Woodcock Hall

Woodcock Hall is a lesser gentry house, now used as a house and office, built in 1719 and subsequently altered in the 19th and 20th centuries, with recent restoration work. It was constructed by James Spencer of Newburgh, Lancashire (died 1723). The house is built of handmade brown brick in Flemish bond, with tuck pointing and a plinth of coursed sandstone rubble, topped with a stone slate roof. It has a rectangular, double-depth plan and a lateral three-span roof.

The symmetrical, triple-gabled facade has two-and-a-half storeys and three structural bays. Features of the facade include a high plinth, a one-course band at first floor level, a moulded and coped three-course band at second floor level, and restored wooden modillioned verges with bargeboards and finials. The ground floor has a central doorway enclosed by a moulded wooden doorcase, with an elaborately-carved hood supported on brackets. Four wooden cross-windows flank the doorway, with six panes in the lower sashes and four in the upper. The lower right window opens as a casement, and all have deep flat-arched heads constructed of gauged red brick. The first floor mirrors the ground floor, and the top floor has one similar window in each gable. Rainwater heads with elaborate decoration, including shields of arms with griffon supporters, detached pilasters and lettering reading “JSC” (James and Catherine Spencer) and “1719”, are positioned in the gable junctions. Two chimneys rise from the axial ridge between the gables.

The left return wall features a 20th-century porch breaking into a former stair window, along with four other segmental-headed windows resembling those on the front facade. The right return wall extends similarly, with two matching windows to each floor.

The rear elevation includes a 19th-century, single-storey kitchen wing on the first bay, patched brickwork on the third bay (following the removal of a 20th-century addition), and various segmental-headed windows similar to those at the front, including two stair windows in the centre bay.

The interior contains a central entrance hall with a wooden alcove featuring fluted pilasters, a triglyph frieze and a dentilled cornice with egg-and-dart decoration. There’s also a large inglenook in the left range, incorporating a stop-chamfered bressummer which has been restored to working condition, and a dogleg staircase with an open string, turned balusters and a moulded handrail. Fielded panel doors are consistent with the front door. Woodcock Hall is an unusual example of vernacular building constructed at gentry level in the 18th century, notable for its exceptionally complete set of cross-windows, a style particularly prone to later replacement.