Platts Hall, Northwich, Cheshire. Fabric Survey Report

In the winter of 1997/8 Lancaster University Archaeological Unit (LUAU) undertook a programme
of archaeological survey at Platts Hall, Lostock Gralam, near Northwich, Cheshire (SJ 369375) on
behalf of the P J Livesey Group Ltd. The programme comprised five main elements: a basic
documentary study, a pre-intervention photographic survey, a rectified photographic survey, an
instrument survey and fabric analysis of the west wing and a watching brief during the dismantling.
The survey was required provide a full graphic record of the timber framed West Wing of the hall
and a base plan of the nineteenth century East Wing.
The building is first documented, as Overstreet Farm in 1631, which is somewhat earlier than a
plaque dated 1655 that was on the northern elevation of the West Wing of the hall. In 1663 the farm
was leased to a Peter Venables, but it was not until 1665 that Venables purchased the farm. At
sometime after 1680 it appears to have been acquired by the Brooke family of Mere and then was
leased from at least 1810 to sometime in the 1860s to members of the Kinsey family. The farm,
shortly after 1885, appears to have been sold to Brunner Mond and Co and the farmland was
developed for a chemical plant.