How Yeardsley Hall would have appeared originally.

 

Most of the large houses in the 1400s period were built on the capital H principle, the two uprights would have had a floor on the top. The cross piece would have been the main hall. , There were few chimneys prior to the 12th century, the fire in the larger houses being in the centre of the floor, the smoke escaping through doors and holes in the roof; hence "sluttish soote, a whole inch thick". The evolution of the manor house followed (13century onward). The most striking feature was the open-roofed hall. One notices the two wings each of two stories; solar near to the chapel or part of it; domestic offices, buttery, pantry, etc; hall with hearth in middle. Men servants, soldiers, slept on rushes in the hall. Other rooms gradually evolved leading from the hall and solar until the building became complex; it grew rather than designed. The hall was next devided, and became of less importance after the 11th century, except as a living room, until eventually the word hall was only used for the entrance lobby. The Solar became the drawing room.

The left hand side would have the Pantry, Larder, or Dairy, the right hand side would be the living quarters of the master and mistress of the hall. Just before the left hand wing in the hall is the porch entrance. Which in the case of Yeardsley Hall passing through the porch to enter by the heavy wooden 1400s door into a passage which has the large corbels supporting the massive chimney structure behind the large open fireplace on the other side of the wall. On the left of the corridor the first room was the dairy the next the stairs leading to the first floor. The next room was the kitchen and the end room, the Pantry. The other wing was at the opposite end of the hall and would have been the main living quarters (Solar) for the master and mistress of the hall with possibly a chapel. The women could withdraw (hence the later retiring, withdrawing, or drawing room). Yeardsley Hall follows this pattern to a tee although the chapel is built away from the wing and is of CRUCK structure. 

The solar was a room in many English and French medieval manor houses, great houses and castles, mostly on an upper storey, designed as the family's private living and sleeping quarters.

The above article comes from the archive of Furness Vale History Society. Its author is unknown. 

 

The following illustrations are by Marjorie Hobson from her 1960 Timeline Exhibition.