Selling the contents of Hough End Hall in the January of 1849

The Hall in 1910

Now I am back at Hough End Hall, that Elizabethan manor house.*

Strictly speaking it was in Withington but is so close to the border with our township that every historian since John Booker in 1853 has included it in their accounts of Chorlton.

It served as a fine home to the grand Mosley family until it was sold to the Egerton’s in the mid 18th century who rented it out to tenant farmers.

Some of these we know more about than others, and today it is the turn of Henry Jackson who was there during the 1840s and perhaps earlier.

He crops up in the census return the tithe records and the rate books and will still have been remembered by many when Thomas Ellwood wrote his series of articles about Chorlton in the winter and spring of 1885-6.

His was one of the bigger farms in the area, covering 220 acres and employing five labourers some of whom lived in the Hall.

And by one of those wonderful strokes of luck we have an inventory of the farm equipment which came up for sale on his death in 1849.

Executors of the late Mr Henry Jackson, of Hough End Hall, in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, in the county of Lancaster, to Sell BY AUCTION, on Tuesday, February 6th 1849, and following days, until the whole is disposed of the truly Valuable STOCK OF DAIRY COWS, HORSES, HUSBANDRY IMPLEMENTS, PRODUCE, &c. 

The Hall in 1895

Consisting of 17 high bred calved and in calf cos, eight draught horses, gears, for fourteen horses, sets of ploughing tackle, sundry odd gears, hackney saddles and bridles, six carts with six inch wheels and iron arm, one cart with narrow wheels, timber dobbin, two milk carts on springs, with harness complete.

One excellent gig and harness, several ploughs, double ploughs, cultivators, scarifies, seed and other harrows, winnowing machine, sieves and riddles, stack sheets, and poles, pair of smiths’ bellows, vices, anvils, a great variety of smiths’ and joiners’ tools, a large quantity of old iron, ladders dung, wash and wheelbarrows, thrashing machine, an variety of husbandry implements necessary for carrying on an extensive farm; one fat pig, poultry, ducks, boilers and fixtures, tankards &c.  

The produce comprises about 300 thraves of wheat, 600 thraves of oats, 80 thraves of horse beans, 100 tons of hay, 100 loads of potatoes of various sorts, 30 tons of Swede turnips. &c.  

The sale to begin each day at eleven o’clock, and the whole to be sold without reserve.  The cows, hay and part of the hay on the first day.  The horses, corn, and remainder of the produce the second day.  The reminder of the implements, &c on the following days.**

*Hough End Hall, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Hough%20End%20Hall

**Manchester Guardian January 20 1849

Pictures; the Hall looking west courtesy of Nora Templar 1910 and in 1895 from the Wesleyan Handbook, from the Lloyd Collection