A three-Michelin-star restaurant with rooms in a Grade II listed Lancashire house, kept by Mark Birchall with Andy and Tracey Bell since 2017 — five acres of gardens around a…
The verdict
A Grade II listed house in West Lancashire — sandstone, brick and timber clustered around a five-acre garden and a lake — kept by chef Mark Birchall with Andy and Tracey Bell since March 2017. Three Michelin stars, a Green Star, the Roux Scholarship in the kitchen and a Provenance menu pulled out of the kitchen garden the morning it is served.
From the editors · Vedere House
The particulars
Setting
Prescot Road, Aughton, L39 6RT — five acres of walled garden, orchard and meadow around a still lake, half an hour north of Liverpool
House
A Grade II listed Lancashire hall first recorded in 1282 and re-clad in stone and brick by the Stanleys in 1566 — restored 2015–2017 with the materials kept on site, sandstone turned into crockery, barn beams reset as a pagoda
Kitchen
Mark Birchall — Chef Patron, Roux Scholar 2011, twelve years at L'Enclume under Simon Rogan; National Restaurant Awards Chef of the Year 2025
Stars
First Michelin star 2017 (six months after opening), second 2018, third 2025; a Michelin Green Star for sustainability since 2022
Awards
Five AA Rosettes · two Michelin Keys · No. 1 Restaurant in the UK at Harden's 2026 · two-knife status at The Best Chef Awards 2025
Menu
A short lunch menu and the longer Provenance tasting (£155) — wine pairings at £165 or £325, an alcohol-free pairing of Lalani-sourced teas at £85
Cellar
A long working list — England and Burgundy first, named Best in England and Best Overall at the AA Awards 2024
Rooms
Seven Garden Rooms in dark-clad cabins set in the meadow, plus rooms in the Main House and Gatehouse — and a one-Michelin-star sister, The Barn, in the converted outbuildings
Best for
A long Lancashire lunch from the kitchen garden, walked back across the meadow to a Garden Room
Moor Hall is a Grade II listed Lancashire hall on Prescot Road in Aughton, half an hour north of Liverpool — a sandstone and brick house first recorded in 1282 and re-clad with the Stanley plaque above the door in 1566. Andy and Tracey Bell bought the property in 2015 and partnered with Mark Birchall on a two-year restoration; the restaurant opened on 1 March 2017. The first Michelin star arrived six months later, the second in 2018, the third in 2025; a Green Star for sustainability has been on the door since 2022.
“
We cook the garden at the door — what we can't grow we walk a few miles to find.
”
Mark Birchall
The kitchen runs on what the five-acre estate produces. A walled kitchen garden of beetroots, turnips and step-over apples; a pleached orchard, a kilner garden, a charcuterie room and a small dairy; a Big Shed glasshouse, a pigsty, a row of medlars. The shorter midweek lunch and the longer Provenance menu work the morning's harvest — Paris market carrots with Doddington and chrysanthemum, Ruby Red Devon with Pablo beetroot and shallot, Saint-Sever guinea hen with morel and white asparagus, Ormskirk gingerbread with roots and pine. Mark Birchall is a Chorley boy, trained at Runshaw and Northcote and twelve years under Simon Rogan at L'Enclume; he won the Roux Scholarship in 2011 and was made National Restaurant Awards Chef of the Year in 2025.
The cellar is a long working list — England and Burgundy in priority, named Best in England and Best Overall at the AA Wine Awards 2024 — with three pairings: prestige, rarity and a Lalani-sourced tea pairing for the table that wants no wine. The estate keeps seven Garden Rooms in dark-stained timber cabins set across the meadow, a handful of rooms in the Main House and Gatehouse, and a one-Michelin-star sister table — The Barn — in the converted outbuildings, for the night the long Provenance lunch wants to keep going.
Signature moments
01
A Chorley boy, the long way home
Mark Birchall was born in Chorley and trained at Runshaw College a few miles down the road. He cooked under Shaun Hill at The Walnut Tree, did five years at Northcote with Nigel Howarth, then crossed the Lakes in 2006 to L'Enclume — sous chef to Simon Rogan, head chef from 2008, executive chef across the group. He won the Roux Scholarship in 2011. In 2015 he left to open his own house, partnering with Andy and Tracey Bell on a building they had bought that year; *Moor Hall Restaurant with Rooms* opened on 1 March 2017.
02
A garden, a lake, an orchard, an outbuilding
The estate is five acres laid around a still lake. Walled kitchen garden of beetroots and turnips and step-over apples; a pleached orchard of plums, sweet cicely, woodruff and elderberry; a kilner garden, a pigsty, a charcuterie room and a small dairy; a *Big Shed* glasshouse and a row of medlar trees. The team grow what they can and source the rest from a tight register of Lancashire and Cumbrian producers. The restoration was deliberate — sandstone from the old walls turned on a lathe into the crockery, barn beams reset as a pagoda over the meadow.
03
Garden Rooms in dark-stained timber
Seven cabins are set across the meadow at the back of the house, low and dark in stained timber, drawn into the trees. Inside they are a single quiet room — pale linen on a low bed, framed botanicals, a turntable, a window onto the garden — with a covered terrace at one end. The longer rooms in the Main House and Gatehouse run to the lake; the chef's table sits inside the main kitchen on dinner nights, looking down the pass.
