Dutton Hall

Front view of Dutton Hall in Cheshire, England,showing the exterior of the old hall and porch as added by Sir Piers Dutton, Knight, and dame Julian, his wife, in the years 1539-42. This picture was originally provided by Colin Dutton, who lives in Manchester, England. I, in turn, got this history from Fred E. Dutton.

The hall was built around 1150 by Sir Geoffrey de Dutton and at one time formed part of a larger quadrangular structure. It was subsequently rebuilt several times following its partial destruction by warfare. Oliver Cromwell ordered it rebuilt when his roundheads wreaked havoc upon it during the English Civil War in the 1640s. In describing Dutton Hall, Peter Leycester, baronet, wrote the following in his "Leycester's Historical Antiquities," published in 1673:

"The Mannor-house of Dutton is well seated, and hath great store of meadowing by the River [Weaver] side belonging to the Demain, which is accounted the largest and best Demain within our County, comprehending 1400 Statute Acres by Survey. This House standeth upon a pleasant Prospect to the opposite Hills of the Forest; and hath in it an ancient Chappel built first by Sir Thomas Dutton towards the end of Henry the Third's Reign; unto whom Roger de Lincoln then Prior of Norton, and the Convent there, did grant liberam cantariam in Capellis suis de Dutton & Weston infra Limites Parochiarum nos- trarum de Budworth & de Runcorne; id est Free liberty of Reading Divine Service, or Singing the same; so as the Mother-Churches receive no detriment either in their greater or lesser Tythes. That of Weston is long since vanished but this Chappel at Dutton yet remains, and is now a Domestick Chappel within the Mannor-House of Dutton, unto which Sir Piers Dutton, of Hatton, after he was adjudged next Heir Male to the Lands of Dutton by the Award of Henry the Eighth, did annex his new Buildings at Dutton, Anno Domini 1539, as appears by the Inscription round about the Hall of Dutton yet extant adjoining those unto the Chappel and so making it as one continued Building; before which time the old House stood a little distance from the Chappel aforesaid."

In 1933, what remained of the house was dismantled stone by stone and beam by beam, each carefully numbered, hauled to Sussex and reassembled on the estate of Lucky Dewars in East Grinstead where it became a part of Dutton-Homestall Manor. At the present time it is part of the Stoke Brunswick School in Ashurst Wood, just south of Grinstead. The original site of the hall in Dutton is now occupied by a stud farm.

A portion of this information was provided by Michael Dunton.