Cranage Hall is a former

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 Townhouse (Great Britain), town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the cit ...

in the village of

Cranage Cranage is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 Official UK Census, the population of the entire civil parish was 1,131 which had risen to 1,1 ...

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 coun ...

, England. It was built in 1828–29 for Lawrence Armitstead, and designed by

Lewis Wyatt Lewis William Wyatt (1777–1853) was a British architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings ...

. In 1932 a parallel wing was added. Since the hospital closed, it has been used as a hotel and conference centre owned and run by the Principal Hayley hotel group. The building is constructed in red brick with blue brick

diapering Diaper is any of a wide range of decorative patterns used in a variety of works of art, such as stained glass, heraldic shields, architecture, and silverwork. Its chief use is in the enlivening of plain surfaces. Etymology For the full etymol ...

, and in yellow

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

. It is roofed in

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 ro ...

. The architectural style is

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personif ...

. The building is in two storeys plus a basement, and it has eight

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

. The first and fourth bays are in stone; the others are in brick. In front of the sixth and seven bays is a two-storey stone porch with four

fluted Fluting may refer to: * Fluting (architecture) * Fluting (firearms) *Fluting (geology) * Fluting (glacial) *Fluting (paper) Arts, entertainment, and media *Fluting on the Hump See also *Flute (disambiguation) A flute is a musical instrument. ...

Doric columns, an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

with a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

, and a balcony with an

openwork Openwork or open-work is a term in art history, architecture and related fields for any technique that produces decoration by creating holes, piercings, or gaps that go right through a solid material such as metal, wood, stone, pottery, cloth, l ...

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

. Between the third and fourth bays is a slim octagonal tower with an

ogee An ogee ( ) is the name given to objects, elements, and curves—often seen in architecture and building trades—that have been variously described as serpentine-, extended S-, or sigmoid-shaped. Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combinati ...

cap and a

weathervane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , ...

. The house 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 I ...

Present Day

Cranage Hall was redeveloped by

Hayley Conference Centres Hayley (pronounced ) is an English given name. It is derived from the English surname Haley, which in turn was based on an Old English toponym, a compound of ''heg'' "hay" and ''leah'' "clearing or meadow".Katie Martin-Doyle, ''The Treasury of ...

and reopened as a 120 bedroom, 29 meeting room hotel and conference venue with a leisure club in 1998. In 2007 Hayley Conference Centres was bought by and merged with

Principal Hotels Principal may refer to: Title or rank * Principal (academia), the chief executive of a university ** Principal (education), the office holder/ or boss in any school * Principal (civil service) or principal officer, the senior management level in ...

to become the

Principal Hayley Principal Hotel Company is a British hotel and conference venue operator headquartered in Harrogate, England. History Principal Hotel Company advertises that it was established in 1898, as that is the year the oldest hotel in its chain, Kimpton F ...

group. Since the 2016 merger with De Vere Venues, the hotel was rebranded as

De Vere De Vere is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aubrey de Vere I (died c. 1112), a tenant-in-chief in England of William the Conqueror * Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902), an Irish poet and critic *Cecil Valentine De Vere (1845� ...

Cranage Estate and now has 152 bedrooms including 2 suites in the mansion house.

References

External links

De Vere Cranage Estate- Official Website
Country houses in Cheshire Hotels in Cheshire Houses completed in 1829 Tudor Revival architecture in England Grade II listed houses Grade II listed buildings in Cheshire Country house hotels 1829 establishments in England {{UK-listed-building-stub