Hurstwood Hall

Hurstwood Hall is a lesser-gentry hall-house, later a farmhouse and now a house, dating back to 1579, with subsequent alterations. The building is constructed of coursed squared sandstone, with a stone slate roof. It has an L-shaped plan, comprising a hall range with a short rear wing, a projecting crosswing to the west, and an axial wing to the east.

The south front is of dressed masonry and features recessed mullioned windows, all with round-headed lights and hollow spandrels, and mostly with king-mullions. A gabled two-storey porch is located at the right-hand end of the hall range, with moulded four-centred arched outer and inner doorways. The upper floor of the porch slightly oversails and has a two-light window under a hoodmould, with a straight ledge above, likely associated with former pigeon holes in the gable. Long windows to the left of the porch have three, three, three, and two lights at ground floor, and three, three, three, and two lights above. All windows on the south front have continuous dripmoulds, with the upper ones carried round the re-entrant wall of the wing, which has a two-light window and a small single-light window at that level. The gable of the west wing has a three-light window with a hoodmould on each floor. The return wall of the west wing has an external chimney stack with offsets, and a corbelled chimney at first floor. Between these is a square-headed two-light mullioned window with a hoodmould on each floor (the upper one altered as a sash). A little chamfered window is positioned beside the front stack at first floor, with various other inserted or altered openings. The east wing, set back slightly and of two lower storeys, has windows of four and two lights at ground floor, and four lights at first floor, mirroring the front windows but without hoodmoulds.

The rear is dominated by the wide central gable of the short wing to the hall, which has, near the left corner (east), a moulded four-centred arched doorway to an internal porch, with a hoodmould. Above this doorway is a rectangular datestone with a moulded surround, inscribed “BARNARDUS TOWNLEY ET AGNES VXOS EIVS 1579” at first floor. A recessed three-light mullioned window is also present at first floor, with a hoodmould. The rest of the gable wall has a similar three-light window at ground floor (lacking mullions), a single-light window at first floor, two inserted stairlights, and an interrupted ledge in the apex of the gable, resembling a stone cap of a firehood. The re-entrant wall and the gable of the west wing have further recessed mullion windows. The rear of the east wing has been altered to serve as a garage. Chimneys are present on the ridge and on each east gable.

Internally, surviving features include muntin-and-rail panelling in the hall, a moulded fireplace in the parlour of the wing, another in a chamber above, a corbelled-head fireplace in a chamber over the hall, and another in the east wing behind it.