak braces that create
chevron and
lozenge patterns adorn the façades. The herringbone pattern with
quatrefoils present at the rear, which can also be seen at
Haslington and
Gawsworth Halls, is a typical feature of 15th-century work, while the lozenge patterns, continuous middle rail and lack of quatrefoils in the front façade are typical of 16th-century early Elizabethan work. The south range containing the gatehouse, the last to be completed, has lighter timbers with a greater variety of patterns. The timber frame is completed by rendered infill and
Flemish bond brick, or windows. 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. Old scratched graffiti is visible in places. The older parts of the roof frame are decorated, and the brickwork of some of the chimneys has
diapering in blue brick. The house stands on an island surrounded by a 33-foot (10 m) wide moat, which was probably dug in the 13th or 14th century to enclose an earlier building on the site. There is no evidence that the moat served any defensive purpose, and as with many other moated sites it was probably intended as a status symbol. A sandstone bridge leads to a gatehouse in the three-storey south range, which has each of its two upper floors
jettied out over the floor beneath. As is typical of Cheshire's timber-framed buildings the overhanging jetties are hidden by coving, which has a recurring quatrefoil decoration. The Gatehouse leads to a rectangular courtyard, with the Great Hall at the northern end. The two-storey tower to the left of the Gatehouse contains garderobes, which empty directly into the moat. Architectural historian Lydia Greeves has described the interior of Little Moreton Hall as a "corridor-less warren, with one room leading into another, and four staircases linking different levels". Some of the grander rooms have fine chimneypieces and wood panelling, but others are "little more than cupboards". The original purpose of some of the rooms in the house is unknown.
Ground floor The Great Hall at the centre of the north range is entered through a porch and screens passage, a feature common in houses of the period, designed to protect the occupants from draughts. As the screens are now missing, they may have been free-standing like those at
Rufford Old Hall. The porch is decorated with elaborate carvings. The Great Hall's roof is supported by
arch-braced trusses, which are decorated with carved motifs including dragons. The floor, now flagged, would probably originally have been rush-covered earth, with a central hearth. The gabled
bay window overlooking the courtyard was added in 1559. The original service wing to the west of the Great Hall, behind the screens passage, was rebuilt in 1546, and housed a kitchen,
buttery and pantry. A hidden shaft was discovered during a 19th-century investigation of two secret rooms above the kitchen, connecting them to a tunnel leading to the moat, the entrance to which has since been filled in. The west range now houses the gift shop and restaurant. A doorway behind where the family would have sat at the far end of the hall leads to the Parlour, known as the Little Parlour in surviving 17th-century documents. Together with the adjoining Withdrawing Room and the Great Hall, the Parlour is structurally part of the original building. The wooden panelling is a
Georgian addition, behind which the original painted panelling was discovered in 1976. The decoration consists of painted imitations of marble and inlay, and Biblical scenes, some of which were painted directly onto the plaster and others on paper that was then pasted to the wall. "Crudely drawn" but nevertheless "elaborate", the paintings tell the story of
Susanna and the Elders from the
Apocrypha, a "favourite Protestant theme". The Moreton family's wolf head crest and the initials "J.M." suggest a date before John Moreton's death in 1598. Similar painted decoration is found in other Cheshire houses of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. A private staircase between the Parlour and the Withdrawing Room leads to the first floor. The Withdrawing Room has 16th-century carved wooden panelling, and a wooden ceiling with moulded
coffering, which probably dates from 1559 when the Great Hall ceiling was added. The bay window in this room was also added in 1559, at the same time as the one in the Great Hall. The pair of windows bear the following inscription underneath their gables: The wolf head crest also appears in the late 16th-century
stained glass of the Withdrawing Room. The chimneypiece in this room is decorated with female
caryatids and bears the arms of Elizabeth I; its plaster would originally have been painted and gilded, and traces of this still remain. William Moreton III used what is today known as the Exhibition Room as a bedroom in the mid-17th century; it is entered through a doorway from the adjoining Withdrawing Room. Following William's death in 1654 his children Ann, Jane and Philip divided the house into three separate living areas. Ann, whose accommodation was in the Prayer Room above, then used the Exhibition Room as a kitchen. The adjoining Chapel, begun in 1508, is accessible by a doorway from the courtyard. The Chapel contains Renaissance-style
tempera painting, thought to date from the late 16th century. Subjects include passages from the Bible. The
chancel was probably a later addition dating from the mid-16th century. It is separated from the nave by an oak screen and projects eastwards from the main plan of the house, with a much higher ceiling. The stained glass in the east wall of the chancel is a 20th-century addition installed by Charles Abraham, the last private owner of Little Moreton Hall, as a parting gift on his transfer of ownership to the National Trust. The Corn Store adjacent to the Chapel may originally have been used as accommodation for a gatekeeper or steward. By the late 17th century it had been converted into a grain store by raising the floor to protect its contents from damp. Five oak-framed bins inside may have held barley for the Brew-house, which is now used as a toilet block.
