Tonge Hall

Tonge Hall is a house dating back to the 1580s, with alterations made in the 18th and 19th centuries. The construction is timber-framed, featuring a stone plinth, brick alterations, and a roof covered with graduated stone slates. It has a T-shaped plan with a cross passage set against the right gable end. The first-floor eaves and gables have coved jetties. Bay 1 is a gabled crosswing, and bay 2, which originally served as the hall's bay window and is also gabled, projects to a similar degree. A gabled two-storey porch in bay 4 was later replaced by a plain brick wall and porch in the 19th century.

The front of the house has four ground-floor windows and one first-floor window, all with diamond-shaped oak mullions and transoms (some replacements), containing between four and six lights. The hall bay window was fully glazed until the 20th century. A two-light window above the bay window is distinguished by arched heads. A particularly striking feature is the extensive use of quatrefoil panels which decorate the framing on the front and left elevations. Casement and horizontally sliding sash windows are present on the left return. The rear and right elevations were rebuilt in brick in the 18th century, incorporating casement windows, some set beneath elliptical brick arches. Twentieth-century porches are situated at the rear and on the left. Two ridge chimneys have diagonally set paired brick shafts. Rainwater heads are inscribed with ‘RT 1703’, referring to Richard Tonge.

The interior contains an inglenook fireplace with a massive bressumer beam, backing onto the gable-end cross passage, which has been divided by a partition to form a room. The hall was also compartmented in 1936 to accommodate a staircase and to separate the bay window. The beams are chamfered and braced diagonally on both floors to the principal posts. In the crosswing, the beams form a grid pattern, with dragon beams at each corner. One of the three rooms in the crosswing is fully lined with late 17th-century bolection-moulded panelling, and a fine bolection-moulded fire surround is said to conceal a painting. A spiral oak staircase winds around an octagonal newel post. The house occupies a prominent position on top of a hill and stands as an outstanding example of 16th-century carpentry and planning.