upper end of the hall was the high table, lit by an oriel window and protected by a coved canopy above and on either side by screens from the doorways to the parlour and chamber wing. Leading from the screens-passage where the customary doorways to the kitchen, buttery and pantry. However, in most cases this is where the similarity stops, for these houses of the North-West are often distinguished by an unusually long two-storey range of rooms at right-angles to the hall and sometimes forming one wing of a courtyard enclosed on three or perhaps four sides. Some, such as the range at Denton Hall, Hyde, Cheshire, now used as a barn, were completely detached from the upper end of the hall. A characteristic feature of these long wings is the incorporation of an internal corridor on the courtyard side, as at Speke Hall, from which the rooms are reached. The use to which these rooms were put is not clear for they seem too large for servants and were probably reserved for guests.
The visual unity of these buildings of the North-West often disguises their complex and protracted building history, for seldom are they of one build. Little Morton Hall is one excellent example. The earliest part of the house is the north range together with the great hall which was completed in the late fifteenth century. The first-floor room in the
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165. Ordsall Hall, Greater Manchester |
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