Now Tatton Hall is an impressive pile by any estate agents sales pitch.
It was begun in the 1770s was steadily added to by members of the Egerton family, boasts a large Corinthian portico, monolithic columns of varying classical designs and is big.
But I have reservations.
Part of that comes from that prejudice I have carried with me since childhood about big posh places funded by exploiting the labours of those who were doomed never to get closer than the estate gates and maintained by an army of servants and labourers whose contributions to the great house went largely unrecorded.
Added to which it has something of ours.
Tucked away in the great house is that fine staircase from Hough End Hall which the Egertons decided should grace their home in Cheshire.
Of course given the slow decline of Hough End Hall during the middle of the last century followed by the wholesale destruction of almost all the interior during various renovation projects it may have found a safer and better home.
Like many I have at times muttered that “we wos robbed” and that is the prevailing view of many I talk to but I wonder what its fate would have been if left in Chorlton.
One visitor to Hough End Hall in 1862 reported that the “widely and interesting staircase .... [with] boldly carved oaken balustrade, was [now] white as purity itself from a recent infliction of whitewash.”*
I doubt that it would have survived long in the last century a victim of either the random visits of young children who saw the hall as a secret playground or the more sinister opportunist thief out to offer it to the highest bidder.
Instead along with “some of the choicest wainscoting [which was also] removed to adorn a Cheshire house belonging to the Egertons”* it can still be seen and admired.
And that brings me to Peter’s painting of the Hall which he painted recently after a visit to find and record that staircase.
I can report he found the staircase and I am hoping he will offer up a painting as it looks today which in turn may well make its way into our book on Hough End Hall which will soon be out on the book shelves.
Today Tatton Hall is no longer the home of the privileged.
It is part museum, part theme park all set in stunning landscape and is enjoyed by visitors who could never have hoped even to have walked through the lodge gates a century ago.
Painting; Tatton Hall, © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures
*A Visit to Hough End Hall in Withington, Ashton Reporter, December 6 1862, quoted by Cliff Renshaw in Hough End Hall, 400 Years of History, 2001
**Hough End Hall .......... the book.......... coming soon
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/hough-end-hall-book-coming-soon.html
But I have reservations.
Part of that comes from that prejudice I have carried with me since childhood about big posh places funded by exploiting the labours of those who were doomed never to get closer than the estate gates and maintained by an army of servants and labourers whose contributions to the great house went largely unrecorded.
Added to which it has something of ours.
Tucked away in the great house is that fine staircase from Hough End Hall which the Egertons decided should grace their home in Cheshire.
Of course given the slow decline of Hough End Hall during the middle of the last century followed by the wholesale destruction of almost all the interior during various renovation projects it may have found a safer and better home.
Like many I have at times muttered that “we wos robbed” and that is the prevailing view of many I talk to but I wonder what its fate would have been if left in Chorlton.
One visitor to Hough End Hall in 1862 reported that the “widely and interesting staircase .... [with] boldly carved oaken balustrade, was [now] white as purity itself from a recent infliction of whitewash.”*
I doubt that it would have survived long in the last century a victim of either the random visits of young children who saw the hall as a secret playground or the more sinister opportunist thief out to offer it to the highest bidder.
Instead along with “some of the choicest wainscoting [which was also] removed to adorn a Cheshire house belonging to the Egertons”* it can still be seen and admired.
I can report he found the staircase and I am hoping he will offer up a painting as it looks today which in turn may well make its way into our book on Hough End Hall which will soon be out on the book shelves.
Today Tatton Hall is no longer the home of the privileged.
It is part museum, part theme park all set in stunning landscape and is enjoyed by visitors who could never have hoped even to have walked through the lodge gates a century ago.
Painting; Tatton Hall, © 2015 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook: Paintings from Pictures
*A Visit to Hough End Hall in Withington, Ashton Reporter, December 6 1862, quoted by Cliff Renshaw in Hough End Hall, 400 Years of History, 2001
**Hough End Hall .......... the book.......... coming soon
http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/hough-end-hall-book-coming-soon.html
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