Two Halls …. one story and the Young Pretender ... Chorlton meets Ancoats

History is littered with “myths, half-truths and howlers” and in their way they can be as interesting as the real thing.

Hough End Hall, 1849

At which stage it would be easy to become sniffy and pompous about stories of Hough End Hall , which is that Elizabeth mansion much knocked about in its 428 years.

It was built by Sir Nicholas Mosley in 1596, suffered uncertain times during the English Civil War when the family chose the wrong side to support, saw its fortunes recover after the Restoration and was finally sold to settle gambling debts in 1756.

After which it appeared to enjoy a quiet time as a farmhouse until it was sold to a developer who commissioned a very unsympathetic restoration in the 1960s, and passed its time as a restaurant and night club, then briefly flirted with being a suite of offices before eventually becoming an Islamic Centre. 

And for the last half century stood in the shadow of two office blocks which are best described as an “abomination of desolation”. 

With such a long history it is easy to find heaps of stories about the place and the people who lived there, and like a rolling stone has picked up more than a few strange tales.

"Gentlemen" he cried, drawing his sword, "I have thrown away the scabbard"

Like the one shared recently on social media that Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender stayed the night on his way to the battle of Marston Moor.

Sadly the story confuses a battle that took place a century before the Highland army crossed through the area looking for places to ford the Mersey in 1745.

But like all stories there is a hint of something because according to the biography of the Mosley family, James Stuart may have stayed at a local Hall owned by the Mosley’s but this was Ancoats Hall and not Hough End Hall.

“Sir Oswald Mosley was then about seventy-one … but there is no reason to doubt that a secret correspondence had been carried out between him and some of the leaders of the rebellious attempt, in which Ancoats Hall was offered as a temporary asylum to the grandson of King James II.*

Ancoats Hall, 1849

More intriguing is the suggestion that the said James Stuart had been in Manchester the year before in 1744, stayed at Ancoats Hall and frequented “the principle inn at Manchester [which] occupied the site of a house lately known by the sign of the Swan in Market Street and at that time was the only place where a post-chaise was kept, or the London newspapers regularly received, which were brought by the post only three times during the week”.**

And so the story goes “a handsome young gentleman came every post day for several weeks in succession from Ancoats Hall, the seat of Sir Oswald Mosley, where he was on a visit, to [the inn] to read the newspapers.  He appeared to hold no communication with anyone else but took great interest in the perusal of the London newspapers”.***

Market Street, Manchester in the 18th century, 1894

The account was vouchsafed by an elderly woman in 1815 who had been the daughter of the inn keeper and remembered the “handsome young man” who she served on a number of occasions, and remembers recognising him at the head of the Highland army as it marched through Manchester.

Do I believe it?  I don’t know.  

I suspect those who have studied the movements of the Young Pretender in the year before he landed on the west coast of Scotland will have a clear understanding of where and what he was doing.

I know he had been born in Rome spent much of his early and later life in Italy and in 1744 travelled to France from where he left for Scotland.

That said despite the stories that he spoke English with a foreign accent which would have made his presence in Manchester very noticeable, it appears he had no such accent.

"For Charlie" the Highland army at Culloden, 1746

Still it does rather seem a clandestine mission too far to have hidden himself away in Manchester to read newspapers which his spies could have obtained for him.

So, I am left with perhaps another fanciful tale to match the night before he rode out from Hough End Hall to fight a battle which was already a century old.

Of course history  can be messy with plenty of twists and turns, and more than a few surprises.

I bet someone will correct me.

But at least I am confident in writing that the Highland army was defeated at Culloden and  the Young Pretender ran from the battlefield and escaped back to Rome, leaving his supporters to face the wrath of the Hanoverian Government.

An end which was less romantic tosh and more brutal repression.

Location, the 18th century

Pictures; Hough End Hall and Ancoats Hall from Mosley, Sir Oswald, Family Memoirs, 1849, "Gentlemen he cried, drawing his sword, I have thrown away the scabbard", from Scotland's story: a history of Scotland for boys and girls, Marshall, H. E. 1907, Market Street, Manchester in the 18th century, from Shaw William, Manchester Old and New, 1894, and The Battle of Culloden, David Morier, 1746

*Mosley, Sir Oswald, Family Memoirs, 1849

**ibid Mosley

***ibid Mosley