Wythenshawe Hall

Wythenshawe Hall is a manor house and former seat of the Tatton family, situated within Wythenshawe Park, Manchester. The building’s origins lie in the earlier 16th century, with significant alterations and rebuilding occurring around 1797, followed by enlargements in the early and later 19th centuries. It is now used as a museum and art gallery.

The hall is constructed of timber frame and brick, with green slate roofs and presents a U-shaped plan consisting of a central hall-range flanked by projecting wings. A porch is situated in the right-hand angle, and an oriel window in the left-hand. Later additions are present to both ends and the rear of the building.

The 16th-century portion of the hall is two-storeys high, with a three-bay hall range, its gabled porch and oriel rising even higher. The original timber frame exhibits post-and-stud construction, herringbone bracing, and jettied upper floors and gables. Characteristic features include projecting wall plates with elaborate pendants (particularly ornate on the porch and oriel), bressummers, and bargeboards adorned with rich running-vine carving, as well as apex finials. The porch incorporates a Tudor-arched doorway with a carved lintel, a quatrefoil band above the jetty and a six-light mullion-and-transom window on the first floor. The hall itself has a large, twelve-light transomed window on each floor, while the oriel has transomed windows with six lights on the ground floor and eight above. The wings feature canted mullion-and-transom bay windows to the ground floor (likely 19th-century) and six-light transomed windows above. A four-light mullioned window is found on the first floor of the re-entrant angle of the north wing, with an external chimney stack on the return side of the south wing. Most windows retain leaded glazing, some in original diamond-pane form, while others have larger honeycomb-pattern panes.

An early 19th-century addition, three bays wide, is attached to the right-hand side of the north wing, displaying a gabled centre with a large mullion-and-transom window at ground floor and cross-windows elsewhere. A further addition extends to the north of this. The rear elevation is brick faced with sash windows.

The interior features a hall with remodelled Jacobean-style decoration (dated 1871-72 on a beam in the oriel window), an early 19th-century library, and a fine open-well staircase with alternately twisted balusters. A particularly noteworthy feature is the drawing-room above the hall, which includes a 17th-century internal porch. Remnants of 16th-century painted wall panelling are visible on the north end wall, featuring an elaborate painted frieze depicting shields, Bacchanalian figures, fronds, and roses. The remaining walls are adorned with elaborate early 17th-century panelling, including a dado with fluted Ionic pilasters, a moulded cornice, a band of carved round-headed arches with fluted pilasters, recessed panels over these with fluted pilasters, a strap-work frieze, and a coffered panelled overmantel, all incorporating geometric fret inlay.