Little Moreton Hall

Earlier this year, M and I joined the National Trust. An awfully adult-y sort of thing to do, but you only need to go about once every other month to get your money’s worth out of membership. And you can almost always find a place to visit, wherever you are in the UK. Quite a few places I visit will, therefore, be National Trust properties, starting with Little Moreton Hall, a moated Tudor building.

Before the National Trust took over in 1938, Little Moreton Hall had belonged to the Moreton family since the early 16th century (there’d been a building on the site since about 1271, but the earliest parts of the current building only date from 1504-1508). The wall decoration above of Susannah and the Elders date from the late 16th century, and were discovered during renovations in 1976, hiding behind Georgian panels. As can be seen from the partially white-washed chapel walls, the Moreton family followed royal lead regarding religion.

Firm Royalists, their support of the Royalist cause during the Civil War contributed to the family’s decline – the property was requisitioned by Parliamentarians during the war, and though it was returned to the Moretons, they were financially crippled. Unable to sell the estate, they rented it to a series of tenant farmers, and the building gradually became uninhabitable, until it was inherited by Elizabeth Moreton in 1892, who began the process of restoring the property.