Situated in a region noted for its timber-framed buildings, Speke Hall is considered one of the most outstanding examples of its kind. Its present form dates from the period 1490-1612, but there was an earlier house on or near the site of the present building.
The known history of the manor of Speke, or 'Spec' (brushwood in Old English), goes back to the Domesday survey of 1086 which records that it was one of several properties held by Uctred in 1066.
The dramatic changes of the twentieth century almost completely obliterated all traces of the Norris estate which survived largely intact until the 1920s. No early maps of Speke and its surrounds have so far been discovered but the 1781 survey by Addison probably records a layout that was already established in the seventeenth century. This and the sale particulars drawn up shortly thereafter describe the substantial estate which had been acquired during three centuries by the Norris family, and which by 1795 amounted to some 2,400 acres.
At this date it comprised a home farm, known as the demesne and amounting to some 850 acres, and 27 tenanted smallholdings varying in size from five acres to 150 and all with their associated buildings. The Norris family is first mentioned at Speke in 1314, but ownership of the manor was then divided between different families.
|
