WEST DERBY HUNDRED 



HALSALL 



In 1530 the Hospitallers received a rent of zd. 

 from the heirs of Kirkby for HoUins Acre in Lydiate.' 



In connexion with the Established Church St. 

 Thomas's was erected in 1839 ; a district was formed 

 in 1 87 1.' The rector of Halsall presents. 



Lydiate Hall w.is originally a quadrangular building 

 enclosing a small court, but the eastern range of build- 

 ings was destroyed about 1780. The other three sides 

 still remain, but the house is empty and dismantled, 

 and in spite of some amount of repair not many years 

 ago, is rapidly falling into decay. This is all the more 

 to be deplored because the chief rooms, the hall and 

 great chamber, have been but little altered since they 

 were first built, and preserve several charming pieces of 

 detail. The exterior is very picturesque, with its 

 panelling and bands of quatrefoils of white plaster set 

 in black wood, and the grey stone roofing slates make 



on which are three roses. The entrance door is 

 probably original, closely studded with nails after the 

 fashion of many others in old Lancashire houses, and 

 immediately to the left on entering is the door of the 

 hall with Lawrence Ireland's initials in the spandrels of 

 the arched head The hall has a flat ceiling with 

 moulded beams, and is lighted by a continuous row of 

 windows on east and west. It has a large masonry 

 fireplace at the north end on the line of the screen, 

 probably an early sixteenth-century addition to the 

 plan. At the south end is the canopy over the dais, 

 a plaster cove panelled with wooden ribs, having 

 carved bosses at the intersections. On the bosses are 

 a variety of devices of which some are armorial, but 

 many seem to be merely decorative. Among them are 

 two with the initials J. I. and B. I., for John Ireland 

 and Beatrice (Norris) his wife; He died in 1 5 14, and 



jtyJtWlA' .',;,. 



. 1)'" -■- 









& 



Lydiate Hall from the East 



an agreeable contrast to the varied patterns of the 

 walls. 



The house is of two stories, the hall occupying the 

 west wing, with a range of rooms over it, while the 

 great chamber is to the south, and the kitchen wing 

 to the north. The destroyed east wing is said to 

 have been the oldest part of the house, and stone 

 built, but unfortunately nothing is left of it. What 

 remains is of timber and plaster on a low stone base, 

 and its earliest part seems to belong to the end of 

 the fifteenth century, having probably been built by 

 Lawrence Ireland, whose initials are on the door- 

 way from the hall into the screens ; he was living 

 about 1470. The screens are at the north end of the 

 hall, and are entered through a projecting porch, 

 altered in the eighteenth century, and bearing the 

 Anderton arms, above which is a small room with a 

 three-light window, setting forward on carved brackets 



1 Kuerden MSS. v, fol. 84. 



'^ Land. Gaz, 28 Mar. 1871 ; endowments, 3 Oct. 1845, and 

 31 Jan. 1873. 



the date of the canopy is probably a few years before 

 this. It is a beautiful and valuable example of its 

 kind, but in the present neglected state of the house, 

 is in no small danger of damage. 



An earlier example from Boultons in West Derby 

 parish is now set up in safety in the Liverpool 

 Museum. 



At the west end of the dais was formerly a project- 

 ing bay, now destroyed, and the opening to it blocked 

 up ; while at the east end is a projection balancing 

 the porch at the other end of the hall, and containing 

 the stair to the chamber on the first floor. In the 

 south-east corner of the hall is a door to the rooms on 

 the ground floor of the south wing, which now contains 

 little of interest except two good late seventeenth- 

 century fireplaces. In the larger of these rooms, 

 and in the hall, the sixteenth and seventeenth- 

 century panelling which formerly lined their walls 

 is carelessly stacked, at the mercy of any chance 

 comer who may see fit to carry off anything that 

 takes his fancy. 



207 



