Hollowforth Hall

SD 53 NW WOODPLUMPTON HOLLOWFORTH LANE

4/129 Hollowforth Hall

II

House, mainly 1850 s but incorporating parts of a farmhouse of late C17 or early C18. Red brick with rusticated quoins of yellow-brick, sandstone dressings (including many ex situ fragments from former Preston Parish church, demolished c.1853), fishscale slate roofs with projecting eaves. Approximately rectangular plan 4x4 bays, with the earlier 3-bay baffle-entry house in the east side. Two storeys, in Jacobean style; south front of 3 unequal gables stepped back from right to left and a west wing at the left end, with the earlier house forming a receding east wing to the right, set back with a porch in the angle. Embattled single-storey porch has Tudor-arched entrance with moulded sandstone surround, stone battlements and large crocketed finial on the corner; to the left each gable has a lozenge attic light, plain barge boards with apex finial, but otherwise they differ: the centre has a single-storey canted bay window of stone with embattled parapet, a 6-light mullioned and transomed window with a hoodmould above, the left has a tall mullioned and transomed window at ground floor (the lights round-headed with hollow spandrels), and an altered window above, and the right has a tall segmental-headed window with margin panes, a shorter altered one above with figured keystone. On the east side, set back, is a stuccoed screen wall with an arched doorway and parapet embellished with another ex situ crocketed finial, and behind this the 3-bay side wall of the earlier house, stuccoed, with embattled parapet and crocketed finials at the corners, has 3 openings on each floor, including an altered doorway at the junction of the 2nd and 3rd bays and at 1st floor recessed square 12-pane sashes with hoodmoulds. Rear and west side in similar style, the rear having in addition a gabled porch with various ex situ carved stones and massive lintel, and inside this a re-set datestone lettered H I M 1719 Interior: in east wing, the housepart of the former farmhouse has an inglenook fireplace with heck, cyma-stopped chamfered bressummer, 2 boxed beams, dentilled cornice, and opposite the fireplace an alcove formerly occupied by built-in C18 organ; service end to south of this has built-in cupboards with shouldered fielded panels; elsewhere the internal decoration is in Gothick style, with trefoil-headed panelled dado, Tudor-arched doorways, vine friezes, etc; drawing room has ex situ Tudor-style C19 fireplace formerly in Samlesbury Hall (Samlesbury CP, South Ribble). Extensive repairs to roof of east wing in progress at time of survey. History: home of Threlfall Family (Richard, 1840-70, wine merchant, mayor of Preston 1855; Richard 1861-1932, physicist, 1st professor of Physics at University of Sydney, Australia). Reference: George Jackson Woodplumpton & its Families Religion, Houses, 1971.

Listing NGR: SD5034936544