The Hall With Outbuilding, And Piers And Wall Attached

NZ 23 SW SPENNYMOOR NORTH STREET (North end, off) Byers Green

5/61 The Hall with outbuilding, and piers and wall attached GV II

House, with outbuilding, garden wall and piers. Early C17; upper storeys altered c.1800. Coursed sandstone rubble with quoins and ashlar dressings; attached rear outbuilding English garden wall bond of varied courses; roof graduated stone flags, with brick chimneys, and pantiles with stone-flagged eaves on outbuilding; wall and piers rubble with ashlar dressings. House 3 storeys, 3 bays, with one-storey outbuilding attached to rear at right-angles on right return; garden wall extends to south from rear of outbuilding.

West elevation of house has side steps, enclosed in stone-coped wall, to half- glazed double doors on first floor under wood-bracketed hood. Large 2-centred- arched stair sash above has glazing bars. Outer bays have 2-pane casements in 2-light ground-floor windows, with mullions removed, chamfered surrounds and floating cornices; large wood-mullioned-and-transomed first-floor windows, with upper glazing bars,and square second-floor sashes with glazing bars removed, have flat stone lintels and slightly-projecting stone sills (except the stair window with stone arch and flush sill). Pyramidal roof has corniced chimneys near top of side slopes. Returns have similar windows except for ground-floor French windows inserted on right. Long right wing has blocked brick-arched round-headed door at left, 2 C20 windows and chimney on rear gable. Rear of house has central half-glazed door in stone flat-Tudor-arched surround, with irregular-block jambs. Cornices over flanking 2-light ground- floor windows, mullions removed; blocked window over door; cross windows in other bays. Inner return of rear wing has rubble wall with segmental vehicle arch to bay nearest house. Short stretch of wall attached forms boundary of garden to lane, and links to blocked entrance with 2 square piers; these and wall, ramped up to eaves of rear building, have flat stone coping.

Interior of house shows very thick wall across centre, supporting large stop- chamfered beams in ground-floor rooms; passage from rear door under segmental arch in this wall; dogleg stair with narrow mahogany handrail on stick balusters and turned newels. Ground-floor room at rear left has massive stop- chamfered segmental stone fire arch. 2-panel doors on ground floor, 4-panel on upper floors. Roof not inspected.

Historical note: in 1713 William Trotter the owner was buried in the garden; the stone commemorating his death has since vanished, having been used to block a window in a nearby building.

Source: Whellan, Directory of Durham, 1894.

Listing NGR: NZ2231634379