Halecroft

Halecroft is a house that has been converted into offices, built in 1890 according to a rainwater head. It was designed by Edgar Wood. The building features brick construction with ashlar dressings, render, tile hanging, and a red clay tile roof. It is a large, two-storey detached house with attics, a single-storey wing at the rear, and a single-storey 20th-century extension on the left side.

The façade consists of five bays, with a stone plinth, quoins, and decorative dressings around the doors, windows, and buttresses. The first bay has a diagonally set corner bay window with a mullion and transom window on the ground floor, an enriched band on the first floor, and mullion windows above, topped with a coped gablet and ball finial. The second bay mirrors this with similar windows and features a large gable adorned with carved barge boards.

The third bay contains a Tudor-arch doorway with an enriched cartouche above it. Bays three and four showcase a significant timber mullion and transom window on the first floor, featuring leaded lights, a carved bressumer, a pargetted gable with floral motifs, carved bargeboards, and an elaborate weather-vane. The fifth bay includes a single-storey bay window with mullions and transom, rounded corners, and a five-light timber mullioned window above, which has an advanced half-hipped dormer and an elaborate finial.

The steep roof is distinguished by a crested ridge and vents. The right elevation has a projecting chimney stack, a five-light mullion and transom window, and a first-floor bow window. The left side features another pargetted gable. Inside, there is a fine Jacobean-style staircase and oak panelling in the boardroom, which includes a carved stone chimney piece within an inglenook. The interior is generally well preserved, showcasing plaster ceilings and friezes, doors and ironwork, linen fold panelling, and good stained glass, some of which features pre-Raphaelite figures. Halecroft is an excellent example of Wood's earlier work, reflecting the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement and the vernacular revival.