Monument record 384 - Sheppenhall Hall

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1870-1982, Ordnance Survey Archaeological Record Card, SJ 64 NW 3 (Index). SCH2487.

A long ornamental pond alongside the drive to Sheppenhall Hall. It has been suggested as a moat but no evidence for a return is visible. [White J 1961].

<2> Burdett, P. P., 1777, A Survey of the County Palatine of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH113.

Sheppenhall is depicted and labelled on this map. No details are discernible.

<3> Greenwood, C. & Greenwood J., 1819, Map of the County Palatine of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH2115.

This map depicts a small parkland to the west of Sheppenhall Lane. It is labelled Sheppenhall.

<4> Bryant, A., 1831, Map of the County Palatine of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH2114.

This map depicts an L shaped building within a small rectangular park or garden. The house is on the western side of a straight north-south aligned road or lane which adjoins Sheppenhall Lane to the north and continues to the south for a short distance beyond a group of three buildings. Sheppenhall Lane leaves its north-south alignment to the north of Sheppenhall and turns to the east, before returning to its north-south alignment to the east of the Sheppenhall. This latter section is labelled White Moor Lane.

<5> See map for surveyor, c.1837-51, Cheshire Tithe Maps and Awards, EDT 290/2 c1845 (Maps and Plans). SCH3266.

This map depicts a H-shaped building with two large and long buildings to the south. One of these buildings is c.45 metres long and orientated north-south. The second building is located at the southern end of the first and to its’ west; it is c.40 metres long and orientated east-west. The plot is described as hall, buildings, garden &c. The buildings are accessed by a straight drive from Sheppenhall Lane to the north. To the east of the H-shaped building, possibly the hall, is a north-south aligned pond c.110 metres long. The pond his noticeably wider in the area adjacent to the possible hall building. Approximately 200 metres to the east are two sub-square ponds adjacent to Sheppenhall Lane.

<6> Ordnance Survey, 1871-1882, Ordnance Survey County Series (Epoch 1) 25 inch to 1 mile - Cheshire, SJ6145, 1875-1877 (Maps and Plans). SCH2462.

This map depicts an irregular L shaped building with further small buildings to the immediate west, labelled Sheppenhall Hall. To the south is a large long building orientated north-south with two further buildings to the east which appear to define a yard or courtyard area. Further buildings are located to the south-west at the southern end of the long building. A probable garden is depicted to the south of the hall and west of the long building. To the east of the hall is a long pond, noticeable wider in front of the house, labelled moat. To the east of the pond, running from its eastern side opposite the hall, are two parallel earthworks, c.180 metres long and defining an area c.20 metres wide, which end at two sub-square ponds adjacent to Sheppenhall Lane. These ponds appear to the flank this feature.

<7> Ordnance Survey, 1896-1898, Ordnance Survey First Revision County Series (Epoch 2) 25 inch to 1 mile - Cheshire, SJ6145, 1898 (Maps and Plans). SCH3848.

An open sided barn has been built within the (former) garden area to the west of the long building.

<8> Royal Air Force, 1944-1947, 1940s RAF Aerial Photographs from Operation Review, 106G\UK\1459 no.3089, 02/05/1946 (Aerial Photograph). SCH8041.

The hall, ponds and associated buildings are still extant.

<9> Huntings Surveys Ltd, 1971-1973, 1971-1973 County Survey, HSL UK 73 57, run 26, no.1848, 16/05/1973 (Aerial Photograph). SCH4881.

The hall and the associated buildings to the west have been demolished.

<10> Bluesky International Ltd, 2010, 2010 Bluesky Survey, 2010 UXP_101011_5440, 11/10/2010 (Aerial Photograph). SCH5444.

A broad east-west aligned soil mark is visible on this aerial photograph corresponding with the earthworks depicted on the Ordnance Survey map of 1875-1877. The soil marks suggest a depression c.10 metres wide flanked by banks c.5 metres wide.

<11> Bluesky International Ltd, 2015-2017, Aerial Photography for Great Britain, Bluesky International APGB Imagery 2015-2017, SJ6145 1896, 08/08/2015 (Aerial Photograph). SCH8848.

This aerial imagery shows a broad negative cropmark which corresponds with the linear earthworks depicted on the Ordnance Survey map of 1875-1877 (see 6) . To the east the feature is less well defined, here beginning visible as narrow negative cropmarks which define the northern and southern sides of this feature.