First floor The Guests' Hall and its adjoining Porch Room occupy the space above the entrance to the courtyard and the Gatehouse. They can be accessed either through a doorway from the adjacent Prayer Room or via a staircase at the south end of the courtyard leading to the Long Gallery on the floor above. The first-floor landing leads to a passageway between the Guests' Hall and the Guests' Parlour, and to the garderobe tower visible from the front of the house. A doorway near the entrance to the Guests' Parlour allows access to the Brew-house Chamber, which is above the Brew-house. The Brew-house Chamber was probably built as
servants' quarters, and originally accessed via a hatch in the ceiling of the Brew-house below. In the mid-17th century the Guests' Hall was referred to as Mr Booth's Chamber, after the genealogist Jack Booth of Tremlowe, a cousin and family friend of the Moreton's and a regular occupant. Its substantial carved
consoles, inserted not just for decorative effect but to support the weight of the Long Gallery above, have been dated to 1660. What is today known as the Prayer Room, above the chapel, was originally the chamber of the first William Moreton's daughter Ann, whose maid occupied the adjoining room. The floors of the rooms on this level are made from
lime-ash plaster pressed into a bedding of straw and oak laths, which would have offered some protection against the ever-present risk of fire. All the first-floor rooms in the east range and all except the Prayer Room in the west range are closed to the public, some having been converted into accommodation for the National Trust staff who live on site. The Education Room in the east range, above what is today the restaurant, was in the mid-16th century a
solar, and is now reserved for use by school groups.
Upper floor Running the entire length of the south range the Long Gallery is roofed with heavy
gritstone slabs, the weight of which has caused the supporting floors below to bow and buckle. Architectural historians Peter de Figueiredo and Julian Treuherz describe it as "a gloriously long and crooked space, the wide floorboards rising up and down like waves and the walls leaning outwards at different angles." The crossbeams between the arch-braced roof trusses were probably added in the 17th century to prevent the structure from "bursting apart" under the load. The Long Gallery has almost continuous bands of windows along its longer sides to the north and south, and a window to the west; a corresponding window at the east end of the gallery is now blocked. The end
tympana have plaster depictions of
Destiny and
Fortune, copied from
Robert Recorde's
Castle of Knowledge of 1556. The inscriptions read "The wheel of fortune, whose rule is ignorance" and "The speare of destiny, whose rule is knowledge". The Long Gallery was always sparsely furnished, and would have been used for exercising when the weather was inclement and as a games room – four early 17th-century
tennis balls have been discovered behind the wood panelling. The Upper Porch Room leading off the Long Gallery, perhaps originally intended as a "sanctuary from the fun and games", was furnished as a bedroom by the mid-17th century. The fireplace incorporates figures of
Justice and
Mercy, and its central panel contains the Moreton coat of arms quartered with that of the Macclesfield family, celebrating the marriage of John de Moreton to Margaret de Macclesfield in 1329.
Contents Only three pieces of the house's original furniture have survived: a large refectory table, a large cupboard described as a "cubborde of boxes" in an inventory of 1599, possibly used for storing spices, and a "great rounde table" listed in the same inventory. The refectory table and cupboard are on display in the Great Hall, and the round table in the Parlour, where its octagonal framework suggests that it was designed to sit in the bay window. Except for those pieces, and a collection of 17th-century
pewter tableware in a showcase in the west wall of the Great Hall, the house is displayed with bare rooms. ==Gardens and estate==