Heyroyd

Overview

Heyroyd is a substantial gritstone house originally built around 1730 and remodelled in the Palladian style in 1777, architect unknown. The property incorporates possible 17th-century features and underwent alterations in the mid and late 19th century. The house is constructed of watershot regularly-coursed gritstone with a blue slate roof, set back from the old road from Colne to Skipton behind boundary walls.

The Main House

Plan and Layout

The house follows a double-pile plan with two storeys plus an attic. Gable stacks serve the main rooms. The internal arrangement comprises a central hall and stair with four principal rooms on each floor, plus a secondary axial stair. A two-storey service wing is attached, along with an outbuilding. To the rear stands a two-up, two-down cottage, now connected to the main house. Across a setted rear yard lies a combined carriage-house and stable with hayloft.

Exterior

The symmetrical five-bay south front displays rusticated alternating quoins and bracketed cornices. A Diocletian window set within a closed pediment spans the central three bays. The windows are twelve-pane sashes without horns, fitted with plain square surrounds and stooled sills. The six-panelled door features a semi-circular arched head with Gothick fanlight, framed by Tuscan columns supporting an open pediment.

To the right of the entrance stands a 19th-century single-storey-height wall with cornice and central arched window. To the left, set back to the centre-line, is the front of a late 19th-century replacement service wing. This low two-storey structure with side-gable and stack echoes the main house design with bracketed cornice, rusticated quoins, and square surrounds and mullions framing tripartite sash windows on each floor.

The left-hand (west) return displays a full-height central stair-window with chamfered sills and mullions to the lower two lights and the sill of the light above, though the upper sections show less-chamfered sills and recessed mullions. To the right and below sits an extra skin of stonework with extended ground-floor sill, and a lead hopper and downpipe dated 1777 bearing the initials I W E (for John Wilson and his wife). The west wall of the extension has a sash at each floor and similar hopper and pipe—these may be 19th-century copies or possibly the originals relocated from the east end of the house front. Both gables feature kneelers projecting over the cornice.

The rear elevation is partially obscured at ground floor on the right by a single-storey pantry formed by covering the passage between the extension and cottage. Above this are three first-floor sashes, the central one smaller. The house has (left and right) three-light recessed chamfered mullioned windows on both floors, now fitted with wooden casements. Between these on the left is a composite window comprising a mullioned-and-transomed window of four leaded lights with a Venetian window above, the latter having a central sash with Gothick glazing bars and etched and coloured glass. On the right stands a studded oak plank door, probably 17th century, with a surround of square columns and closed pediment. The alternating quoins here are rough-dressed like the general stonework. Stone corbels originally for a box gutter now support an ogee cast trough with central downpipe and hopper dated 2008.

The right-hand (east) return has a central two-light mullioned gable window and is partially obscured at ground floor by an attached single-storey garage to the left. A plastic hopper and downpipe serve the front gutter.

Interior

The interior is well-preserved with fittings spanning from the late 17th to the late 19th century. These include a glazed timber vestibule, elaborate cast-iron hall radiator cover, and in most rooms doors and architraves, skirting, shutters, cornices, and fireplaces.

The original kitchen contains a window seat, large fireplace reportedly with a now-concealed bressumer beam, and an over-mantel of reused 17th-century carving. Timber framework in the walls was probably originally installed to secure panelling. The cellar door also probably predates 1730, though the vault, niches, and mullioned window are likely of that period.

The north-east ground-floor room features a wall cupboard with a door hung on H-hinges that may be reused early 18th-century panelling, along with a 19th-century wall-safe and dresser. The south-east dining room, probably refurbished in the 1840s, has fabric-hung walls with gilt mirror and pelmets. The south-west sitting room's features may all date from the 1777 refronting.

The open-string stair to the first floor is probably also from 1777, though fitted with late 19th-century timber newels and handrail and cast-iron balustrade. The bedrooms contain some Victorian fire-surrounds and inserts, but 18th-century surrounds survive in the south-west bedroom and adjacent breakfast room. Bell-pulls remain in the western bedrooms. The back-stair window bears a graffito with a date of 1763 and the name John Wheelwright.

The service wing contains a Victorian panelled bath and sink. The original attic stair is now blocked, with the attic served by a continuation of the main stair using the same newel but with timber splat-balusters. In the attic stands a Victorian servants' sink. The western truss is of hewn timbers with carpenters' marks, featuring a collar with king post and raking struts, and tie-beam with queen struts. The other roof timbers are all machine-sawn. The walls are plastered as far as the lowest purlin.

The Cottage

Exterior

The cottage roof is laid with stone flags with exposed verges and ridge stacks at the south gable and centre. The front elevation faces east with alternating quoins and modern four-pane sash windows plus one 19th-century sixteen-pane sash. All windows sit in square stone surrounds—two at first floor and at ground floor two pairs each divided by a chamfered mullion. The central part-glazed timber six-panelled front door dates from the 21st century.

At the right is an attached low outbuilding with stone walls and currently felted roof with stone ridge-pieces. The side gables are blank save for an inserted kitchen window to the north. The rear wall is of the same stone with four small windows plus one extended to accommodate a rear door.

Interior

The cottage interior has exposed beams and purlins (some replacements), flag floors, stone fireplaces in all four rooms, and an inserted timber stair, with moulded panelled doors (some reproductions).

Carriage House and Stables

Exterior

The south front features (at left) a carriage entrance with depressed arch and circular pitching hole above, and (to the right) two square-surround windows, now fixed lights, with a door between. Above sits an arched date stone of 1853 with the initials RS (probably Robert Sutcliffe) and duplicate pitching hole. Chamfered eaves corbels are present but no box gutter.

The left-hand return has central ground-and-first-floor windows and a circular owl hole in the gable, plus a hayloft door with abutting stone steps. The rear features square eaves corbels but again no box gutter, and a central first-floor window with an eaves stack to the right. Projecting ceramic drainpipes relate to later use as a chicken house. The right-hand end has a first-floor window only and a duplicate owl hole.

Interior

The walls are plastered and the ceilings boarded. Between the carriage house and stables is a livery room with original cupboards, tack hooks, fireplace, and Jacob's ladder to the hayloft, plus diagonally boarded doors. The stables have a flag floor and four in-situ stall dividers creating three stalls. These are of tongue-and-groove boarding with cast-iron sinuous top-rails and decorative circular posts. A spiral tram stair has been inserted for loft access.

Subsidiary Features in the Gardens

The gardens contain a number of features including: a square summer house with pyramidal stone flag roof, coursed stone walls, and rusticated quoins; a gardener's privy behind the garden wall of the cottage; a wash-house attached to the cottage by a boundary wall; a cistern or well between the wash-house and the stables; a plunge pool with steps down; a tennis ground with steps and seats built into the walls; and boundary walls to the property, particularly those to the front boundary (topped by a timber fence), including four entrance piers (three of which were missing their stone cornice and ball finials at the time of inspection) and quadrant walls linking them.

Exclusions

The following items are not of special architectural or historic interest: cast metal ogee gutter, hopper dated 2008, and downpipe to rear elevation; single-storey garage and plastic hopper and downpipe on east elevation; attic stair with splat balusters from first-floor principal landing; roof timbers other than the western truss; late 20th-century and early 21st-century windows and front and rear doors to the cottage; late 20th-century and early 21st-century replacement beams and reproduction panelled doors in the cottage; ceramic drainpipes through stable walls; spiral tram stair serving stable hayloft; timber fence topping the boundary walls.