SALFORD HUNDRED 



MANCHESTER 



family. The hall was sold in 1662 to John Birch 

 of Ardwick.'" His issue failing, the manor passed 

 through various hands, and is now the property of 

 Earl Egerton of Tatton.'"' 



Ordsall Hall has been in its best days a very fine 

 example of a mediaeval half-timbered house, and is 

 still of unusual interest. Within the last two gener- 

 ations it has suffered greatly from neglect and its 

 gradual envelopment in a wilderness of mean and 

 dirty streets. Leland mentions the beauty of its sur- 

 roundings, when it stood in a pleasant park through 

 which ran a clear stream, now hardly recognizable in 

 the dirty waters of the modern Irwell, and even as 

 late as sixty years ago Ordsall Lane ran between fields 

 and hedgerows, with no buildings in sight except the 

 Throstle Nest Paper Mills, the Blind Asylum, and 

 some houses in Chester Road. The house stood 

 within a rectangular moated inclosure, among gardens 

 and orchards, and there were a number of detached 

 outbuildings, barns, shippons, &c. The north and 

 east arms of the moat still contained water, but the 

 other two were dry. The entrance was from the 

 north, through an embattled doorway in the brick 

 boundary wall, which dated from 1639, being con- 

 temporary with the still existing brick west wing. 

 The house was let in three parts, and much cut up 

 by added partitions, the floor levels altered, and a 

 floor inserted at half-height in the great hall, while 

 all the ornamental timber work was hidden by lath 

 and plaster. Some attempt at freeing the old work 

 from its modern obstructions was made about thirty 

 years since, when it was converted into a club for the 

 workmen employed in a neighbouring cotton mill, 

 the great hall being opened out and other parts of the 

 house fitted up as reading and billiard rooms. In 

 1898 it became a theological college, and in 1904 a 

 clergy training school ; and in 1896-8 it was 

 thoroughly repaired, and in part rebuilt, by Lord Eger- 

 ton of Tatton, the church of St. Cyprian being built 

 in 1 899 on the site of the long-destroyed east wing. 

 The lines of the moat are now represented by streets, 

 and the boundary wall and gateway have vanished, 

 together with the orchards and gardens and every- 

 thing which once went to form a pleasant setting to 

 the old hall; but a few hundred yards away a farm- 

 house yet stands, hidden among modern buildings 

 and used as a lodging-house. One of the principal 

 outbuildings was the Great Barn, with a nave and 

 aisles divided by great oak posts, and sharing, with 

 several others in the district, the entirely unfounded 



reputation of having formed part of an early wooden 

 predecessor of the present cathedral church of Man- 

 chester. 



At the present day the house consists of a central 

 block standing east and west, a west wing running 

 northward from it, and some outbuildings at the 

 south-east. There was formerly an east wing, taken 

 down in 1639, balancing the west wing, which with 

 the boundary wall on the north inclosed a court 

 measuring about 80 ft. by 75 ft. The boundary 

 wall is said to have been set up in 1639, at the same 

 time as the still existing west wing, and it appears 

 that before this time a range of buildings existed on 

 the north side of the court, forming a complete 

 quadrangle, about 64 ft. by 75 ft. ; part of its 

 foundations was found in 1898. There is nothing 

 to show of what date the eastern wing was, as its 

 foundations only have remained to modern times, and 

 the oldest part of the building is the central block, 

 or, in other words, the south range of the original 

 court. It is still in great part of timber construction 

 on a stone base, the main beams being of the usual 

 lo-in. scantling. The chief feature of it is the great 

 hall, now, after the clearing away of the partitions 

 which encumbered it, a very noble and impressive 

 piece of 15th-century timber construction, 43 ft. by 

 25 ft., built in two wide bays of 14 ft. span and two 

 narrow of 7 ft., one at the east to form the dais and 

 one at the west for the passage through the screens. 

