THE NOOK (continued)

c) Gateacre Hall Hotel. The house has been very much altered (see sketch c.1800) we will try to describe its earlier state. The 5-bay front is symmetrical, but not the gables, the roof pitch to the front is steeper, at the back it is longer and less steep - an aid to enveloping the small house ? The roof was probably flagged. The plan is conventional at the front, the front door opening into the hall and stairs running up in front of the visitor? but behind the front room on the left is the 'parlour' of the small house with its floor about 6 inches below the newer floor level, a most unconventional arrangement. The house was built of roughly dressed stone with ashlar quoins & moulded cornice (still visible) & lintels to windows with keystones & voussoirs worked in the stone (1 still appears on gable end). There was a string course at 1st floor level, a pilastered stone decreasing with pediment & a wide 6-panelled door - now moved to the lane where it appears as a false door to the bar. The sash windows were 12-paned. The style is f the first third of C18 - from keystoned lintels & doorcasing.

d) 'The Nook Bar' originated as a stone barn/cartshed ? on the 1848 map. Behind it was a range of buildings including probably 3 cottages, removed when the brick and timber house was built c.1885.

Ownership - In 1845 this group belonged to Miss Dorothea Nicholson (1803-93). Her father Thomas (1753-1825) linen draper of Manchester & Liverpool settled here in 1798. From 1837 the house was occupied by Thomas Fletcher (17?? -1850) and his 2 daughters kept a school with 9/12 boarders - 1841 census, Thomas Fletcher wrote "from the very same place" that his great. grandfather, John Fletcher, grocer of Liverpool "retired here many years before his death in 1732 to live on the family property in L.W." He also wrote of a stone with John's parents initials, Francis & Elizabeth, & he referred to them as "proprietors of a copyhold estate in L.W."

We thank Mr Taylor of Gateacre Hall Hotel for his kindness and co-operation.

continued . . .