<12> Various, Various, Oral communication to the HER, Edwards R, 01/10/2021 (Oral Communication). SCH2330.

There is no clear evidence on which to date the hall building. Its probable that a house was here from the sixteenth century. Whether the timber framed building described in other sources contained this earlier building, or if a new building was constructed in 1671, as suggested by the datestone, is uncertain. The hall may have been surrounded by a moat of which only the eastern arm survives. The hall was remodelled in the Georgian style sometime in the eighteenth century, but appears to be in poor repair and in use as a farmhouse by the end of the nineteenth century.

Evidence from early nineteenth century maps seems to suggest that the hall was located within a small park. The obvious deviation the course of Sheppenhall Lane may define (in part) its boundary. The moat may have been infilled and the eastern arm retained as a reflecting pond, given its location to the front of the house, but its possible that this pond was created for this purpose. Historic maps and aerial photographs seem to indicate that a drive ran from Sheppenhall Lane to the east towards the hall and moat/pond. It is possible that the park is associated with the eighteenth century remodelling of the house and it is clear that the park was no longer extant or considered to be such by the mid nineteenth century. However, the regular enclosure CHER 15094 (visible as a cropmark) may suggest the presence of an earlier formal garden of which these features may be a part.

To the south of the hall was the farm buildings of the associated farm. These have been either demolished or converted to residences.

<13> Dodgson J McN, 1970-2, 1981, The Place-Names of Cheshire, Vol.III p.104 (Book). SCH3228.

<14> Bluesky International Ltd, 1999-2003, 1999-2003 Bluesky Survey, P 603 03_183, 03/04/2003 (Aerial Photograph). SCH5482.

This aerial imagery suggests that the farm buildings were converted around this date.

<15> Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME), 1963, Monuments Threatened Or Destroyed: A Select List: 1956-1962 (Report). SCH9085.

Sheppenhall Hall is a two storey timber framed manor house built in the seventeenth century. A staircase turret was added in the eighteenth century. A brick chimney stack has an inserted stone panel with the date 1671 inscribed.

<16> Robinson, JM, 1991, A Guide to the Country Houses of the North West, p.62 (Book). SCH9086.

Dated 1671, but the front was plastered in the eighteenth century.

<17> Nantwich Chronicle, 1952, Hidden Treasures of A Cheshire Elizabethan Manor; Urgent problem of restoration (Newspaper-Magazine). SCH9100.

Scheduled for protection under the Town and Country Planning Act. Elizabethan manor house drastically altered in later periods, and in need of restoration. Formerly owned by the Cartwright family and bears the initials AC and date 1671. It was initially an example of the full-timbered Elizabethan style with the characteristic overhanging gables. Changing architectural tastes saw the front elevation built up to remove the overhanging gables, the timbering plastered over and pointed windows inserted. Inside panelling and beams were hidden from view. House damaged by bombs landing nearby in the Second World War. The moat which once surrounded the hall is only still extant on the front of the building. There is evidence of an old guardhouse built into the rear of the building. An old window is covered by latticed strips of oak may predate the use of glass in the building. A hidden room was discovered when a lantern was lowered down a chimney to reveal a stone floor below. From inside the house, no trace of this room has been discovered.

<18> Trinity Mirror, 1868-Present, Manchester Evening News, 30/04/1954 (Newspaper-Magazine). SCH2090.

Breakfast room built of oak beams and panelling around 1500. The rest of the farmhouse, now scheduled as an ancient monument, was built in 1671. The mock Georgian frontage has been removed and work to reveal the beams and panelling inside continues. Carpenters marks on some beams.

<19> Pixton, P.B., 2009, Wrenbury Wills and Inventories 1542-1661, xxix & xxxi-xxxii (Article in Journal). SCH9101.

The origin of the Sheppenhall Estate was probably due to the enclosure of land, probably for sheep and wool production, from the open arable fields of Newhall, in or shortly after the time of Henry VIII. It was a freehold estate of the Cartwright family (who may have descended from the Cartwrights of Aston) from the days of Queen Elizabeth I until the times of Charles II (1580 to 1680), the first possessor being John Cartwright de Sheppenhall. The hall at Sheppenhall is described in 1634-35 as having six rooms on the ground floor: the hall, the parlour, the entry, the kitchen, the buttery and the milk-house. A further six rooms were located on the second storey. It was described in 1897 as a run-down farmhouse.

