Gawsworth Old Hall

Gawsworth Old Hall
Gawsworth Old Hall
Location	Gawsworth, Cheshire, England
Coordinates	53°13′26″N 2°09′50″W / 53.2238°N 2.1638°W / 53.2238; -2.1638Coordinates: 53°13′26″N 2°09′50″W / 53.2238°N 2.1638°W / 53.2238; -2.1638
OS grid reference	SJ 891 696
Listed Building – Grade I
Designated	25 July 1952
Reference no.	1139500
Location in Cheshire

Gawsworth Old Hall is a Grade I listed country house in the village of Gawsworth, Cheshire, England. It is a timber-framed house in the Cheshire black-and-white style. The present house was built between 1480 and 1600, replacing an earlier Norman house. It was probably built as a courtyard house enclosing a quadrangle, but much of it has been demolished, leaving the house with a U-shaped plan. The present hall was owned originally by the Fitton family, and later by the Gerards, and then the Stanhopes. Since the 1930s it has been in the possession of the Richards family. Raymond Richards collected a number of items from other historic buildings and incorporated them into the hall.

Notable residents have included Mary Fitton, perhaps the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets, and Samuel "Maggoty" Johnson, a playwright described as the last professional jester in England, whose grave is nearby in Maggoty Wood, a small National Trust woodland. In 1712 a dispute about the ownership of the Gawsworth estate culminated in a duel, in which both the combatants were killed.

The hall is surrounded by formal gardens and parkland, which once comprised an Elizabethan pleasure garden and, possibly, a tilting ground for jousting. The grounds are listed Grade II*, and contain four Grade II listed buildings, including the Gatehouse, gatepiers, and garden walls. The hall and grounds are open to the public at advertised times, and events are organised. During the summer months a series of concerts and other entertainment is arranged in an open-air theatre near the hall.

The original house on the site dated from the Norman era. The earliest documentary reference is the granting of a licence for the administration of a chapel within the house in 1365. The house was then owned by Thomas Fitton, who had inherited it by marriage in 1316, and it remained in the possession of the Fitton family until 1611. The original house was replaced in the 15th and 16th centuries. Building started in 1480, and continued in stages until about 1600. Since then, parts of the house have been demolished, and others have been considerably altered. It is considered by the architectural historians Peter de Figueiredo and Julian Treuherz that the site of the house was originally moated, and that its plan was that of a quadrangle, forming a courtyard house.