SALFORD HUNDRED 



ECCLES 



This part of the house has been entirely modernized, 

 what was probably the buttery being now a gun- 

 room, and the passage to the kitchen now leading to 

 a modern drawing-room and study. The great hall, 

 originally about 40 ft. long by 2 1 ft., 97 was, at a com- 

 paratively early date, divided into two by a wall about 

 1 2 ft. from its west end. A floor appears to have 

 been inserted at the same time, and the staircase in 

 the south-west corner of the courtyard built. The 

 appearance of the open timber-roofed hall may, how- 

 ever, still be realized in the upper room, the whole 

 extent of the original roof having been exposed in the 

 last restoration. The roof is divided by two princi- 

 pals into three bays, and is of a plain king-post type 

 with curved and moulded pieces underneath the tie 

 beam. It has a flat wooden ceiling with moulded 

 ribs at the level of the tie beams. The arrangement 



rooms retain their ancient ceiling beams, and the 

 dining-room had a fine masonry fireplace, now re- 

 built. The dining-room ceiling is crossed by four 

 moulded beams, with moulded joists between, the 

 mouldings of the beams being carried down the walls 

 on oak posts loin, thick. In the upper room over 

 the kitchen there is a roof similar in style to that 

 over the great hall. 



The timber framing on three sides of the quad- 

 rangle and on the south side of the house preserves its 

 ancient character, and consists principally of uprights 

 with diagonal bracings. There has been a good deal 

 of reconstruction on both the east and west sides of 

 the court, however, and many of the timbers are new, 

 replacing old ones. A former doorway and recess on 

 the west side of the quadrangle on the ground floor 

 have been destroyed, and the whole of that side made 



WARDLEY HALL : COURTYARD FROM NORTH-EAST 



of the great hall followed the usual type. The screens 

 were at the east end, with a gallery over, and the 

 room was lit on the north side by a range of windows 

 to the courtyard. On the opposite side was the ingle- 

 nook and a window to the garden. Beyond the fire- 

 place at the west end to the right of the high table 

 was the bay window with a projection and width of 

 about I o ft. All these arrangements may still be 

 seen, but the greater part of the dais end of the hall 

 together with the bay window is now a separate room 

 (boudoir), and the masonry fireplace is a restoration. 

 The fireplace in the upper hall, however, has its old 

 stone arch reinstated after having been repaired. 

 Both these fireplaces were discovered and opened up 

 in 1895-6. At the north-west end of the hall is the 

 staircase occupying a projecting bay in the south-west 

 angle of the courtyard, and beyond this a corridor 

 giving access to the rooms in the western wing. These 



of uniform character. At the same time a new stair- 

 case bay and entrance were added in the north-west 

 corner of the courtyard. In the original plan there 

 was a smaller projecting bay in the south-east corner 

 of the courtyard with a small gable facing north, 

 forming a kind of balancing feature to the large gable 

 of the staircase bay, but in the reconstruction this 

 feature has been merged into the general arrangement 

 of the east side of the house by the rebuilding and 

 advancing of the east side of the quadrangle to the 

 line of the former angle-projection and the continuing 

 of the little gable as a second and smaller roof along 

 the whole length of the east wing. The courtyard is 

 paved with stone sets. 



Over the gatehouse was formerly the date 1625, 

 which though usually taken to indicate some alteration 

 or addition to the building, probably refers to the 

 year of the erection of the gatehouse, or at any rate 



'7 40 ft. including the screen, 34 ft. without. 

 387 



