[2] The earliest parts of the house were built for the prosperous Cheshire landowner William Moreton in about 1504–08 and the remainder was constructed in stages by successive generations of the family until about 1610.

"[3] The house's top-heavy appearance, "like a stranded Noah's Ark", is due to the Long Gallery that runs the length of the south range's upper floor.

At its greatest extent, in the mid-16th century, the Little Moreton Hall estate occupied an area of 1,360 acres (550 ha); it contained a cornmill, orchards, gardens and an iron bloomery with water-powered hammers.

[13] A service wing to the west, built at the same time but subsequently replaced, gave the early house an H-shaped floor plan.

[7] In 1559 William had a new floor inserted at gallery level in the Great Hall,[d] and added the two large bay windows looking onto the courtyard, built so close to each other that their roofs abut one another.

The family successfully petitioned for its restitution,[21] and survived the Civil War with their ownership of Little Moreton Hall intact, but financially they were crippled.

[23] The family's fortunes never fully recovered, and by the late 1670s they no longer lived in Little Moreton Hall, renting it out instead to a series of tenant farmers.

[25] During the 19th century, Little Moreton Hall became "an object of romantic interest" among artists;[24] Amelia Edwards used the house as a setting for her 1880 novel Lord Brackenbury.

[27][g] Abraham opened up Little Moreton Hall to visitors, charging an entrance fee of 6d (equivalent to about £8 in 2010[22][h]) collected by the Dales, who conducted guided tours of the house in return.

[29] In 1977 it was discovered that the stone slabs on the roof of the south range had become insecure, and work began on a six-phase programme of structural repairs.

[12] Simon Jenkins has described Little Moreton Hall as "a feast of medieval carpentry",[33] but the building technique is unremarkable for Cheshire houses of the period – an oak framework set on stone footings.

[36] The windows contain 30,000 leaded panes known as quarries, set in patterns of squares, rectangles, lozenges, circles and triangles, complementing the decoration on the timber framing.

[44] Architectural historian Lydia Greeves has described the interior of Little Moreton Hall as a "corridor-less warren, with one room leading into another, and four staircases linking different levels".

[14] The Great Hall at the centre of the north range is entered through a porch and screens passage, a feature common in houses of the period, designed to protect the occupants from draughts.

The original service wing to the west of the Great Hall, behind the screens passage, was rebuilt in 1546,[14] and housed a kitchen, buttery and pantry.

[41] A hidden shaft was discovered during a 19th-century investigation of two secret rooms above the kitchen, connecting them to a tunnel leading to the moat, the entrance to which has since been filled in.

[49] The chimneypiece in this room is decorated with female caryatids and bears the arms of Elizabeth I; its plaster would originally have been painted and gilded, and traces of this still remain.

[46] The stained glass in the east wall of the chancel is a 20th-century addition installed by Charles Abraham, the last private owner of Little Moreton Hall, as a parting gift on his transfer of ownership to the National Trust.

The floors of the rooms on this level are made from lime-ash plaster pressed into a bedding of straw and oak laths, which would have offered some protection against the ever-present risk of fire.

[57]Running the entire length of the south range the Long Gallery is roofed with heavy gritstone slabs,[58] the weight of which has caused the supporting floors below to bow and buckle.

[27] Architectural historians Peter de Figueiredo and Julian Treuherz describe it as "a gloriously long and crooked space, the wide floorboards rising up and down like waves and the walls leaning outwards at different angles.

[62] The Long Gallery was always sparsely furnished, and would have been used for exercising when the weather was inclement and as a games room – four early 17th-century tennis balls have been discovered behind the wood panelling.

[44] The Upper Porch Room leading off the Long Gallery, perhaps originally intended as a "sanctuary from the fun and games",[44] was furnished as a bedroom by the mid-17th century.

Except for those pieces, and a collection of 17th-century pewter tableware in a showcase in the west wall of the Great Hall, the house is displayed with bare rooms.

[18][63] By the mid-16th century the Little Moreton Hall estate was at its greatest extent, occupying an area of 1,360 acres (550 ha) and including three watermills,[7] one of which was used to grind corn.

[65] The Moreton family had owned an iron bloomery in the east of the estate since the late 15th century, and the other two mills were used to drive its water-powered hammers.

Philip Moreton, who ran the estate for his older brother Edward in the mid-17th century, left a considerable amount of information on the layout and planting of the area of garden within the moat, to the west of the house.

[66] Other features of the grounds include a yew tunnel and an orchard growing fruits that would have been familiar to the house's Tudor occupants: apples, pears, quinces and medlars.

[69] Like many old buildings, Little Moreton Hall has stories of ghosts; a grey lady is said to haunt the Long Gallery, and a child has reportedly been heard sobbing in and around the chapel.

The ground floor of the west range has been remodelled to include a restaurant and a tearoom whilst a new building houses the visitor reception and shop.