Bradlegh Old Hall

Description

Ruined gatehouse, circa 1460, of red and yellow sandstone. In yellow stone a 4-centred arch with panel above, formerly framed (N.Pevsner South Lancashire) by a giant blank arch, no longer clear. The archway has canted, moulded jambs flanked by colonnettes. Within the archway an embrasure (containing stone seats) to each side, with loops, commands the moat. Springers (as the angles of the ribs suggest) to former quadripartite vault. At the front corners are massive decayed diagonal buttresses on octagonal mock-turrets of red sandstone. Details of the yellow sandstone elements suggests early C19 restoration. A modern earth causeway gives access across the moat. (Listed Building Report)

The monument is a well preserved example of the site of a late medieval moated manor house. The monument retains its original 15th century gateway and considerable evidence of the original Bradlegh Old Hall will survive beneath the present house and gardens. Additionally the waterlogged moat and fishpond will preserve organic material.
The monument is the moated site of Bradlegh Old Hall and its fishpond. The site includes a rectangular island c.58m x 52m upon which stands Bradlegh Old Hall and its outbuildings, a 15th century sandstone gatehouse through which the driveway passes to the Hall, and well tended lawns and shrubs. Surrounding the island is a waterlogged moat averaging c.12-14m wide x 1.4m deep. Water feeds into the W arm via a pipe and exits by an outlet pipe in the E arm. Along the W half of the N arm the outer scarp has been given a shallower batter to measure c.25m across at this point. Access to the island is across the N arm via a modern causeway leading to the gatehouse that replaced an earlier stone bridge. A short distance to the W of the moat is a narrow L- shaped fishpond - its N arm measuring c.60m long x 8m wide, and its W arm measuring c.30m long x 8m wide before opening out at its S end into a sub- rectangular dry hollow c.20m x 14m x 1.5m deep. Bradlegh Old Hall was originally a 15th century moated manor house of which only the gatehouse and moat remain. The present building is late 16th century incorporating earlier features. The hall and gatehouse are both Listed Buildings Grade II. (Scheduling Report)

Syr Perse Lee of Bradley hath his place at Bradley in a parke ii miles from Newton. (Leland)

Part of the ancient manorhouse, including the Knights' Chamber, was of an older date than 1465. Shortly before that year Sir Peter Legh had greatly enlarged and improved his residence. (The additions then made included a fair new hall with three chambers, a dininghall with a new kitchen, bakehouse and brew-house, a new stone tower and small towers, a fair gateway and stone tower (bastellium) thereon, with good ramparts, and a fair chapel. In addition to the hall were other convenient buildings previously existing, the whole being surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge. Beyond the moat and on the north side were three large barns, with a great oxhouse and stable, with a bailiff's house and a kiln newly built at the end of a place called 'Parogardyne,' to the south of which lay a great apple orchard and garden; Warr. in 1465 (Chet. Soc.), xxiii.) Of the stately building which existed at that time now only the gateway and the moat remain. (In 1849 the holy-water stoup from the chapel at Bradley, bearing upon one of its four sides the arms of Haydock, was preserved in the chapel at Lyme; ibid.
In 1524 Piers Legh, to remove from his father's mind any doubts as to the execution of his will, swore upon the holy elements in the chapel of Bradley, in the presence of a number of local gentry, to secure its faithful execution; Lancs. Chant. (Chet. Soc.), 112 n.) The gateway is faced with wrought stone, and has been covered with a fan vault of two bays, the springers of which yet remain. (See also Baines, Lancs. (ed. 1836), iii, 683.) The details of the work are plain, and point to a date in the second half of the fifteenth century. It is approached by a stone bridge over the moat, and within the enclosure stands the present Bradley Hall, a brick farmhouse of no great age, but preserving several interesting fragments of older work. The most notable are the front door and the door to the kitchen, which have elaborate wrought-iron scrolled hinges of the fourteenth century. (VCH 1907)