A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



has a small dole-window at the end of the high table 

 on the same side. The opposite wall is almost wholly 

 occupied by the ingle-nook, about 1 1 ft. wide and 

 1 2 ft. deep, forming an irregular octagon, curiously 

 twisted to the south, possibly to allow room for the 

 former doorway at the north-east of the quadrangle. 

 The fireplace was originally on the west side, but in 

 the recent rebuilding it has been changed to the 

 north, and the roof of the ingle vaulted in stone. 

 The ingle-nook recess has a deep stone lintel 5 ft. 10 in. 

 high, over which is a relieving arch, and is lit by two 

 small windows to the quadrangle. Above on either 

 side is a two-light pointed window with cinquefoiled 

 heads and wide splays placed high in the west wall, 

 and immediately adjoining it on the south close to 

 the dais is the bay window, 7 ft. wide and 6 ft. deep, 

 forming a kind of alcove between the ingle and the 

 adjoining stone staircase and the warden's room. 

 This staircase leads immediately from the west end of 

 the high table, and is carried on a stone vault over 

 the east end of the south cloister ; it has already 

 been mentioned. 



South of the great hall, and originally gained from 

 it by a door from the dais, is a room now called the 

 Audit or Feoffees' Room, originally, perhaps, a kind 

 of great chamber or minor hall, or more likely the 

 common room. It is 23 ft. by 246. and 12 ft. high, 

 and has a square bay window on the east side 5 ft. 6 in. 

 wide by 6 ft. deep. The ceiling is crossed each way 

 by two well-moulded beams with carved bosses at 

 the intersections, forming nine panels, having diagonal 

 mouldings, and apparently of 1 5th-century date. The 

 walls are panelled in oak, 8 ft. high, above which is a 

 deep floriated 17th-century plaster frieze, and the 

 room contains a good deal of interesting furniture. 



The arrangement of the kitchen and offices at the 

 north end of the hall follows no accepted type of 

 plan, though the pantry and buttery, opening imme- 

 diately from the screens, are in their usual place. 

 The exigencies of the site, however, and the deter- 

 mining factors already alluded to, are presumably 

 responsible for the disposition of the kitchen and 

 other offices, which lie almost detached in the north 

 range of buildings with no other way of communi- 

 cation to the hall than through the porch. The posi- 

 tion of the kitchen, if it is the original one, and there 

 seems to be no other part of the building where it 

 could have been situated, is certainly unusual, but 

 there is scarcely sufficient warrant to allow of the 

 suggestion sometimes put forward, that it formed an 

 older great hall, or that it was ever put to any other 

 use than at present. It is 29 ft. long by 17 ft. 

 wide, with walls of stone, and is open to the roof, with 

 a wide open fireplace on the north side (now fitted 

 with modern appliances) and lighted by two tiers of 

 windows on the south. High up in the west wall is 

 a hole, apparently for inspection, opening into a room 

 on the upper floor, now the house-governor's bedroom, 

 while at the opposite end in the south-east corner is a 

 series of arches forming the covering to a narrow 

 staircase now blocked up, but which formed the only 

 access to a cellar, and to a small room on the same 

 level as the kitchen beyond it eastward. On the 

 floor of the cellar east of the kitchen is a stone with 

 the outline of a snake cut on it, in memory of an 

 encounter with a formidable serpent, related in the 

 novel, The Manchester Man, the scene of which is 

 laid here. Between the pantry and the kitchen a 



door leads from the porch by a broad flight of stone 

 steps to the cellars, which, as before stated, owing to 

 the fall of the ground are amply lighted along the 

 north side, and whose ceilings are supported by 

 massive oak beams. Beyond the kitchen eastward 

 is a passage through the building, the width of 

 which is here only 23 ft., to a raised platform on 

 the north side, which now forms an approach to a 

 modern addition originally a schoolroom, but now a 

 workshop and gymnasium. The platform, however, 

 which is about i 5 ft. above the ground on the north 

 side, appears to belong to the ancient building, and 

 had a flight of steps leading from it down to the river. 

 Beyond this to the east were apparently the hos- 

 pitium, bakehouse, and wayfarers' and servants' dor- 

 mitories, rooms now used on the ground floor for 

 various school purposes, and above as the boys' 

 dormitories. The roofs of these latter rooms, which 

 extend the whole length of the eastern range, 

 from the kitchen and the gatehouse, are fine and 

 massive, the arrangement at the skew angle on 

 the north-east being very well contrived by means 

 of an angle principal. Adjoining the gatehouse on 

 the ground floor on the north side is a small porter's- 

 room with a narrow slit window facing the street. 

 The room over the gatehouse, now approached by 

 a later flight of outside steps as well as from the 

 dormitory, may have served as a hospital, but it has 

 been suggested that it may have been a chapel, and 

 the angle at which the room is built being about east 

 and west, lends some likelihood to the supposition. 



Before the erection of the staircase in the north- 

 east corner of the quadrangle, the way to the dormi- 

 tories in the upper floor seems to have been by stairs 

 at the opposite or north-west corner, in the space now 

 forming the west end of the long corridor which runs 

 along the whole length of the main building through 

 the hall screens and the north cloister. The framing 

 of the ceiling beams at this point indicates such an 

 arrangement, and beyond the staircase at the end of 

 the passage a door led on to a garden or small court 

 where the fish-pond was formerly situated. The 

 1 7th-century staircase, erected after the building had 

 been acquired by Humphrey Chetham's executors, is 

 a handsome piece of Jacobean work with flat pierced 

 balusters against the walls, lit by windows to the 

 quadrangle, and with one of the upper windows of 

 the great hall on its east side. The upper rooms on 

 the north side of the cloister and hall are now oc- 

 cupied by the house-governor and librarian, the 

 house-governor's room being a charming apartment 

 with two windows facing north and an open timbered 

 roof lately laid bare. From the bedroom beyond a 

 door gives access to a small room over a porch, and on 

 the north side is an old garderobe projection. There 

 is another in front of the librarian's rooms, and at the 

 extreme north-west angle of the building opening 

 from the corner room (now part of the library) is an 

 external door with pointed head leading on to a 

 platform raised some 25 ft. above the river bank, 

 forming the roof of a small north-west wing from 

 which on the ground floor a flight of steps led down 

 to the lake. The dormitories, which originally were 

 separate rooms with divisions stopping short of the 

 roof, which was continuous and open, are now thrown 

 into two long rooms facing respectively west and 

 south, forming the library proper. This consists of a 

 series of reading recesses or compartments formed by 



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