Drywood Hall

Drywood Hall is a house, now used as Bridgewater School. It dates to the 18th century, with possible incorporation of earlier fabric and a 20th-century addition to the left, which is not part of this listing. The building is timber-framed with a slate roof covered in graduated stone slates. The asymmetrical facade is composed picturesquely with six bays and two storeys, featuring wings to the rear. A two-storey porch is located in bay three, with gables in bays one and five, and gabled dormer windows in bays two and four. The porch upper room is supported by circular columns on carved brackets; decorative panelling in the gable above contains the Bridgewater coat of arms, positioned below a five-light timber mullion window. The main room in bay four has an eight-light mullion and transom window set behind an enriched bressumer on carved diagonal braces. Other windows are four and five-light mullion and transoms on the ground floor, with a square bay window, and three and four-light mullioned windows on the first floor. Four brick chimney stacks are present, featuring diagonally set shafts. A rear five-light window, with arched lights and flush chamfered mullions, may be a reused feature from an earlier building. Interior features include panelled doors, a timber staircase, stone and cast iron fire surrounds, and ovolo-moulded ceiling beams in the principal room, which has a neo-Jacobean fire surround. In the 16th century, an earlier house on the site was the residence of the Massey family.