Halton Castle

Halton Castle is a country house that dates from the 13th or early 14th century, with additions from the 15th and 17th centuries. It is constructed of dressed stone and features stone slate roofs with an irregular plan. The garden front includes a four-storey, late 14th-century tower that projects on the left side. This tower has several slit windows and a one-light 14th-century window with a cusped head on the second floor, as well as a similar window on the right return. The first floor features a 16-pane sash window in a 17th-century roll-moulded surround, alongside a two-light mullioned window on the right return, which has a coat of arms of Carnaby above it. The tower is adorned with corbelled bartizans and original crenellations.

To the right of the tower is a two-storey, five-bay house built around 1700. It has three steps leading up to a doorway with a bolection-moulded surround and a scrolled pediment, along with stone cross windows that have cornices. The gabled roof is equipped with kneelers and coping, and features two tall renewed brick stacks on stone bases.

The left return, or rear of the tower, is largely medieval and consists of two sections. The first section, adjacent to the tower, predates it and retains only masonry from that period. It includes a 17th-century stepped buttress and a large external stack on corbels at the first floor level, along with 17th-century two- and three-light mullioned windows. The second section features a projecting cross wing, part of which also predates the tower. This section retains masonry and a doorway with a shouldered lintel from its original construction. The remainder is part of a 15th-century hall house, much of which was demolished in the 17th century, and it now includes 18th-century and early 19th-century doors and windows. The gabled roofs have brick stacks on stone bases.

The space between these ranges has been partly filled in with later construction, including the current entrance on the right return, which was modified in the mid-20th century to a Georgian style.

Inside, the tower features a tunnel-vaulted ground floor, doors with four-centred heads, and a stone newel stair. The 17th-century house includes an open-well stair with twisted balusters, while the older wings have two stone newel stairs, remnants of a screens passage with broach-stopped beams, and a 16th-century hall ceiling with finely moulded beams.