Building record 744/1/2 - Bridge over the Moat at Hulme Hall

<1> Department of the Environment, 1971-2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 57184 (Report). SCH1934.

Moat bridge with C15 origins but now of C18 appearance. Red sandstone, formerly dry jointed, now pointed in cement-mortar. Two arches with ogee edge moulding and cavetto drips. Triangular cutwaters taken up as buttresses to parapet level where they are recessed to form seats. The parapets are splayed back, both sides, at approaches and there are seatings at the pier ends and points of the cutwaters which appear to have supported lamp columns. The parapet coping is in astragal form, but sections have now been replaced by a plain two-way weathered coping.

<2> Matrix Archaeology, 2006, Hulme Hall, Allostock, Vale Royal, Chester, Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment, R2627, p.12 (Client Report). SCH4672.

<3> Ormerod, G., 1882, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, Vol.III p.154 (Book). SCH1389.

'The water is crossed by a stone bridge of two arches, the projecting piers of which have been filled up with stone seats, placed in a point which would have been peculiarly disagreeable to the taste of the modern day, as this side of the moat fronts a large range of antient barns and stables, forming, agreeably to old custom, the principle avenue to the house.'