Sutton Hall

Sutton Hall is a Grade I listed building situated in Aston Lane, Sutton. It began as a hall in the late 15th or early 16th century and was extended in the late 17th and early 19th centuries. The building is now used as a farmhouse.

The exterior is constructed of brown brick with a roof of cement tiles. It comprises two storeys plus attics. The earliest section, on the left, is a two-storey structure with a gabled front containing late medieval oak-framed great halls of unusual type, cased in brown brick with Flemish bond to the front. Two large lateral stone chimneys, rebuilt in brick above the eaves, flank this section. The late 17th-century right wing is of two storeys plus attics, with a sandstone plinth, two-course brick bands at the first and attic floor levels, a flush gable chimney, and partly leaded cross-casement windows to the stair. A cross-wing at the rear of the great halls is partly Tudor in date and partly from 1805, featuring a two-storey, two-window façade to the garden in Flemish bond brickwork with pale headers and recessed small-pane sashes. Miscellaneous windows, some altered, are mostly set under flat gauged-brick arches. Two doors on the garden front of the 17th-century wing are of tapered boards.

The interior contains two superimposed great halls, one above the other, both dating to the late 15th or early 16th century and representing the principal feature of unique architectural interest. The lower storey comprises a passage behind the entrance, with a parlour to the left featuring jowled corner posts and a moulded oak beam structure with original boards between moulded joists laid flat, a cross-beam against the front wall, and a Tudor fireplace now concealed by a five-panel door of raised and fielded design in a massive frame with raised strapwork. The lower great hall, positioned behind the parlour, has a rebuilt left wall retaining parts of two moulded oak posts with heavily moulded brackets on attached octagonal colonettes with belled-out caps. A probable insertion is a Tudor fireplace of stone opened out to form a window embrasure. Three complete moulded oak posts stand on the right side, with massive oak framing incorporating an intermediate rail. The ceiling comprises a fine structure of moulded oak beams. A window with closely-spaced hollow-moulded oak mullions, now opening onto a passage, is a notable feature. A graffito of a male figure in courtly dress, scratched in a plaster panel, appears to date to the 15th century. In the cross-wing to the rear on the left stands a smaller Tudor stone fireplace.

The moulded principal posts serving both the lower and upper great halls are continuous through both storeys with integral brackets carved from the branch stumps at first-floor level and truss-springs, all closely matched in height and section. This represents a remarkable feature demonstrating that the lower and upper halls formed part of the original structure, with the moulded faces of the posts standing proud of the wall surfaces. A late 17th-century open-well oak stair features solid panelled newels and heavy moulded rails but no balusters.

The upper storey contains the upper hall, which has a replaced boarded floor of probable 18th-century date. The lower part of the moulded post-faces has been cut away, probably during reflooring. Two fine trusses with deeply moulded arched tie-beams, canted collars, and moulded posts between them feature good roses and moulded roof-panels with quatrefoil windbraces. A doorway with an ogee head is cut into a beam at the front of the hall, set in a massive oak frame with an intermediate rail. A Tudor stone fireplace and another in an alcove to the left at the rear (in the cross-wing) are present. The mouldings, colonettes, and brackets on the principal posts are similar to those in the lower hall. Oak framing in parts of the building not inspected in detail suggests that the lower and upper great halls have been shortened.

The timber structure cannot be dated precisely without further investigation. The marriage of Sir John Warburton, who possessed the Hall, to Joan, daughter of Sir William Stanley of Holt, described as "the richest commoner in England" and chamberlain at Henry VII's court, could have provided the means and motivation for this innovative design during the 1470s and 1480s. However, Sir John's family built a similarly rich great hall with parallel features at Dutton nearby in 1539–42, and intermediate floors in great halls are more commonly of 16th-century date. William Webb's itinerary of Cheshire from 1622–23, published in King's Vale Royal of England in 1656, refers to Sutton Hall as "an antient manour house".