Building record 14928/1 - Dorfold Hall, Acton

<1> Department of the Environment, 1971-2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, p. 4 (Report). SCH1934.

Dorfold Hall. Present building is a fine example of a Jacobean manor house, built between 1615-1621 for Ralph Wilbraham. Red brick with blue brick diapers and slate roof. Original plan of recessed central hall with crosswings and door in one of the projections in the angles survive. Symmetrical facade of two storeys and attic and five bays. Pavilions and screen walls added in 1824 but forecourt pavilions/lodges are original and similar to those at Crewe Hall. Interior full of interest but decorated; barrel-vaulted, plaster ceiling in the Great Chamber of special note.

<2> Pevsner N & Hubbard E, 1971, The Buildings of England: Cheshire, p. 201-2 (Book). SCH3078.

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1870-1982, Ordnance Survey Archaeological Record Card, White J 1964 SJ65SW6 (Index). SCH2487.

Replaced an earlier hall of ancient origin.

<4> Harris, B.E. (ed), 1987, Victoria County History - A History of the County of Chester: Volume I, 1/354 Sawyer P & Thacker A 1987 (Book). SCH3556.

May also occupy the site of the hall of the substantial Manor of Acton mentioned in Domesday.

<5> Various, Aerial photographs, Acton 5 & 9 Williams S R 1978 (Aerial Photograph). SCH128.

<6> Worlledge Associates, 2018, Dorfold Hall, Acton, Cheshire: Statement of Significance, R4293 (Client Report). SCH8675.

A statement of significance, including historical research, was produced for Dorfold Hall and Gardens in 2018, in advance of a proposal for its development as a wedding venue. The development proposal centres around the re-building of the former service yard and stable area, including re-furbishment of the existing coach house, also an agricultural building located in the walled gardens. The following information is taken from the report.

Dorfold Hall is located in Acton, an ancient parish in the Nantwich Hundred of Cheshire. Dorfold comes from the Anglo-Saxon word 'deorfold', meaning deer park or cattle enclosure. Though Dorfold, Acton and nearby Nantwich do not appear in the Domesday Book of 1086, some sources suggest that Edwin, Earl of Mercia and the last Saxon Earl of Cheshire, had a hall in the area before the Norman Conquest. Records created during the reign of Henry III (1216-1272) provide the first written indication of the establishment of a manor at Dorfold. It was owned by the Wettenhall, Arderne, Davenport and Bromley families before being purchased, in 1600, by Sir Roger Wilbraham, who served as Solicitor-General for Ireland and Surveyor of the Court of Wards and Liveries during the reign of Elizabeth I and her cousin James I. When the Wilbrahams purchased Dorfold in 1600, they acquired an estate with significant land holdings in Acton, Nantwich, Hurlston, Haughton, Castle Northwich, Brindley, Burland, Wrenbury Chorley and Wettenhall. The owners of Dorfold were the major landowners in the village of Acton from the 17th century onwards. Detailed estate records attest to the ongoing relationship between the manor house and village; the estate paid for the construction and upkeep of new buildings, provided relief on rents when needed, and supported communal projects that would benefit the entire village.

The main house at Dorfold was first built in 1616 for Sir Roger’s younger brother, Ralph Wilbraham. The architect and builder are unknown, and plans for the original building have been lost. But the mansion built for Ralph Wilbraham epitomises Jacobean style. Made of brick and set across two storeys, the house has a north facing façade with a recessed centre and two projecting wings. All the windows are mullioned and transomed except for those in the gables. Nikolaus Pevsner has called the plan of the house an ‘odd, double-pile plan.’ It includes a central block hall with a Great Chamber above and two cross wings. The interior was much altered in the 18th century, and Jacobean screen passages were removed. The hall has a panelled ceiling dating to circa 1740. One of the staircases is Jacobean, while the other was added later. A first-floor room has a chimneypiece with the arms of James I and the date 1621. On the main house, the pavilions and their gables were repeated to form a forecourt enclosed on three sides.

