Dining & Inlaid Room
Who created these rooms?
Both rooms were built in the 1820s when Susannah Brooke lived at the Hall with her second husband, Sir Henry Philip Hoghton. She inherited the Hall from her father and lived in it until she died, aged 90, in 1852.
The Dining Room created a space for formal entertaining. The Inlaid Room was used as a library. It would also be where men would sit after supper to smoke, while women went to the Drawing Room to chat.
What does Inlaid mean?
The panelling has different colours of wood set into it, or inlaid, to create a pattern.
Creamware Centrepiece, about 1800
[On Dining Room sideboard]
Robert Grey Tatton left his important collection of Leeds Pottery to the Hall in 1935. This complex, three-tiered dish would have been used to serve oysters. It is made from a type of pottery called creamware because of its colour.
Portrait of Thomas Brooke, 1580
[Far side of Inlaid Room]
Thomas Brooke was the Sheriff of Cheshire and lived at Norton Priory where he fathered 26 children. A Latin motto on the painting says, “Wine is strong, a king is stronger, women are stronger still, but truth conquers all.” His grandson, Richard Brooke, married Astley Hall’s owner Margaret Charnock in 1665 and the portrait probably came here then.
Additional images
