Calveley Hall is a
country house to the west of the village of
Milton Green,
Cheshire, England. It was built in 1684 for Lady Mary Calveley.
After Lady Mary's death the estate passed by marriage to the
Leghs of Lyme
The Leghs of Lyme were a gentry family seated at Lyme Park in Cheshire, England, from 1398 until 1946, when the stately home and its surrounding parkland were donated by the 3rd Lord Newton to The National Trust.
Since the Middle Ages variou ...
.
In 1818 it was remodelled for Thomas Legh, and further alterations have been carried out during the 20th century.
The house and estates in excess of around
Aldersey,
Aldford,
Golborne David and
Handley were put up for sale in 1827 to satisfy a judgement in the
Court of Chancery
The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equ ...
. The hall and at least some of the lands were bought by George Woolrich, who then attempted to sell some parcels of it. In 1830, Woolrich tried to lease out the hall itself. Edward Davies Davenport was living there by 1835. Robert Hopley was living there in 1841.
The house is constructed in
rendered brick with stone
quoins
Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...
. It stands on a stone
plinth
A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In ...
, has
hipped roofs
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...
in Welsh
slate, and three brick chimneys. The entrance front has three storeys, and is symmetrical with seven
bays, the bays at the ends being slightly set back.
The architectural historian
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...
describes it as being "absolutely plain". Inside the house is a broad staircase with double twisted
balusters, and
newel
A newel, also called a central pole or support column, is the central supporting pillar of a staircase. It can also refer to an upright post that supports and/or terminates the handrail of a stair banister (the "newel post"). In stairs having st ...
s carved with
coats of arms, including those of Lady Mary. One of the rooms in the upper floor has an
overmantel
The fireplace mantel or mantelpiece, also known as a chimneypiece, originated in medieval times as a hood that projected over a fire grate to catch the smoke. The term has evolved to include the decorative framework around the fireplace, and ca ...
carved with the Calveley arms.
[ The hall is recorded in the ]National Heritage List for England
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...
as a designated Grade II* listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
. The gate piers and front garden walls are listed at Grade II.
In 2006 the building was in a poor state of repair and the building is on the Buildings at Risk Register.
See also
*
* Listed buildings in Handley, Cheshire
References
Houses completed in 1684
Country houses in Cheshire
Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire
Grade II* listed houses
1684 establishments in England
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