Trimdon Hall And Hall Farmhouse

Trimdon Hall and Hall Farmhouse

A manor house, later farmhouse, now subdivided into a house (Trimdon Hall) and a farmhouse. The building dates from 1718, as evidenced by the inscription "Bryan Roper Anno Domini 1718" incised into the door pediment, though it probably incorporates 17th-century fabric. Early 19th-century alterations have been made. The structure features incised stucco with an ashlar plinth to the left (west part), a boulder plinth to the rear outshut, painted ashlar dressings, and cogged brick eaves at the rear of the west bay of the right part. The roof is of Welsh slate with stone gable copings and brick chimneys.

The building comprises a main range with a left cross-wing and rear outshuts. It is 2-storey with a 5-window main part, a 2-storey one-bay wing breaking forward at the left, and a 2-storey set-back right part with 3 irregular bays. Trimdon Hall (No. 4) occupies the left cross-wing, the first bay, and the ground-floor second bay of the main range. A renewed door in the second bay sits within an architrave under a pulvinated frieze and swan-neck pediment bearing the date inscription. The ground floor has 3 windows and the first floor has 5 windows, all with stucco incised in wedge lintel shape and projecting stone sills, with narrow bands of white paint imitating surrounds. The left bay is wider, and the 2 right ground-floor windows are evenly spaced between the 2 above. The gabled cross-wing has a smaller first-floor window on its inner return and wide windows on the front with tooled chamfered lintels and projecting stone sills; some alterations to the soffits of lintels are evident. The right part (Hall Farmhouse) has a 6-panel door and overlight at the extreme left of the first wider bay, with incised wedge-shaped lintels to all windows except the wide ground-floor window at the centre of the 2 right bays. All glazing dates from the 20th century. Gable copings on the wing and at the ends of each section of the main range rest on moulded kneelers; those on both main gables have 18th-century character, while those on the cross-wing are probably 19th-century. A roll-moulded finial crowns the cross-wing. Corniced yellow brick chimneys are positioned on the rear of the gable of the wing, at the junction with the wing, and to the left of the door of No. 4. Banded red brick chimneys sit at the right end of each part of the main range, all on the ridge. The right return gable shows 2 small fire windows on the ground floor; a large patch in the render high on the first floor suggests a loft door now blocked.

Interior

The cross-wing's front ground-floor room features a deeply-moulded cornice and top cornice, with wall lining on battens suggesting panelling either covered or removed. An architrave to the splayed window survives, though shutters have been removed; a similar splay appears on the window above. The owner reports that the rear ground-floor room of the wing shows evidence of a wide chimney through the ceiling and a smaller gap beside the chimney, suggesting a former ladder stair. A short passage on the first floor ends in a renewed door to the rear room under a 6-pane overlight with ovolo-moulded early 18th-century glazing bars, approximately 6 centimetres wide. Rear windows in the wing have splays to ground level. The main range contains a dogleg stair in the first bay with a panelled grip handrail on a boxed-in balustrade; the newels have low moulded caps and pendants, and a corniced string runs along the stair; the upper end of each balustrade is ramped down to accommodate the string of the next flight. The remainder of the building (Hall Farmhouse) was only partly inspected; it contains many 6-panel doors and a wide fire arch in the east gable, with jambs now removed.