6 BRADSHAW HALL AND THE BRADSHAWES. 



The hall was evidently completed before the new kitchens, and 

 perhaps the present Withdrawing Room, were added, for there is 

 a curious miscalculation in the breadth of the kitchen wing, which 

 has consequently slightly overlaijped the jamb of the passage 

 window, and which would not have occurred if the angle had 

 been built in one piece. Therefore, it is probable that the old 

 kitchens and hving rooms were retained and used until the new 

 dining hall was erected, and that subsequently the old kitchens 

 (only) were retained for general purposes, for at that date they 

 would be less than a century old. These would naturally be the 

 first to decay, and probably their removal became necessary in 

 the eighteenth centur)-. 



The foregoing description, imperfect, perha})s, in some of 

 its deductions, will serve to convey a general idea of the ancient 

 Hall as it existed in the closing years of the reign of Elizabeth. 

 Then the main dining hall itself had probably stood for m(jre 

 than three hundred years, and the time had arrived when fashion 

 or decay, though probably the former, demanded its recon- 

 struction. 



Betw'een the years 1600 and 16.20, but more probably within 

 the latter of the two decades, Bradshaw Hall was entirely rebuilt, 

 with the sole exceptions of the great chimney and, probably, 

 the kitchens, as previously explained. The result of that 

 rebuilding is well illustrated in the photographs before us, and, 

 so far as the outside is concerned, as its architect left it nearly 

 three hundred years ago, so it stands to-day, save that economies 

 in avoidance of the old window tax have, unfortunately, induced 

 the filling in of many of the windows, and on the south side a 

 vandalism which can be felt, and is, therefore, not illustrated, 

 has substituted four nineteenth century sash windows. The 

 architecture, although of this date, is still in the Elizabethan 

 style, but, as is usually the case where hard gritstone is used, 

 owing to the difficulty of its working, the details are as simple 

 as possible. The windows are beautifully proportioned examples 

 of the plain mullioned and transomed type, so frequently seen 

 in buildings of that period, especially in this county. Most of 



