Westwood Hall And Attached Cottage

Westwood Hall and Attached Cottage

House dating from the 17th century and late 18th or early 19th century.

Built in brick with stucco overlay and slate roofs with brick chimneys, the building forms an L-shape. The main hall range is two storeys with a central hall and staircase flanked by rooms on either side, plus an additional ground floor room to the left and a rear stair. The attached cottage to the east comprises three storeys of single rooms with a two-storey rear block.

The west front, which became the main elevation during later remodelling, has a central doorway with semi-circular overlight and 21st-century door. One window sits to each side on both floors; the ground floor windows are 20th century while the first floor features an unhorned 6/6 vertical sash to the right and a horned 6/6 vertical sash to the left. A small window sits above the door. The roof is hipped at the right end with a 6-pot chimneystack at the apex and a 2-pot end stack at the left gable. A single-storey extension with lean-to roof extends to the left, featuring a small 20th-century window and an external boiler stack.

The south front contains a projecting bay to the left with 6/6 unhorned sashes at ground and first floors. To the right is a recessed entrance with heavy plank door and rectangular overlight. Beyond this is a 3-light casement with heavy double-keyed stone lintel and stone cill at ground floor, a 20th-century window with matching stonework at first floor, and a 20th-century window at second floor. A two-storey stepped-back extension with monopitch roof to the rear has no windows on this elevation.

The north elevation shows a lower two-storey end to the left with an entrance and one 20th-century ground floor window plus a 3-light casement above. At the centre is a single 3-light casement at ground floor. The north wing has 6/6 unhorned sashes at ground and first floors, positioned towards the left. The single-storey extension comprises a brick and wooden shed with corrugated iron roof to the left and a stuccoed section with renewed slate roof to the right.

The interior's main hall opens from the west entrance and retains a late 18th or early 19th-century dogleg staircase with stick balusters and mahogany handrail to the rear. The room to the right has a high ceiling, dado and cornice, a 20th-century fireplace and small wall cupboard to the left of the fireplace. The left room contains a 20th-century fireplace and door to the kitchen. Behind the hall, to the left of the staircase, a door leads to a space with a 12-panelled door opening to the under-stairs area and a now-blocked door formerly connecting to the cottage. The staircase connects at a landing with a second staircase from the south door, the ground floor of the cottage, and the first floor of the cottage. Two rooms occupy the first floor of the west wing above the ground floor rooms, one with a hatch to the attic space, and a small bathroom sits above the hall. A central skylight above the stair is boxed in from the roof space.

The cottage is accessed through a timber-framed lobby and plank door to the right of the south entrance. A fireplace occupies the left side with the blocked door from the main house beyond. Between the fireplace and blocked door runs the remnant of a former staircase. Two ceiling beams extend from either side of the fireplace. A plank door to the rear leads to a lobby with timber partition to a cupboard, the kitchen and a north entrance. The north wall contains a wall cupboard with double fielded-panel doors. A corner staircase in the kitchen ascends to the first floor, with the end room below connecting through a plank door to a passage with a room to the left. This room and passage are divided by a partition of vertical boards with horizontal battens beneath a ceiling beam, with broad floorboards visible. The room contains another beam, a large built-in cupboard with fielded panels and a 20th-century fireplace. A staircase with barley-sugar balusters and solid wooden steps rises to the right, leading to the attic floor where cruck trusses are visible at each side, crossing the room north-south, along with the chimney breast from the floors below.

The core of the cottage end dates from the 17th century, evidenced by the surviving cruck and window proportions. It likely originally featured a cross-passage layout with main entrance to the south and staircase rising from the rear corner behind the fireplace, a position still occupied by the 17th-century staircase connecting first and second floors. The building underwent several development phases, including relocation of the lower part of the staircase to immediately face the south entrance. A blocked window in the east face of the north side of the hall, similar to those in the cottage, may indicate westward extension with a rear northern wing. Major remodelling occurred in the late 18th or early 19th century when the main elevation was reoriented westward with a new front featuring sash windows and stucco, and a new interior staircase. A new landscaped approach was created through an enclosed garden. Later 19th and early 20th-century alterations include some replacement sash windows, 20th-century casements, and primarily late 19th or early 20th-century fireplaces.

A will referencing Westwood Hall dates to 1785, with cartographic evidence showing a building on the site by 1786. The 1841 tithe map appears to show an L-shaped building with later Ordnance Survey maps indicating an unaltered footprint. The Kay family owned the property from at least the late 18th century. James Kay opened a drift coal mine in 1841 east of the house, which operated until 1856. A group of workers' cottages, now demolished and known as Kay's cottages or Westwood Cottages, stood to the north in the early 20th century.

North of the main building stands a derelict stable block in brick, probably dating from the late 18th or early 19th century.