Sweetbriar Hall

Sweetbriar Hall (also Sweet Briar Hall and other variants) is a timber-framed, "black and white" mansion house in the town of Nantwich, Cheshire, England, at 65 and 67 Hospital Street. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building. The hall was built for the Woodhey branch of the Wilbraham family. The original date is probably 15th century, and the hall is often considered the oldest half-timbered building in the town not to have been encased in brick. The external appearance is early Elizabethan, with both ornamental panelling and close studding. It was recorded in 1577, and is known to have survived the fire of 1583, which destroyed the adjacent building. It has been substantially altered from its original form, in particular with the addition of a pentagonal bay in the late 16th or early 17th centuries. The timber frame was covered with render in the 18th century, and by the mid-20th century the hall had become very dilapidated. Restoration work was carried out by James Edleston in the 1960s. Joseph Priestley, scientist and philosopher, is believed to have lived at the hall in 1758–61, while he was minister at the nearby Unitarian chapel. Sir William Bowman, histologist, ophthalmologist and surgeon, was born there in 1816.