Hawthorn Hall And Parts Of Front Garden Walls

Hawthorn Hall is a house, originally a hall, later used as a school, and now offices. It dates to 1698, though there are earlier traces of a timber-framed structure. The building is constructed with English garden wall bond plum brick, and has a Kerridge stone-slate roof with a stone ridge and three brick chimneys. It has a long rectangular plan.

The north front is nearly symmetrical, with two and a half storeys and four gables. Each gable has replaced bargeboards and mace finials. A brick band runs along the first floor. Pairs of wooden mullioned and transomed windows are set under each gable. Two retain original rectangular leaded glazing. The rest have applied lead glazing, all within flat wedged brick heads. The central doorcase features plain pilasters, a segmental hood over a cartouche bearing the date 1698, and a 20th-century copy of a studded oak four-board door. Above this bay, on a stone-coped eaves, is a short balustrade with carved figure finials, and a pineapple and ball finial. Behind rises an octagonal, partly glazed wooden lantern with a lead cupola and weathervane.

The south front is similar, but the doorcase is not central. It has fluted, sub-classical pilasters instead of a hood, and a plaque displaying a lion rampant. The balustrade here has been reduced, but evidence remains of twisted balusters, smaller pine cones, and a ball finial with an unusual cap. The east front is twin-gabled.

Inside, two rooms—one to the right of the entrance and one above it—have oak-panelled walls, featuring two levels of bolection moulding, a moulded cornice, and exposed ceiling beams. Surviving two- and three-panelled doors with raised fields are found in most rooms. A dogleg staircase has twisted balusters, twisted newels, and panelling above the wall string. Rooms to the south end of the house reveal portions of timber framing and later daub infill within an external wall of the previous house, suggesting close-studding. These rooms also have ovolo-moulded beams.

Brick garden walls, with stone coping, run from the south-east and north-east corners, each with a rusticated gate surround – one with scrolled tops and one with curlicues. Pine cone finials are located at each corner of the house along these walls.