Ancoats Hall in Ancoats,

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 ...

, England, was a post-medieval country house built in 1609 by Oswald Mosley, a member of the family who were

Lords of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seigno ...

of Manchester. The old

timber-frame 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 ...

d hall, built in the early 17th century, was described by John Aiken in his 1795 book ''Description of the country from 30 to 40 miles around Manchester''. The old hall was demolished in the 1820s and replaced by a brick building in the early

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. The new hall, at the eastern end of

Great Ancoats Street Great Ancoats Street is a street in the inner suburb of Ancoats, Manchester, England. A number of cotton mills built in the early and mid-Victorian period are nearby, some of which have been converted into residential or office buildings, such ...

between Every Street and Palmerston Street, was demolished in the 1960s.

Old hall

Oswald Mosley who bought the land on which the hall was built in 1609 from the Byrons of

Clayton Hall Clayton Hall is a 15th-century manor house on Ashton New Road, in Clayton, Manchester, England. It is hidden behind trees in a small park. The hall is a Grade II* listed building, the mound on which it is built is a scheduled ancient monument, ...

, was a nephew of Sir Nicholas Mosley. The house was sequestered by Parliament after Oswald's son Nicholas Mosley supported the king in the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, but was returned after payment of a £120 fine. The house remained in the family until Sir John Mosley inherited it from a cousin in 1779 and preferring to live on his estate in Staffordshire, sold it. For a period the embalmed body of Hannah Beswick (known as the Manchester Mummy) was kept at the Hall. In his book, ''Lancashire Gleanings'' (1883),

William Axon William Edward Armytage Axon (13 January 1846 – 27 December 1913) was an English librarian, antiquary and journalist for the ''Manchester Guardian''. He contributed to the ''Dictionary of National Biography'' under his initials W. E. A. A. H ...

tells of the "curious Manchester tradition" that the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, visited the town, in disguise, in 1744 and stayed with Sir Oswald Mosley at Ancoats Hall for several weeks, to assess whether the people of Manchester were "attached to the interests of his family". The following year, when the Jacobite army rode into Manchester, a young girl was said to have recognised the prince as the "handsome young man of genteel deportment" who had stayed at the Hall and who came to the Swan Inn, where she lived, to read the London newspapers three times a week. As the prince passed by the inn with his army in 1745 she exclaimed, "Father, father, that is the gentleman who gave me the half-crown" but her father drove her back into the house with severe threats if she ever mentioned that circumstance again. Axon was not fully convinced by the story as he could find no other evidence for it other than an account in the Sir Oswald Mosley's ''Family Memoirs'', printed for private circulation. According to Aiken in 1795, the old hall stood facing north-west on Ancoats Lane (a continuation of Great Ancoats Street). Its terraced back gardens sloped towards the

River Medlock The River Medlock is a river in Greater Manchester, England, which rises near Oldham and flows south and west for to join the River Irwell in Manchester city centre. Sources Rising in the hills that surround Strinesdale just to the east of Ol ...

. The two-storey hall had attics and a

hipped roof 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, ...

. It was constructed in timber and plaster. Its front had three

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s and a square tower and the back and its west wing had been rebuilt. Britton, in 1807 described its upper storeys as overhanging the ground floor, and windows projecting from the face of the building.

New hall

During the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

at the end of the 18th century Ancoats Hall was bought by one of the new elite – wealthy Manchester merchant, William Rawlinson. By 1827 it was owned by George Murray (of nearby Murrays' Mills). Murray demolished the old hall and replaced it with a brick hall in the fashionable neo-Gothic style. After his death, his wife Jane remained at Ancoats Hall with her son James for at least ten years until James moved to London, and by 1868 Jane Murray had moved to the home of her son, Benjamin, in the Polygon, Ardwick. The hall and its surrounding lands were bought and used by the

Midland Railway The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It ama ...

for the new Ancoats railway station that opened in 1870. From 1886 the hall was used for Manchester Art Museum, founded by Thomas Coglan Horsfall as a philanthropic project. The

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

Settlement Settlement may refer to: *Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building * Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction *Settlement (fin ...

, an unofficial hall of residence, was established in part of the premises in 1895 and merged with the museum six years later. By this time the hall stood in squalid urban surroundings and its gardens had been built over. The new hall was in turn demolished in the 1960s after falling into disrepair.

Citations

Bibliography

* * {{Authority control Former buildings and structures in Manchester Country houses in Greater Manchester Houses completed in 1609 Buildings and structures demolished in the 20th century 17th-century architecture in the United Kingdom 1609 establishments in England