Haslington Hall is a
country house
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
located in open countryside 1 km east of the village of
Haslington
Haslington is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It lies about 2 miles (3 km) north-east of the much larger railway town of Crewe and approximately 4 miles (6. ...
,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
, England. It 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, an ...
as a designated Grade I
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 ...
.
Early history
It is difficult to trace the early history of the hall, because all early documents relating to the hall were kept in a bank vault in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
that was destroyed in 1940 during World War II bombing.
The manor of Haslington was acquired by the
Vernon family The Vernon family was a wealthy, prolific and widespread English family with 11th-century origins in Vernon, Normandy, France. Their extant titles include Baron Vernon and Vernon baronets of Shotwick Park.
Vernon of Shipbrook, Cheshire
William d ...
as a consequence of the 14th-century marriage of
Sir Thomas Vernon to Joan Lostock, heiress of Haslington. The house was built by Admiral Sir Francis Vernon in 1545, and contains parts of the original medieval
manor house
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...
,
which are said to date back to 1480.
[ Additions and alterations were made to it in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries.][ It is claimed that some of the timbers used in the early phase of construction were salvaged from ships of the ]Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada (a.k.a. the Enterprise of England, es, Grande y Felicísima Armada, links=no, lit=Great and Most Fortunate Navy) was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aris ...
in 1588. In the late 19th century it was a farmhouse. In 1931 extensive repairs, alterations and additions were made.
Architecture
The house is built partly in timber framing
Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...
and partly in brick, with a slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
roof. It has two storeys and six bays.[ The timber-framed areas are decorated with herringbone bracing, ]quatrefoil
A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...
s and cusped concave-sided lozenge
Lozenge or losange may refer to:
* Lozenge (shape), a type of rhombus
*Throat lozenge, a tablet intended to be dissolved slowly in the mouth to suppress throat ailments
*Lozenge (heraldry), a diamond-shaped object that can be placed on the field of ...
s.[ The rear elevation is mainly in brickwork.][
]
Recent history
Previous residents include Colonel H Watts and Mrs Lillian Watts. Mrs Watts was the first president of the Haslington and Crewe Green branch of the Women's Institute
The Women's Institute (WI) is a community-based organisation for women in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. The movement was founded in Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada, by Erland and Janet Lee with Adelaide Hoodless being th ...
, founded in 1944. Confusion has arisen in several publications with Mrs Madge Watt, a Canadian lady who founded the Women's Institute in Britain in 1915; she returned to Canada in 1919 and is unlikely ever to have visited Haslington.
After the first World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Air Commodore Dame Felicity Peake
Air Commandant Dame Felicity Hyde, Lady Peake ( Watts; 1 May 1913 – 2 November 2002) was the founding director of the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) She started flying when her first husband took up the hobby in 1935, but in 1946 became the f ...
, the first director of the Women's Royal Air Force
The Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) was the women's branch of the Royal Air Force. It existed in two separate incarnations: the Women's Royal Air Force from 1918 to 1920 and the Women's Royal Air Force from 1949 to 1994.
On 1 February 1949, the ...
and the daughter of Colonel H Watts, spent much of her youth in the house. The house was bought in 1970 by the millionaire Tony Vernon who established Murray Vernon, one of the largest independent dairy companies in the country. He restored the house over the next thirty years. Following his death in 2005, the house was sold for £3m to Mohammed Isaq.
In 2014 the fire service visited a structure in the grounds of Haslington Hall known as The Big Marquee and found "serious" breaches in fire safety. The service issued a prohibition notice, which meant the company should immediately stop using the venue, which was ignored by Isaq on at least three occasions when firefighters visited the venue and weddings were taking place. Isaq had a previous conviction for fire safety breaches when in January 2012 he was fined and ordered to pay court costs totalling £23,815 to Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service for nine serious breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, also at Haslington Hall. The honorary Recorder of Chester, Judge Roger Dutton, told Raja that the breaches were "flagrant" and put the public at risk.
On the morning of 24 March 2018 firefighters from across the area were called to a fire at Haslington Hall. In April 2018 Cheshire Police were said to be investigating the fire, the cause of which is yet to be determined. In June 2018, Mohammed Isaq, 56, of Hale Barns, pleaded guilty to nine charges relating to his failure to comply with the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order 2005, and his failure to comply with an enforcement notice and failure to comply with a prohibition notice at his Haslington Hall. He was jailed for 20 months at Chester Crown Court for breaching serious fire safety rules. His company, Haslington Hall Ltd, where he was the major shareholder, also admitted the same breaches. The charges related to his failure to take general fire precautions to ensure the safety of employees and the public, placing them at risk of death and serious injury in case of fire.
In December 2019 the hall and estate was sold to an undisclosed private owner.
See also
*Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire East
There are over 9,000 Grade I listed buildings in England. This page is a list of these buildings in the unitary authority of Cheshire East.
Listed buildings
Notes
See also
* Grade I listed ...
*Listed buildings in Haslington
Haslington is a civil parish in Cheshire East, England. It contains 12 buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England as designated listed buildings. Of these, one is listed at Grade I, the highest grade, and the ...
References
{{Reflist, 30em
Houses completed in 1545
Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire
Grade I listed houses
Country houses in Cheshire
Timber framed buildings in Cheshire
1545 establishments in England