The gingerbread house of Cheshire: Little Moreton Hall

Little Moreton Hall, also known as Old Moreton Hall, is a peculiar gingerbread-like building 4.5 miles south-west of Congleton in Cheshire, England. Its odd, irregular shape, with three asymmetrical ranges forming a small rectangular cobbled courtyard, can seem plucked from a fairy tale. The half-timbered building has a top-heavy appearance, like a stranded Noah's Ark, due to the Long Gallery that runs the length of the south range's upper floor.

Little Moreton Hall remained in the possession of the Moreton family for almost 450 years, until the National Trust took ownership in 1938. The house and its sandstone bridge across the moat are designated as Grade I listed buildings, and the ground on which Little Moreton Hall stands is protected as a Scheduled Monument. The building has been fully restored and is open to the public from April to December each year.

At its greatest extent, in the mid-16th century, the Little Moreton Hall estate occupied an area of 1,360 acres (550 ha); it contained a cornmill, orchards, gardens and an iron bloomery with water-powered hammers. The gardens lay abandoned until their 20th-century re-creation. As there were no surviving records of the layout of the original knot garden, it was replanted according to a pattern published in the 17th century.

Little Moreton possibly derives from the Old English mor meaning "marshland" and ton, meaning "town". The area where Little Moreton Hall stands today was named Little Moreton to distinguish it from the nearby township of Moreton cum Alcumlow, or Greater Moreton.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons