1 86 SHALLCROSS AND YEARDSLEY HALLS. 



The site of the original hall, as previously mentioned, is 

 now covered by what may be styled the uninteresting wing of 

 the farm buildings. This hall would be of the half-timbered 

 type, common enough at that time, and of which, fortunately, 

 many examples still remain to us, especially in Cheshire. 



If we imagine a long, low building of black oak beneath a 

 high pitched and tiled roof, open within to the rafters in the 

 centre for the great hall, with offshoots at either end for the 

 owners' living rooms and for the kitchens respectively, and in 

 addition, probably a chapel, a gatehouse and a curtilage wall, 

 we have in mind something of what mediaeval Shallcross would 

 be. Comparing this with the site we find a raised bank for the 

 foundations of the hall itself, allowing for the main approach 

 from the old road to lead through a mound, which perhaps 

 represents the gatehouse, straight to the door of the inner hall, 

 passing on the right the chapel which probably stood where 

 the Elizabethan stables now are, for there is just sufficient in 

 the stones of their foundation to raise a suspicion of such a 

 building. Below the site are remains of what was once no 

 doubt a small fish-pond, and the fences still indicate the probable 

 line of the curtilage wall. 



As the requirements of the times altered, it became necessary 

 to build more commodious premises, and therefore towards the 

 end of the sixteenth century a new hall was built in the 

 Elizabethan style, on the rising ground to- the right of the old 

 hall. This hall, of which evidences remain to us in certain 

 materials which, as we shall see, have been used again in the 

 construction of its successor, has otherwise disappeared save that 

 the position of the walls are still indicated, as if upon a rough 

 ground plan, by trenches in the soil showing where the old stones 

 had been dug up. Judging by the appearance and size of 

 the old foundation lines, it was evidently a building very similar 

 in design to Snitterton Hall, near Matlock, but slightly earlier, 

 being in the form of the letter E, minus the centre arm. 



The terrace, which was necessary by reason of the sloping 

 ground, is still there, supported by the original wall, and the 

 views commanded from this comprise the whole of the Whaley 



