Lower Huxley Hall

Lower Huxley Hall is a moated manor house dating to the late 15th century, with significant additions and alterations made in the early to mid-17th century. A smaller addition to the rear was constructed in the early 19th century, with more recent alterations subsequently carried out. The construction is a mix of timber framing internally, English and Flemish bond orange brick with blue brick diapering, and buff sandstone dressings. The roof is of graduated Welsh slate with a stone ridge. A prominent massive lateral brick chimney rises from the main structure, topped with three diamond stacks, alongside three later brick chimneys on the south wing.

The building’s original plan evolved from a medieval hall into a courtyard layout, now reduced to an L-shape. The east wing features a symmetrical three-bay west front of two stories and an attic. The ground floor is defined by a cyma-moulded stone plinth, stone quoins, and moulded bands at the first and second floors. The end bays, projecting under coped gables, have five-light rebated ovolo-moulded, mullioned and transomed windows with applied lattice lead glazing. The central bay has a pair of similar three-light windows on the ground floor, a single one above, and a heraldic plaque under a label mould. The original front door is contained within a moulded, four-centred arched doorcase, located to the inside of the left end bay. A more recent doorway has been created in a mullioned and transomed window on the opposite side.

The south wing, constructed in the late 17th and early-19th centuries, is of English garden wall bond brick on a stone plinth, with brick label moulds over 20th-century mullioned and transomed windows.

Inside the east wing, a modern porch has been created as a bay window, and the hall extends along the entire length of the room to the rear. The hall features a moulded red sandstone fireplace and areas where decorative ceilings have been removed to reveal original beams and joists. While the upper floor plan has been altered, timber-framed partitions remain.

The south wing’s entrance is through the modern porch into a broad former screens passage. Here, a 17th-century splat baluster open-well staircase with finialled octagonal newels can be found. The upper landing features later turned balusters. To the right, a hall originally open to the roof now has an inserted ceiling with massive moulded, plastered crossbeams of 16th-century date, with strapwork medallions in the panels. An inglenook fireplace has a chamfered bressumer and a moulded four-centred arched stone fireplace brought down from upstairs. To the left of the passage are former service rooms, where the close studding of a former external wall is visible. A similar stone fireplace in the corner has also been relocated from upstairs. Upstairs reveals fine close-studded partition walls and collar and tiebeam trusses. Above the hall is a moulded arch-braced collar truss with wind-braced purlins. The main chamber contains a pair of small grilles of turned balusters, leading into a passage to the later wing.