Checkley Hall

Checkley Hall is a small country house dated to around 1690 and altered in the late 18th or early 19th century. It is constructed of red English bond brick with later alterations in English garden wall bond brick, and is roofed with plain tiles across three storeys.

The entrance front is symmetrically disposed across five bays. The central ground floor doorway features a moulded, hipped ashlar surround and is approached by a flight of five 20th-century steps. A moulded brick string course runs between the ground and first floors, angled upward at the centre to meet the top of the doorcase. On either side of the doorway are windows of 4 x 4 sash panes with flat arched heads, fitted with 19th-century stone sills and appearing to have been deepened. The first floor carries five 2-light casement windows with flat arched heads. The third floor walling is of English garden wall bond brickwork dating from the 18th-century alterations, when the original hipped roof was altered to a gable end of shallow pitch. Five window openings with flat arched heads punctuate this floor, the second and fourth from the right being now blocked, while the remainder contain 2-light casement windows. Two massive chimney stacks rise to either side of the ridge, each with sunken round-arched panels on their sides.

The left-hand gable end is symmetrically disposed across five bays and features a central ground floor doorway with a cambered head, flanked by window openings with flat arched heads, of which the second and fourth from the right are now blocked. The lateral windows have lowered sills and contain 4 x 4 sash panes with flat arched heads. A moulded brick string course separates the floors. The first floor has five window openings, the second from the right now blocked, the remainder containing 2-light casement windows. Below the central windows are the initials T D R formed of headers set in the brickwork. The second floor has five window openings, of which the central three are blocked and the lateral two contain 2-light sash windows. A brick band divides the second floor from the gable. The left-hand gable end is now largely obscured by a later cottage addition which abuts the house. Below the central first floor window, which is blocked, a partially decipherable date of 169 is formed of headers.

The rear elevation features a mezzanine window of three casement lights cutting through the band between the ground and first floors. Above this was a similar first floor window, now blocked. To the ground and first floors are two lateral 2-light casement windows, with the second floor containing similar windows to the centre and left. A projecting wing abuts the corner of the house to the left.

The interior contains a lobby to the side door and one ground floor room lined with bolection moulded panelling of rectangular panels divided by a chair rail. This room features a fireplace with a bolection moulded ashlar chimney piece and two bolection moulded overmantel panels. The doors have two rectangular bolection moulded panels and H hinges. Cyma moulded cornices are present in both rooms. Early 17th-century run-through panelling is found in the hallway, probably acquired from elsewhere. The staircase comprises four flights with an open well and closed string. The rectangular panelled newel posts feature balusters of barley sugar form with a massive ramped bannister. One first floor room contains a bolection moulded fire surround similar to that on the ground floor, with a smaller similar fire surround in an adjacent dressing room. One second floor room has an ashlar fire surround with a moulded, lugged frame, above which sits a cavetto moulding supporting a deeply projecting pediment. The back stairs consist of six close stringed flights with splat balusters of serpentine form.