Marsden Hall Cottage And Linking Archway Marsden Park Cottage

Two cottages and a linking archway, likely dating from the mid to late 18th century, with alterations in the 19th century and subsequently. Constructed of sandstone rubble with concrete tiled roofs. The cottages are situated to the rear of Marsden Hall, flanking the courtyard entrance, with Marsden Park Cottage running parallel to the drive between them. An archway connects the west fronts of the two cottages.

The buildings present an irregular facade, featuring two gables linked by a short screen wall over a tall elliptical archway. Each gable has one first-floor window. Marsden Hall Cottage, on the south side, is structurally integrated with the north-east corner of the main hall and has an open-pedimental gable which partially spans the screen wall. It features a large urn at the apex. The ground floor has two square windows under a dripmould run out and stepped up over a doorway to the right, with a round-arched window above, both abutting the hall. A rectangular window is centrally positioned on the upper floor. The archway has a rusticated surround and a linen-fold enriched keystone, with a pair of low wrought-iron bar gates with dogbars.

Marsden Park Cottage has a rectangular plan. Its gable end displays coupled doorways to the left, a small segmental-arched opening above the left doorway, a square window in the centre of the ground floor, and a small rectangular window inserted on the first floor. All doorways and windows, except the last, have square-cut plain surrounds, and the windows have altered glazing. A screen wall to the walled garden extends to the left of Marsden Park Cottage. The right-hand side wall of this cottage, facing the drive, displays features suggestive of a former non-domestic role: a rectangular tripartite grid of square-cut mullions and transoms. The left and right sections have three 3-light stages to the eaves, with the middle section glazed and the others blocked. The central section has two stages, each divided into two square panels, the lower being of 2 lights (the left glazed and the right blocked); the upper left panel contains an oval plaque with remnants of painted lettering commemorating the founding of an asylum in the buildings around 1850, reading “MARSD…/ Founded…/ Edwd…/ Esqr.” An early 19th-century extension is attached to the rear gable, covering a doorway at first floor (visible internally) and partly obscuring a round-headed attic window.