Wycliffe Hall

Wycliffe Hall is a country house with a medieval core, remodelled in the early to mid-18th century for Marmaduke Tunstall II. A north-west wing was likely added around 1780, intended as a museum for Marmaduke Tunstall III. The interior was restored after a 1952 fire, incorporating fittings salvaged from Halnaby Hall. The south front is constructed of ashlar, while the west front features tooled stone with ashlar dressings; other walls are of rubble with cut dressings. The roofs are graduated Lakeland slate, except for the rear portion of the east wing which has Welsh slates.

The house is arranged around an almost square centre block with flanking wings, creating a rear courtyard. The three-bay south front has three storeys in the centre and two-storey end bays. It features a plinth, rusticated quoins, a first-floor band, and ground and first-floor sill bands. The main entrance has a half-glazed door with a nine-pane overlight within a Tuscan surround. The ground floor is flanked by twelve-pane sashes with triple keystones. Similar sashes appear on the first floor, with the central window framed by an architrave with swept feet, a pediment on consoles, and a balustraded apron panel. Flanking windows have cornices. Six-pane sashes are found on the second floor, all contained within architraves. A modillion eaves cornice and a parapet with moulded coping complete the façade. The hipped roof has tall corniced lateral stacks. The projecting end bays have ground-floor sashes with triple keystones and first-floor sashes with console-bracketed cornices and balustraded apron panels, topped with hipped roofs and stepped-and-corniced ridge stacks.

The west elevation, one and two storeys high, has five bays to the right and four bays to the left. The right-hand portion mirrors the detailing of the south front, featuring a renewed panelled door in an architrave with a pulvinated frieze and modillion cornice. The slightly forward-projecting left wing, dating from the late 18th century, has an arcade of round-arched recesses holding eighteen-pane sashes with radial heads, framed by sill and impost bands. A moulded eaves cornice tops this section, and the left gable has a coped edge with a stepped-and-corniced end stack.

The east elevation displays exposed medieval masonry in the taller left part. Scattered windows include several small, chamfered windows, some of which are blocked, and two large buttresses.

The rear elevations show a stair projection with a Venetian window, and blocked mullioned windows in the centre block and east wing.

The interior includes a C13 cross slab set into the wall of the entrance hall; a previously noted Saxon inscribed stone has been removed. A mid-18th century ceiling is present in the study. The dining room is largely from 1931, but medieval service doorways are concealed in the east wall. The drawing room features carved doors and woodwork, a marble fireplace, and a decorated ceiling, all originating from Halnaby Hall. Bedrooms on the east wing retain 18th-century fielded panelling. Barrel-vaulted cellars lie beneath the west wing.