Ravenscroft Hall

Ravenscroft Hall is a mansion built in 1837, with additions from 1877, and now divided into two dwellings. The construction combines roughcast and yellow brickwork with stone dressings, and a hipped slate roof. The main south-west front (garden front) has five bays, and the house is two stories high. A five-bay wing was added to the north-east. The front features a stone plinth, moulded window head details on the ground floor, and matching sills and window heads on the first floor. The main entrance is through an oak door with three-quarter glazing, set within a doorcase featuring panelled linings and a rectangular overlight, and fronted by a flat-topped porch with unfluted Ionic columns and pilasters. Large recessed sash windows with glazing bars are present throughout. The north-east wing is slightly set back, and includes a central, three-story Italianate bell tower built mainly of yellow brick. The tower has semicircular headed stone openings above a moulded string course, wide eaves, and a pyramid roof with a ball finial. Attached to the tower is a single-story, octagonal structure with a two-stage hipped roof and a two-light casement with glazing bars on most faces. The final bay of the north-east wing is a two-story canted bay. The south-west elevation features a central bay set forward, topped by a gable pediment with floral and scroll decorations and the date within the tympanum. The rear (south-east) elevation has two canted bays flanking tripartite sash windows. Wide coved eaves cornices and prominent yellow brick stacks are a notable feature. The interior includes a stair hall with a stone open-string staircase, metal balustrade, hardwood wreathed handrail and three matching galleries. A rectangular, panelled lantern illuminates the stairwell. A three-door mahogany screen, half-glazed with diminished styles and panels below and a full-width overlight, spans the entrance hall. A former ball room has been divided by a screen of unfluted Corinthian columns and pilasters. Fireplaces in the Grecian style, with urns, garlands and egg and dart architraves, are located at both ends of the room. The walls are panelled with plaster floral mouldings with scalloped corners. Window shutters and four-panel doors are present, alongside a coved and moulded ceiling based on foliage rolls, elaborate ceiling roses, a diamond grid, arcs, and foliage. The drawing room has a modified bead and reel cornice, and an oak chimney piece dated 1877. Within the 1877 addition, the dining and billiard rooms have oak-panelled ceilings and fireplaces. First-floor rooms in the addition also have oak-panelled ceilings, coved cornices, panelled window shutters, and four-panel doors.