Old Hall Museum

The Old Hall Museum, originally Kirkleatham Old Hall, is a school building dating from 1708/09, likely designed by Robert Hooke. The roof was renewed around 1900, and the building underwent restoration with the removal of 18th and 19th century extensions between 1978 and 1984. It now operates as a museum.

The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar at its centre and basement, with brick and sandstone dressings to the wings and rear. It has a Welsh slate roof and rebuilt brick stacks. The design is based on an “H” plan, comprising a central school flanked by houses for the master and usher. The central section is tall, single-storey, with three bays, and is flanked by slightly projecting two-storey wings, each with two bays, incorporating an attic and basement storey.

The central façade features a giant Roman Doric order with triglyphs and guttae, capped by a heavily moulded cornice. Pilaster strips decorate the attic and basement levels. A central doorway, rising six semicircular steps, has renewed four-panel double doors, a cornice head, a fanlight with glazing bars within a panelled reveal, and a chamfered-rusticated surround with impost strings and a double keystone. A marble tablet above the doorway records the school's foundation. Flanking this doorway are paired circular windows with architraves and radial glazing, positioned above two-bay arcading with moulded imposts (archivolts are missing) and featuring false sashes with glazing bars and moulded sills. A giant segmental pediment sits in the middle bay of the attic storey, flanked by paired, renewed sashes in architraves. The wings display chamfered quoins and quoin strips to the basement and attic. The windows are renewed sashes with glazing bars and moulded sills, set within architraves. Basement windows are mullioned, now blocked or fitted with louvres. The roof is hipped with two transverse ridge stacks behind a straight parapet featuring a string and copings.

The returns feature central renewed three-panel double doors with blocked overlights, set within eared architraves under entablatures with suspended pilasters, accessed by three renewed steps. Similar windows and cornice are present. The rear elevation features restored fenestration similar to the front, with a door in a plain surround beneath a round-headed window. Projecting two-bay wings echo this treatment. The inner returns showcase plain doorways and mullioned windows on both the first and attic floors, set within the angle of the building.

Inside, the large, restored central hall features a coved ceiling cornice. Ground-floor rooms within the wings have moulded panelled ceilings. The east wing incorporates an altered dogleg staircase with turned balusters, square coupled and single panelled newel posts, a heavily molded handrail, and string. A foundation stone in the basement of the east wing is dated 1708. Sir William Turner's 6th Form College continues to operate, though in newer premises.