Astley Hall

Astley Hall is a Grade I listed manor house dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, with an early 19th-century addition. The building was repaired and restored from 1949 onwards.

The core structure is a courtyard house of arch-braced box-frame construction, partly timber-framed on a stone plinth and partly brick with stone dressings, now rendered. The north and west ranges survive from the earlier building, while the 2-storey great hall in the south range was rebuilt and refronted in brick with stone dressings in Renaissance style at some point during the 17th century (variously dated by scholars to around 1630, 1653, and 1666). This range was later decorated in very elaborate Baroque style in the later 17th century.

The south front is 3 storeys high. The entrance is offset to the left and flanked by two very prominent 5-sided bays rising to full height, glazed on all sides from the plinth through the first 2 storeys. The segmental-headed stone doorway has on each side coupled columns with vernacular Ionic capitals and a dentilled entablature to each pair, each bearing a couchant lion (said to be ex situ). Above these are mullioned and transomed windows matching those of the bays. To the right of the right bay, the ground floor has a 10-light mullioned and transomed window with a king mullion and a cross window, with smaller mullioned windows on the first floor similarly arranged. The entire 2nd floor is occupied by a long gallery (possibly a later addition) which has an unbroken band of mullioned and transomed windows continuing round the corners to the return walls. The parapet wall above bears 5 blank roundels and is surmounted by a balustrade.

The rear (courtyard side) of this south range is 2 storeys only and has 2 gables, one of box-frame construction on a high stone plinth and one of brick on a stone plinth of different masonry abutting it with the roof overlapping. The box-frame gable has a 1st floor oriel with a carved sill, while the brick gable has a large stairlight. The west and north ranges are box-framed on stone plinths, 2 storeys high. The courtyard side of the west range has two 1st floor oriels with carved sills, one dated 1600. In the angle between these ranges is a stair turret open at ground floor, and the north range has an entrance passage through a bay open at ground floor. The outer wall of the west range, which incorporates the kitchen, is timber-framed except for a very large external brick chimney stack. The outer wall of the north range is brick. At the north-east corner of the present hall is a smaller building, said to be the original manor house, much altered and restored (apparently in the 19th century) but incorporating some 16th-century beams.

The interior contains original features of the late 16th-century house, including a kitchen fireplace with a wide segmental stone arch and quarter-round moulded beams in the north, west, and rear part of the south ranges. The principal features of outstanding interest are the moulded plaster decorations of the hall and drawing room in the south range, probably Flemish or French work of the later 17th century. In the hall, there is a deep frieze and round and oval cartouches in the coffered panels of the ceiling, heavily foliated and deeply undercut, decorated with swags, putti, and cherubs. In the drawing room ceiling are fronds, pendant garlands, scallops, and cherubs. The hall also has wainscot of pilasters and arched panels painted with figures of famous historical characters up to around 1630 (possibly ex situ). An unusual late 17th-century staircase consists of a single straight flight of diminishing risers with a pierced leaf scroll balustrade. The house contains 17th-century panelling, plaster moulding, fireplaces, and overmantels in the morning room on the ground floor and in bedchambers on the 1st floor of the west range. Some panelling may be ex situ. The house underwent some 19th-century restoration of currently uncertain extent.