Bank Hall And Bank Hall Farmhouse

Bank Hall and Bank Hall Farmhouse are a farmhouse or manor house, likely dating from the late medieval period, constructed in two phases and partitioned, probably in the early 17th century. Subsequent alterations have occurred, and the buildings are now used as a house and a farmhouse.

The buildings are primarily brick with stone dressings, with the farmhouse section on the right being rendered and painted white. They have a slate roof, concealing original timber framing. The front range comprises six bays, with the first two being a later addition. A rear extension extends the third bay. The building is two storeys high, with a full-height flat-roofed projection to the fourth bay. A doorway is located in the second bay, while another doorway in the fifth bay has been altered. Most bays contain sash windows with glazing bars, stone heads, and sills (16 and 20 panes to the left of the junction, and 12 and 9 panes to the right).

The most significant features of interest are located within the interior. The left half, Bank Hall, retains elements of late medieval timber framing that likely extend into the right half, Bank Hall Farmhouse. A full closed cruck truss is found in the rear wall, and at a right angle to this, in the junction space between the two dwellings, are parts of the gable wall of a two-storey box-framed addition. The cruck truss rises to the full height of the building, though the apex has been severed, and features a low tie-beam, remains of a wallpost notched into the lower part of the left blade, doorhead remnants near both blades, and trenches for purlins and windbraces at attic level.

The framing of the ground floor partition wall consists of a rail tenoned into a central post (supporting an inserted ceiling beam) and three other posts forming two doorways with Tudor-arched heads undercut in the rail – one abutting the cruck truss and the other approximately 1.5 metres from the present front wall. Framing on the first floor and in the roof space, set back from the ground floor plane, belongs to the adjoining building. At the first floor, this includes a jowelled wallpost approximately 1.5 metres from the front wall, with a straight brace rising to another post, linked by a rail to a third post. At attic level are a tie-beam and the feet of both principals of a roof truss. The extent and nature of this structure within Bank Hall Farmhouse is unknown due to restricted access.

Bank Hall also features a large inglenook fireplace with stone hecks supporting a raised timber bressummer. This contains an 18th-century stone fireplace with a carved lintel, and behind it, another fireplace with remains of a bread oven. The property was owned by the Singleton family of Brockholes in the early 16th century.