 The roof is high pitched and open timbered, 32 ft. 

 to the ridge, with three purlins aside and two inter- 

 mediates in each of the wider bays, dividing the flanks 

 into rectangular compartments each inclosing a quatre- 

 foil. There are three principal trusses, the middle 

 one springing from wooden moulded responds set 

 against the side walls, with moulded octagonal capitals 

 and large arched braces below a cambered and em- 

 battled tie-beam. The space over the tie-beam is 

 filled in with a series of fourteen arched openings with 

 traceried spandrels. The western truss forms the 

 head of the hall screens, and its tie-beam is cambered 

 over a central arched opening 1 5 ft. wide, but runs 

 horizontally over the narrow screens or ' speres ' 

 which flank the opening, and are made of two tiers 

 of solid square-headed panels, two in each tier. 

 Originally a movable screen, much lower than the 

 ' speres,' must have stood across the opening, like that 

 still existing at Chetham's Hospital, leaving passage- 

 ways at either ei}d of it. The truss at the upper or 

 dais end of the hall is closed in above with quatrefoiled 



Raines and Sutton, op. cit. 115. An 

 account of lays, &c., paid for Ordsall de- 

 mesne, both in Salford and Shoresworth, 

 is given ; ibid. 147, 149 ; for the goods 

 in 'the new barn' in 1653, see ibid. 273. 



1<M In Booker's Birch, 106, it is stated 

 that Samuel Birch purchased Ordsall, 

 and went to live there in 1662. From 

 Earl Egerton of Tatton's deeds, however 

 (no. 14-21), it is clear that the purchaser 

 was his son, the celebrated Colonel John 

 Birch, whose daughter Sarah became the 

 heir ; Booker, op. cit. 113. She married 

 a relative, John Birch, and in 1699 there 

 was a recovery of the manor of Ordsall 

 and lands, &c., the vouchees being John 

 Birch and Sarah his wife ; Pal. of Lane. 

 Plea R. 469, m. 5. 



In 1 691 Colonel John Birch had con- 

 veyed Ordsall Hall to Leftwich Oldfield ; 



and in 1699 an indenture between John 

 Birch and Sarah his wife (executrix of her 

 father), Alice widow of Leftwich Oldfield, 

 and others concerning the manor of Ordsall 

 and the chapel of St. George in Manchester 

 Church, sets forth that Leftwich Oldfield 

 died soon after 1 691, leaving a son and 

 heir of the same name, a minor, and 

 provides for the completion of the sale ; 

 Ordsall D. (Earl Egerton of Tatton), no. 

 24-28. 



The manor next occurs in a fine of 

 1 704, when John Stock was plaintiff and 

 Alice and Leftwich Oldfield were defor- 

 ciants ; Pal. of Lane. Feet of F. bdle. 

 253, m. 54 ; Ordsall D. John Stock, one 

 of the trustees of Cross Street Chapel 

 (Baker, Memo, 73), died in Nov. 1732, 

 leaving a son John and a daughter Rose. 

 After the death of the son in 1755 Ordsall 



213 



was sold to Samuel Hill, who in the fol- 

 lowing year sold to Samuel Egerton, a 

 near relative. Samuel Egerton had an 

 only daughter, who died without issue, 

 and the Tatton estates on his death in 

 1780 went to his sister Hester, widow of 

 William Tatton of Withenshaw. She at 

 once resumed her maiden name of Egerton, 

 and dying in the same year was succeeded 

 by her son William, who died in 1 806 ; 

 the later descent being thus given : — s. 

 Wilbraham, d. 1856; — s. William Tatton, 

 created Lord Egerton of Tatton 1859, died 

 1883 ; — s. Wilbraham, created Earl Eger- 

 ton of Tatton 1897, the present owner. 

 See Ormerad, Cbes. (ed. Helsby), i, 446. 

 For the Oldfield family see ibid, iii, 

 273- 



"5 See N. G. Philips, Old Halls, 15 ; 

 Trans, Hist, Soc, (new ser.), vi, 260. 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