<20> Bonhams, 2015, Sale of Fine Clocks 8th July 2015, Lot 119 (Web Site). SCH9102.

A rare early eighteenth century iron 'Birdcage' frame twin train turret clock, attributed to the clock maker Gabriel Smith of Barthomley was removed from a set of Elizabethan stables at Sheppenhall Hall near Nantwich, Cheshire in 1935. The anchor escapement and pallets were replaced as was one winding barrel. An almost identical church clock movement by Gabriel Smith is on display in Nantwich Museum which uses the same distinctive diagonal bracing which was later continued by his son Joseph. Illustrated in (21).

<21> Loomes, B, 2014, Clockmakers of Britain 1286-1700, fig 224 (Book). SCH9103.

<22> Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, 1877-2021, Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings Archive, GB 2236 SPAB-CWK-2-N-222 (Paper Archive). SCH9104.

<23> Historic England, 1940-2021, The Historic England Archive, Series: RCH01/004, Reference: BF029826 (Paper Archive). SCH9105.

<24> Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME), 1958, RCHME Investigator's Notes: Sheppenhall Hall (Unpublished Report). SCH9245.

A two-storey timber framed building with a tile roof. A date cut in a stone in the main chimney reads 1671, but the house is early nineteenth century in style with extensive remodelling of the front in the nineteenth century. The roof, slightly steeper in pitch than forty-five degrees, is carried on a principal rafters carrying one purlin each side over the Hall, two over the wings. Some of the trusses are of a nineteenth century king-post type.

The front wall has been mostly rebuilt in brick and stuccoed, probably infilling a jettied first floor between the two wings. The wall has been raised to make a central dormer window appear as a second-floor window.

The end elevations are of brick and the chimneys are structurally separate from these the walls. At the southern end are two open recesses on the ground floor, and the upper part of the chimney has been rebuilt. At the northern end the easternmost part of the wall is of timber framing stuccoed.

At the rear the wings are also jettied at the first floor, through the northern wing’s jetty is masked by later additions. The southern wing has exposed timber framing on the outside, close studded on the ground floor in two heights, and on the upper floor a little more widely spaced with the raking studs or braces in each panel. The Hall block shows studding where not masked. The chimney is of brick; the top part of it is rebuilt. The lower, older part includes a stone inscribed:

ĀC
¯C 1671

The stairs come under a half gable of brickwork laced with timber, a dummy verge running across the chimney completing the gable. The wing is largely masked. The top of the gable is rebuilt in brick.

Interior. The layout of the ground-floor rooms is original, but where the original staircase was is not clear. The original ground-floor partitions are repeated on the first and others have been inserted. The main staircase, with a close string with turned newels and balusters of oak, was added in the early eighteenth century and the ends were slightly enlarged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Most of the rooms have cased ceiling beams, nineteenth century or modern fireplaces, and some re-used seventeenth century panelling, mostly as dadoes.

The north wing shows original close studwork in the front wall on the inside. The partition across the wing is framed in big square panels. The back room of the wing has a boldly chamfered ceiling beam. There is an eighteenth-century open fireplace in this room, and from this room, very small enclosed back stairs lead to the upper floor. The back room of the northern wing on the first floor has ovolo-moulded ceiling beam exposed and has been subdivided to make a bathroom.

Measured drawings of elevations (MD59/00061) and ground floor and first floor plans (MD59/00062).

<25> Environment Agency, 2003-2020, Environment Agency LiDAR Surveys, Composite DTM 1m (2022) SJ64NW (Digital Archive). SCH7819.

The two parallel earthworks depicted on the 1875-1877 Ordnance Survey map (see 6) correspond with the sides of a negative rectangular earthwork visible on the LIDAR survey. The earthwork is c.92 metres long c.29 metres wide, and c.1 metre deep. It may be defined by a slight bank on the eastern, northern and southern sides. The eastern side is less sharply defined and it would appear to slope into the pond (formerly two ponds located here). The western side is of a comparable steepness to the northern and southern sides. Overall this feature corresponds to the larger of the negative cropmarks visible on the 2015 aerial imagery (see 11).