The Old Hall

A house and office of great historical depth, originating as a farmhouse in the 16th century and substantially rebuilt in the early 17th century, with 20th-century restoration.

Materials and Structure

The building is constructed of uneven courses of sandstone rubble with stone quoins and ashlar dressings. The plinth shows evidence of different building phases, particularly at the left of the porch, where the masonry character changes from regular courses on the ground floor to irregular rubble above, suggesting that an earlier single-storey building was raised during the early 17th-century works. The roof is laid with pantiles and has stone-flagged eaves with ashlar gable coping. Stone chimneys with ashlar plinth and coping punctuate the roof line.

Plan and Overall Form

The building follows a double L-plan and presents two storeys plus attics. The fenestration is arranged as 3:1:3 windows, all with stone mullions throughout.

Exterior Details

The most prominent feature is the central three-storey gabled porch, which has its own plinth. The porch entrance is a boarded door set in a moulded surround with a shallow elliptical head. The porch displays floor strings and is lit by a three-light window on the first floor and a two-light window on the second floor, both recessed in hollow chamfered surrounds. The shaped gable is decorated with a blind slit in an ogee gable peak.

Single-light windows appear on the returns of the first two floors. The section to the right of the porch has a centrally positioned inserted renewed door set under a flat stone lintel. All windows throughout have three lights recessed in chamfered surrounds with label dripmoulds.

Ridge chimneys stand at the ends and on the walls flanking the passage behind the porch. The left return has a single light near the front on the ground floor, featuring small diamond inserts that replicate original glazing; the ground-floor right return is blocked. The first floor on the left has a two-light window in a similar position, while the right has two single lights, the one near the front blocked.

The rear elevation is centred on a renewed door with a draw-bar slot, and both gabled wings are lit by three-light windows.

Interior

The left portion contains a flat Tudor-arched stone fire surround in the left gable on the ground floor, with another near the rear on the first floor. The cross passage is spanned by a wide moulded fireplace against the right wall, with a moulded fire surround on the first floor against the same wall.

An open-well closed-string stair in the rear wing has splat balusters and a low grip handrail; the dogleg upper flight has been partly restored, and a first-floor gallery has been inserted in the same style. Rooms in the rear wing contain stone fire surrounds.

The central cross passage preserves a draw-bar slot at the right of the rear door and a niche at the left rear, passing the hearth of the adjacent room.

The right portion shows no visible fires in the right gable; however, a wide segmental-arched restored fire opening stands against the passage wall, and a blocked fire exists on the first floor.

Beams supporting the first floor display stopped chamfers except for one that has been boxed in with oak planks salvaged from the attic. Some beams and joists are new.

The central door to the rear wing has a flat Tudor-arched head with a vestigial ogee slit. The rear wing contains a dogleg stair with fragments of turned balustrade salvaged from Holywell. A first-floor 17th-century door has been resited, as have framing studs.

Roof Structure

The roof has been only partly inspected. The right build features truncated principals with two levels of purlins left open over the main bedroom and ceiled at the collar. The left build has principal rafter trusses with a high collar and two levels of trenched purlins, wattle partitions, and evidence of blocked windows in the gables.