It was built between 1761 and 1769 for Sir Peter Byrne Leicester, to replace the nearby Tabley Old Hall, and was designed by John Carr.

To the west of the house is St Peter's Church, also listed Grade I, which was moved from a position adjacent to Tabley Old Hall to its present site in 1927.

The reception rooms of the first floor are open to the public at advertised times, and are entered by the original stairway on the south front; they contain paintings and furniture collected by the Leicester family.

The house contained a Great Hall with a large central arch formed by two massive cruck beams, which were carved to imitate Gothic stonework.

During the 16th century Adam de Leycester made alterations to the hall, and built a half-timbered gatehouse to the bridge crossing the mere.

In 1671 his son, the historian Sir Peter Leycester, 1st Baronet (1614–78), enlarged the house, adding a staircase and an upper storey.

He arranged for the exterior to be encased in brick in Jacobean style, with a mixture of mullioned and round windows, and a porch with statues of lions.

His design consisted of a rectangular building in three storeys, with a projecting portico on the south front, and two pavilions on each side, which were set back and approached by curved corridors.

The plasterwork was created by Thomas Oliver of Warrington, the woodcarving of the doorcases and staircase was by Mathew Bertram, assisted by Daniel Shillito.

[4] Sir Peter also commissioned a number of paintings, which included full-length portraits of himself and his wife by Francis Cotes, and landscapes of the grounds and the halls by J. M. W. Turner and Richard Wilson amongst others.

Sir John Fleming Leicester, the 1st Lord de Tabley, built a collection of modern British art that was hung in a gallery in his London house at Hill Street, Berkeley Square.

[4] After Sir John's death the house was structurally reorganised for George Warren, 2nd Baron de Tabley by Robert Curzon, a family friend and an "amateur architect".

The executors then acted on Warren's second request, to pass the estate to a charitable institution, and thus it came into the care of the Victoria University of Manchester.

By the time of Warren's death the manor of Nether Tabley, comprising the estate and the halls, had been owned by the Byrne-Leicester family for almost exactly 700 years.

Between 1988 and 1990 the health care company carried out structural repairs to deal with damage caused by dry rot and the deathwatch beetle.

The ground and top floors of the house, and the wings, have been converted into nursing accommodation, leaving the appearance of the exterior virtually unchanged.

[9] Its 3,600 acres (1,500 ha) included 18 tenanted farms, 18 farmland lettings, 52 residential properties and 13 commercial leases generating a total rent roll of £500,000.

On each side of the house are two-storey pavilion wings joined to the main block by quadrant (curved), single-storey corridors.

It includes carvings of caryatids, statues of Lucretia and Cleopatra in niches, and a female nude lying on a skull and holding an hourglass.

These include 3rd Lord Tabley by Frank Holl, Colonel Sir John Leicester, Bart., and the King's Cheshire Yeomanry Cavalry exercising on the Sands at Liverpool by George Jones, Portrait of 2nd Lord de Tabley by Margaret Carpenter, a full-length Portrait of 2nd Lord de Tabley as Colonel Commandant of the Earl of Chester's Yeomanry Cavalry by Francis Grant, Hilda, Mrs Cuthbert Leicester Warren by Simon Elwes, Lt.

Also in the room is Extensive Picturesque Landscape, with Gypsies by Francis Bourgeois and, over the sideboard, is the Portrait of the Prince Regent, later George IV by Thomas Lawrence and his studio.

[11] More family portraits hang on its walls and the hall's contents include a hobby horse, a man trap, and an 18th-century sedan chair.

There are more paintings by Northcote and Lawrence, and others by Julius Caesar Ibbetson, William Hilton, Charles Robert Leslie, Francis Cotes, Augustus Wall Callcott, and George Henry Harlow.

[4] Two paintings, Friar Puck by Henry Fuseli[16] and The Fall of Phaeton by James Ward, were originally in Sir John Leicester's London Gallery but were sold in 1827.

[18][19] What remains of Tabley Old Hall consists of its shell in three storeys, constructed in red English garden wall bond brick with stone dressings.

[22] By Tabley Mere is a boathouse in brick with stone dressings, but lacking a roof, in Gothic style; it is listed at Grade II.

[25] The Red Lodge dates from the late 19th century; it is constructed in English garden wall bond brick with timber framing, and has a tiled roof.

[28] To the south of the house is a sundial dating from the early 19th century constructed in stone with a copper dial and gnomon; it is listed at Grade II.

[29] To the south of this is a parterre wall, about 1 metre (3 ft) high, constructed in red Flemish bond brick, with piers carrying stone balls.

Although it has been altered since it was originally built, it has maintained its Grade II listing for its "group value", recognising "the importance of its massing and exterior character to the setting of Tabley House".