Old Park Hall Farmhouse And Farmbuildings And Wall

This is a farmhouse with attached farmbuildings and enclosing walls, rebuilt in 1901. The rebuilding was commissioned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and incorporated medieval masonry from a former manor house. The manor house had been extensively enlarged around 1747 for Thomas Wharton, M.D., with Thomas Grey, the poet, reportedly consulted on the design, which was in a Gothic style. The building is constructed of sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, some brick patching, and has Welsh slate roofs on the house and part of the farm building, with an asbestos roof on the lower farm building. The layout is L-shaped, creating a yard to the north.

The north elevation consists of a two-storey, three-bay house and a two-bay farm building. To the left of this is a one-storey, five-bay farmbuilding. An attached, one-storey outbuilding projects to the right of the house, forming a low enclosure in front. A 20th-century gabled porch with a boarded door, accessed by six steps, is centrally placed in the three right bays. There are stone lintels over the 4-pane sash windows to the right of the porch and on the first floor, with projecting sills. A four-light window of coarse sandstone to the left of the porch has two-centred arched heads, recessed soffits, and vertical iron bars. Quoins are visible to the left of these three bays. A blank bay adjoins, leading to an elliptical-headed vehicle arch with boarded doors in block jambs and voussoirs. Below a 1901 two-centred-arched loft opening with a painted stone surround is the arch. Three ridge chimneys are present. The outbuilding to the right has a boarded door and a 4-pane window on its return facing the yard, under a monopitch roof. The walls are topped with roll-moulded gabled coping in a medieval style. One-storey ranges to the left have boarded doors, the first in an eroded moulded surround (partly renewed in brick). A 2-light window to the right of this door has a removed mullion and elliptical-headed lights with recessed soffits. A 20th-century window is placed at the far right.

The rear elevation, facing the garden, has a projecting wing, with a four-panel door under an overlight and flat stone lintel on the right. Stone lintels also top the plain sash windows throughout the bays. A re-used medieval niche, sheltered by a dripmould, is at the far right. A long farmbuilding, with two projections, is blank apart from one 20th-century window. It has two rows of blocked triangular vent holes, some with 20th-century vent pipes.

Inside the house, the north wall is approximately one metre thick. A passage from the entrance through the wing contains an 18th-century Gothic door of high quality, with L-shaped hinges, originally part of a half-octagonal addition built by Wharton. A 1901 staircase is located within the wing.

Historical context notes that Thomas Grey, the poet, was a frequent visitor, having been a fellow student of Thomas Wharton at Cambridge.