Museums in Greater Manchester

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 42. Chapters: Art museums and galleries in Greater Manchester, Historic house museums in Greater Manchester, Museums in Manchester, Ordsall Hall, Wythenshawe Hall, Bramall Hall, Heaton Park, Dunham Massey, Imperial War Museum North, Manchester Museum, John Rylands Library, List of museums in Greater Manchester, 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester, Trencherfield Mill, Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, People's History Museum, Museum of Wigan Life, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Hat Works, Museum of Science and Industry, Smithills Hall, Urbis, Bolton Steam Museum, Greater Manchester's Museum of Transport, Staircase House, Astley Green Colliery Museum, Heaton Park Tramway, The Lowry, Hall i' th' Wood, Manchester Jewish Museum, Bolton Museum, Pankhurst Centre, Gallery Oldham, Stockport Air Raid Shelters, Mossley Industrial Heritage Centre, Touchstones. Excerpt: Bramall Hall is a Tudor manor house in Bramhall, within the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. It is a timber-framed building, the oldest parts of which date from the 14th century, with later additions from the 16th and 19th centuries. The house, which functions as a museum, and its 70 acres (28 ha) of landscaped parkland with lakes, woodland, and gardens are open to the public. Dating back to Anglo-Saxon England, the manor of Bramall was first described in the Domesday Book in 1086, when it was held by the Masseys. From the late 14th century it was owned by the Davenports who built the present house, and remained lords of the manor for about 500 years before selling the estate of nearly 2,000 acres in 1877 to the Manchester Freeholders' Company, a property company formed expressly for the purpose of exploiting the estate's potential for residential building development. The Hall and a residual park of over 50 acres was sold on by the Freeholders (though not the lordship of the manor) to the Nevill family of successful industrialists. In 1925 it was purchased by John Henry Davies, and then, in 1935, acquired by the local government authority for the area - Hazel Grove and Bramhall Urban District Council. Bramall Hall is owned now, following local government reorganisation in 1974, by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC), which describes it as "the most prestigious and historically significant building in the Conservation Area". The name "Bramall" means "nook of land where broom grows" and is derived from the Old English noun brom meaning broom, a type of shrub common in the area, and the Old English noun halh, which has several meanings - including nook, secret place and valley - that could refer to Bramall. The manor of Bramall dates from the Anglo-Saxon period, when it was held as two separate estates owned by the Anglo-Saxon freemen Brun and Hacun. The manor was devastated during William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North.