Garden Wall, Attached Outbuilding Incorporating Mushroom House And Corner Outbuilding At Great Moreton Hall

A mid-19th century garden wall, attached outbuilding incorporating a mushroom house and corner outbuilding, likely designed by Edward Blore for George Ackers. The wall encloses approximately three acres of what was formerly a kitchen garden, with diagonal angle walls that originally supported greenhouses; one, the Fern House, survives in restored form at the north-east corner. The red brick wall is laid in Monk bond, stands around 3.5 metres high, and is capped with a ridged coping. It utilizes cavity construction to incorporate flues for heating the wall’s facing. The north and south walls extend approximately 140 metres. The west end wall has been breached for 20th-century buildings, and the east end wall has a full-height opening, retaining the southern jamb of a single doorway. Single doorways, with shouldered heads, ashlar lintels, and dressings, are present on the north and south side walls. The south doorway has a planked and cross-braced door.

A lean-to outbuilding runs along the north face of the north side wall, currently 13 bays long but originally longer, with brick walling and a plain blue tile roof, and blind end walls. The first seven bays from the west are storage areas. Bays 8 and 9 comprise the mushroom house, incorporating 36 arched recesses arranged in three tiers, serving as mushroom beds, around a central service walkway. Each bay has three arched beds with the upper tier below raking barrel vaults, breached by asymmetrical arches over the walkway. Beyond the mushroom house is an enclosed bay, an open bay providing covered access to the central doorway, and two further enclosed bays.

At the north-west corner of the wall, the reconstructed Fern House has coped raking side walls and a rear wall raised above the garden wall’s coping level, with a single doorway set below a shallow segmental arch. Remains of a former greenhouse, the Cineraria House, are visible at the south-west angle, below which was formerly a boiler house for heating the wall. 20th-century buildings within the garden wall’s enclosure are not of special architectural or historic interest.