Ordsall Hall, Salford: Archaeological Watching Brief and Excavation Final Report

Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) was commissioned by Urban Vision on behalf of Salford City Council to undertake a programme of archaeological works at Ordsall Hall, Salford (NGR SJ 815 972). The works were programmed to take place during a major refurbishment project part funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, intended to both conserve the building, and maximise its use by the local community. The building work element of the project began in May 2009 and the Hall was re-opened to the public in the spring of 2011.
Ordsall Hall is a Grade 1 Listed Building (949-1/4/94), being located on the edge of a deprived housing estate, and close to an area of proposed regeneration. It is an outstanding survival of a late medieval/post-medieval moated hall, with a long history of use and adaption. Its fabric, both timber-framed and brick construction, records changes and alterations over a period of five hundred years, particularly in the late fourteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and with complex interactions between these. It has been a social history museum since 1972 (Salford Museum Service).