Hacking Hall

Hacking Hall sits along the bank of the Ribble River in the township of Billington and Parish of Blackburn. It was built in the ancestral home of the de Hacking family, who lived in the area at least from 1200 with Bernard de Hacking, great grandfather of William de Hacking, to about 1330 when William's daughter Agnes married Henry de Shuttlesworth. The Shuttleworth name remained for eight generations until Anne, daughter and heiress of Richard Shuttleworth Esq. of Hacking, married Sir Thomas Walmsley Knt. Justice of the Common Pleas. The Judge built Hacking Hall in 1607. It is one of several Elizabethan mansions in the area.

Read more by clicking on the link:

Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties

By Chetham Society Published 1856

Lesser Halls and Manor Houses of Lancashire, pages 181-184

This excerpt is a description of some of the construction styles of ancestral homes, including Hacking Hall in the Lancashire County and how they changed in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. The full chapter explains much more information that describes the environement and the society, but this excerpt concentrates on the time of the construction of Hacking Hall in 1607.

The end of the sixteenth and the commencement of the seventeenth century may be called a transition age, because the increasing wealth of the country brought with it additional comfort, luxury, and enjoyment, and caused a great many changes

to be made, and a large amount of building and rebuilding to take place at this period. Most of the old fortified houses, with immensely thick walls, few and inconvenient rooms that were badly lighted, and want of conveniences, were being pulled down or altered, their domestic arrangement not being so well suited to the newer ideas. Some were rebuilt on the old foundations, as is witnessed by the date on many of these houses still standing, or of which we have record handed down to us showing that a more ancient building occupied the site. The great hall, with its raised dais and canopy for the master, family, and guests, and the long table down the centre, or both sides of the hall, for retainers and servants, which apartment had long held pride of place as chief room of the house, was slowly but surely giving way to the more modern drawing and dining room of the present day, with a separate part of the house for the accommodation of the servants, and a re-arrangement of the sleeping accommodation of the upper floors, so as to ensure greater privacy and comfort.

Then the need for defence from enemies and armed bands was becoming a thing of the past, being gradually lessened by the better condition and enlightenment of the people. The ancient moat, that had been the principal means of defence in times past, was giving place to the park and garden. Men and their families were able to go about with a greater sense of freedom and security, and were not always required to be armed and attended when they went a little distance from their homes, so that the builders of houses at this period had not to make a defensive site their first consideration, but rather to choose one that would be more convenient, wholesome, and fertile. The diversified character of these lesser halls, and the difference in their design and in the materials used in their construction, were mainly influenced by the conditions of the country in which they were situated. Local materials were invariably used, for their transport from a distance was difficult. Skilled labour was widely distributed, but displayed a local and sometimes primitive character consisted of a very large proportion of low, undrained, swampy ground and morass, interspersed with woods and growing timber, and having a scanty and somewhat isolated population, who were, in many of their ways and ideas, fifty years or more behind the general advance of progress, we find many of these houses were built of timber and plaster only, or what is called wattle and daub, some very rudely put together, mostly consisting of a timber frame, with the stiles sunk into the ground, or set on a low stone base, braced together with cross and diagonal pieces, the spaces between filled with plaster, and with a roof of thatch ; and many built with timber framework, filled in by brickwork, which in a great measure accounts for so many of these houses having gone to decay or been pulled down early in the present century; others, of better and more solid construction, were built on a stone basement, with a timber and plaster superstructure, many of these having the timber-work of more ornamental character, while some of the better class were of very superior design both in material, detail, and finish, many having pleasant bay windows, quaint gables, and ornamental chimneys, the rich ornamentation and careful working of all the various parts of the building being the strongest evidence of the thought, care, and pride taken in building these ancestral homes, almost regardless of cost. Such houses are Slade Hall, Newton Hall, Tonge Hall, Worthington Hall, Higher Buckshaw, &c. Also, in this part of the county, we may come across an occasional example built of bricks, and roofed with slate, such as Tue Brook House, Widnes House, the Hutte, Parr Hall, and I have no doubt others; while in north and north-east Lancashire we find these houses mostly built of good, well-squared stone, with strong walls, long stone mullioned windows, and wide open chimneys, and with timbers of great strength, and roofed with grey slates, and in most cases dated and initialed; such as Hacking Hall, Lostock Hall, Hesketh End, Lovely Hall, New Hall, Wisewell Hall, Tod Hall, and many others.