Both the town of Acton and Dorfold Hall have a place in the annals of the history of the Civil War. In October 1643, both Dorfold Hall and the church of St Mary in Acton were occupied by Royalist forces. Upon their retreat, the Hall and church were garrisoned by Parliament. They were afterwards re-captured by the king’s troops under Lord Byron, but, after a prolonged siege of Nantwich, Sir Thomas Fairfax compelled the garrison to surrender and over sixty officers were taken prisoner. The Parliamentarian victory halted a run of Royalist successes in the area, and was a major setback to Charles I’s campaign plan that year.

In 1754, the estate was purchased by James Tomkinson, a wealthy lawyer from Bostock. Tomkinson had been managing the affairs of the Wilbrahams and had a clear understanding of the most effective ways to manage the lands associated with the estate. Under his stewardship, the estate’s gross income rose by over a million pounds per annum, from 2.7m to 3.9m. He was also responsible for major additions to the house, including service yards, walled gardens and grounds to reflect his growing status and desire to be part of the Cheshire Hunting set. The exact dates and attributions of the alterations by William Baker, Samuel Wyatt and possibly George Latham, are, due to lack of documentation, speculative. In the 19th century, the estate passed from Julia Tomkinson to her daughter, Anne Tollemarche and Anne’s husband, Wilbraham Spencer Tollemarche. The Tollemarche family was connected to the Wilbrahams and were tenants of the Tomkinson’s at Tilstone Lodge. In 1874, Charles Roundell married Julia Anne Elizabeth Tollemache, daughter of Wilbraham Tollemache. They inherited the estate, which remains connected to the Roundell family.

The existing approach to the house and the lodge were built in 1862 and designed by William Andrews Nesfield, a landscape gardener who did extensive work on the wider estate, and other Cheshire houses including Crewe Hall. The pre-Nesfield grounds featured a long, irregular drive that came in at an angle and skirted a long pool. Nesfield altered the pool in front of the house to provide for a straight access carriage drive, the gate lodge, elaborate entrance gates, a new entrance court with a carriage sweep, and a bronze statue of a mastiff and her pups, all enclosed with a low wall and gates, also a coach house with clock tower and a pleasure garden to the south with parterres. Trees were removed to open up views of the house. The iron entrance gates were potentially bought at the Paris Exhibition of 1855.

The successive owners of Dorfold Hall created a long history of patronage in the village of Acton. Beginning with Ralph Wilbraham’s almshouses in 1613, the lords of the manor at Dorfold took their responsibilities to the village and nearby Nantwich seriously. They financed hospitals, grammar schools, fire stations and regular repairs to village buildings and grounds. The owners of Dorfold Hall also had a longstanding connection to the Church of St Mary in Acton, regularly contributing to its maintenance and repair. The earliest parts of the church, including the square tower, date to the 13th century, however, the building was much extended in the 16th century. The Tollemache family financed restoration of the church, by Paley and Austin, in 1897-8. During the 19th century the Tollemaches and Tomkinsons were actively involved in the parish council. The church houses memorial tablets dedicated to members of the Wilbraham and Tomkinson families.

<7> Various, Various, Oral communication to the HER (Oral Communication). SCH2330.

Certain structures and features within the park of Dorfold Hall are individually listed and recorded separately; these include an icehouse, dairy house and farm-building, the entrance lodge and gates. Similarly, structures within the immediate grounds of the hall, some of which are listed, have been separately recorded; these include a clock tower, statue group, and elements within the walled gardens (walls and gates). Buildings, including the 'coach house', which once formed part of the former service yard and stable block, also survive but are not listed.

<8> Zoe Polya-Vitry, 2019, Dorfold Hall: Design & Access Statement (Client Report). SCH8677.

A detailed design and access statement was produced in 2019 in support of the proposals to re-develop the area of the former service yard and stables (CHER 14928/13) into a group of buildings to host weddings. The report includes a chronological plan of the development of the hall, the east wing, and the service/stable yard area which was developed in the late eighteenth century, and added to in the early nineteenth century. The report also uses an historic engraving and later photographs of the stable yard buildings to re-create a 3D model of the buildings in order to inform the new development ensuring it is in keeping with the originals. The engraving, dating to 1789, shows the hall with the clock tower and part of the service/stable yard, it depicts a double-gabled building, three storeys in height. The lower courses of this double-gabled building still survive as part of the walled façade of the yard.