Description:Trentham Hall was passed down through generations of the Leveson family to Sir Richard Leveson (1598-1661) who built a new house at Trentham in 1630. Work on this new property took just under nine years to complete, and many details of the building work are recorded in an account book.
The account book includes details of ‘moneyes dysbursed about the building at Trentham’ in 1633. This fascinating document provides a vast amount of detail about Trentham Hall at this time, and also about the building of properties during this period. The account book tells us about workmen such as glaziers to chimneysweeps, their names, the work they did, the materials and equipment they used and how much they were paid.
These very detailed accounts describe materials and labour, windows, floors, timber and stone, as well as referring to design features at Trentham Hall, including the fountain and the great stables.
£1, 17s, 10d was paid ‘to Richard Meare for making the stayre-case adjoyneing to the kittchin doore’. A man called Mr. Hayward was paid £6, 2s,10d ‘for flagging the kitchin & lobby at the stayre foote’ and also ‘for laying the 2 hearths’. There appears to have been a lot of stone used in constructing the new house. There are many entries referring to stone, such as a payment of £1, 1s to Richard Lynne ‘for getting 200 foote of white stone’.
In addition to the functional building work, such as the laying of stone floors and the construction of staircases, craftsmanship also features in the accounts, revealing the intricate design and decoration at Trentham Hall. Thomas Ridley was paid twelve shillings for six days work ‘carving at the chymney peece in the dyneing roome’.
Click on the images on the left to learn more about the building of Trentham Hall during the 1630s.
Contextual Information from: Richard Wisker ‘The First Trentham Hall’, Staffordshire History, Volume 24, pp. 6-14 (Autumn 1996)