It’s up for auction at a price of £150,000 but Hough Hall in Moston has a history that goes back to the reign of Henry VIII-About Manchester takes a look
Once a den of inequity at the end of the eighteenth century,Hough Hall stands today in Moston, a sad building down a backstreet, seemingly slowly leaning into the ground, surrounded by mesh and barbed wire, behind the playground of Moston’s Primary school.
Erected in the reign of Henry VIII, the first name connected with it was George Halph who married Ann, daughter of John Consterdine and whose family owned Blackley Corn Mill. Little is known of George excepting that like his king, he had problems of the marital kind, Ann conducting an affair with Sir John Byron of Clayton Hall, who she married when George obligingly died.
The family though stayed at the Hall, one Robert fighting on the losing side during the civil war and having to pay a large fine to Cromwell’s supporters. It passed soon after to the Lightbown family, sold by an illegitimate son, John Dawson and thence to the Minshulls which is where the story of Spanking Roger’s involvement would begin.
Roger Aytoun was an officer in the Marquess of Lothians regiment and his arrival in Manchester would lead to one of the centuries most talked about sex scandals.He would meet Barbara Minshull, watching the races on Kersal Moor.
The story goes that he was taking part in a foot race and Barbara took a fancy to his physique and finding that she was the possessor of great wealth he lost no time in getting her approval for marriage.
On the day of the ceremony he was so drunk, it is said that he had to be assisted to the ceremony by friends. His new wife was soon to realise the error of his ways as he turned Barbara’s family Hall, Hough, into a den of iniquity. His parties, famed throughout the town would soon cut into the lady’s wealth.
Spanking Roger’s expenditure would see the Minshulls having to leave their twenty six acres in Moston as well as being forced to sell their two other properties,Garrett and Chorlton Halls in 1774.
Barbara died in 1783, she was buried in the Collegiate, but Roger remarried the following August in Scotland to a Miss Sinclair, staying with his wife for a week at the most.
When not spending the Minshull inheritance, Roger, as an officer in the Royal Manchester volunteers; who took part in the defence of Gibraltar from the combined attacks of France and Spain, he would march through the streets with a watch suspended from a banner which was given as a reward to the first recruit. “Five guineas and a crown, Spanking Roger laid it down” would be sung in the streets of the town.
The hall was bought by Samuel Taylor who was also to build Moston House which stood on the land occupied by the High school on Church Lane, later occupants included George Milner the poet and prose writer. Taylor had made his fortune as a merchant, trading from Princess Street and owned many properties around Moston. The Estate remained with his heirs and passed to John and Robert Ward, the former would write two works eulogising the people of the village, ‘Moston Characters at Play’ and ‘Moston Characters at Work.’
The Wards were Moston born and bred, having lived in a little cottage just off Kenyon Lane and later built up a substantial textile business, becoming big players in this part of Manchester.
John was elected as one the first councillors for Moston when it was incorporated into the city. The Hall would suffer after the demise of the Wards. and it was for a time used as a doctors surgery and for the manufacture of lipsticks in austerity Britain, later becoming a sanitaryware storehouse with it gardens, a coal and builders yard combined.
