House & Garden 
AN ANCIENT HOME OF ENGLAND 
1 HAVE wandered over England and have 
seen old homes and new, but in the far 
corners of Cheshire under shelter of Mow 
Cop, on the Congleton Road, stands the house 
of my dreams. An “olden day” house of 
surpassing beauty, bringing memories of the 
long ago, times which we wot not of, yet 
the actual house 
where men and 
women lived, 
loved and suf- 
ered, as we live, 
love, and suffer 
to-day in the old 
country and the 
new. The same 
sun shines, the 
same moon wanes, 
and lapwings as 
of yore circle 
overhead as 
springtime calls 
to the buds to 
burst and blos¬ 
soms to bloom. 
Little Moreton 
Hall is said to be 
the finest speci¬ 
men of domestic 
architecture ot the 
character now re¬ 
maining in Eng¬ 
land. A grand 
black and white 
house, still in¬ 
habited in part, 
and in good pre¬ 
servation. It 
stands within a 
square moat full of water, and you reach the 
portal of the ancient gateway over an old stone 
bridge. You can see where the drawbridge 
hung, and can fancy you hear the bolts being 
drawn and the heavy key turned in the old 
lock. Once an avenue led up to the bridge, 
but is only suggested now; even the trees are 
dead which sheltered the knights and dames 
in the long ago. This is a wonderful building, 
no two lines alike, but infinitely picturesque in 
its irregularity. The timber is the color of 
coal and the walls “ chequered in black and 
white, with trefoils, quatrefoils, and chevrons 
diapered all over it.” 1 never saw such 
wonderful patterns or more cunningly devised. 
By the portal is an old stone horse-block, 
and in my dream 1 fancied I could see a 
knight pause before crossing the little bridge, 
for his lady, who stood on that very stone, 
to tie a love knot 
round his arm. 
Through the 
gate house you 
come to the quad¬ 
rangle, and here 
the windows 
which form five 
sides of an octa¬ 
gon, arrest the 
attention at once. 
They comprise 
two stories, and 
the top projects 
over the lower 
ones. Round 
the upper tiers 
you can read with 
ease the words 
—GOD IS AL IN 
AL THING THJS 
WINDOWS 
WHIRE MADE BY 
WILLIAM MORE- 
TON IN THE 
YEARE OF OUR 
LORD MDLIX.— 
A good begin¬ 
ning, forsooth, 
and worthy of a 
man who built 
such a place. 
Against the 
lower window is a charming record ol the 
very maker himself, who must have gloried 
in his handiwork as few men can do to-day, 
when good work is somewhat out of date 
and quantity triumphs over quality ! These 
are the words : 
—RYCHARDE DALE CARPEDER MADE THIES 
BY THE GRAC OF GOD, 
Good old Richard Dale! If all work 
was begun and finished in such faith 
“ by the grace of God ” we should do 
better work nowadays, and leave a 
CHIMNEY-PIECE LITTLE MORETON HALL 
