Old Hall Fold

ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE NEWMARKET ROAD SD 90 SW (south side)

1/22 No. 169 (Old Hall Fold) (formerly listed as Old Hall 12/01/67 Farmhouse, (No 169)

G.V. II*

House. Medieval cruck-framed structure within C18 walls and roof. English garden wall bond brick with graduated stone slate roof. 3-bay 2-storey house with crosswing to right projecting at the front under an outshut roof. 4, 2 and 2- light casement windows on each floor,one below a wide cambered brick arch. Door between bays 1 and 2 and passageway to right which leads to Taunton Hall (q.v.). Brick ridge chimney stack. The rear has been rendered, has C20 casement windows, a small kitchen wing and an altered shippon wing adjoining the left gable. The building's principal feature is the survival of 3 particularly fine cruck trusses. The 2 oldest are at each end of the principal room. They are particularly large in both overall size and cross section of the blades. The truss to the right of the principal room has an arch-braced collar and probably identifies the centre of the original open hall which has now been floored over. An inglenook fireplace backs onto it, the massive bressumer beam supported on a carved heck post which is now encased or replaced by a brick pier. The room also has an ovolo-moulded ceiling beam. The third cruck truss is at right angles to the others in the right crosswing. It has blades which are not markedly curved, a tie-beam at floor level, a collar, wattle and daub infill and is probably of C16 date. It is visible on one side from floor to ridge. The survival of such an early cruck-framed structure is rare in the north-west of England. The evolutionary development of this building is particularly worthy of note.

Listing NGR: SD9268900389