Little Moreton Hall - Gardens and Estate

Gardens and Estate

By the mid-16th century the Little Moreton Hall estate was at its greatest extent, occupying an area of 1,360 acres (550 ha) and including three watermills, one of which was used to grind corn. The contours of the pool used to provide power for the cornmill are still visible, although the mill was demolished in the 19th century. The Moreton family had owned an iron bloomery in the east of the estate since the late 15th century, and the other two mills were used to drive its water-powered hammers. The dam of the artificial pool that provided water for the bloomery's mills, known as Smithy Pool, has survived, although the pool has not. The bloomery was closed in the early 18th century; the pool and moat were subsequently used for breeding carp and tench. By the mid-18th century the estate's main sources of income came from agriculture, timber production, fish farming, and property rentals.

The earliest reference to a garden at Little Moreton Hall comes from an early 17th-century set of household accounts referring to a gardener and the purchase of some seeds. Philip Moreton, who ran the estate for his older brother Edward in the mid-17th century, left a considerable amount of information on the layout and planting of the area of garden within the moat, to the west of the house. He writes of a herb garden, vegetable garden, and a nursery for maturing fruit trees until they were ready to be transferred to the orchard at the south and east of the house, probably where the orchard is today.

During the 20th century the long-abandoned gardens were returned to their Tudor condition. The knot garden was replanted in the early 1980s, to a design taken from Leonard Meager's Complete English Gardener, published in 1672. The intricate design of the knot can be seen from one of the two original viewing mounds, common in 16th-century formal gardening, one inside the moat and the other to the southwest. Other features of the grounds include a yew tunnel and an orchard growing fruits that would have been familiar to the house's Tudor occupants – apples, pears, quinces and medlars.