Rockley Old Hall and attached front garden wall

Rockley Old Hall and Attached Front Garden Wall

A manor house now divided into three dwellings (Nos 6, 7 and 8), built in several phases during the 17th century. The building is constructed of ashlar sandstone with a stone slate roof. The attached front garden wall is built of dry-walled sandstone and mortared rubble.

The house comprises two storeys with attics, arranged as five gabled bays. Bays two and three are narrower than the others, and the entrance is positioned to the rear. An attached rectangular wall encloses the front garden.

Bay four appears to be the earliest section. It has a chamfered plinth and features a four-light double-chamfered mullioned window on the ground floor with a similar two-light window to its right, both beneath a continuous dripmould. The first floor has a three-light window with a dripstone, and the attic a two-light window. An ashlar stack rises to the ridge of this bay, with a plinth and cornice.

Bays two and three are similar in character and feature a 20th-century gabled porch (not of special interest) flanked by a five-light window on the left and a three-light window on the right. These bays have a continuous first-floor dripmould. Bay one, probably dating from the late 17th century, has a French window at ground-floor level on the right side, with two-light square-faced mullioned windows elsewhere and plain dripmoulds. Bay five has a door to the left of a 20th-century four-light window, with single-light and three-light windows to the first floor and a two-light window to the attic.

Kneelers mark each end of the range, with gable copings and finials to bays two and three, and finial bases to bays four and five.

The attached garden wall has a gap in its left return near the house. Two front door openings feature chamfered quoins and lintels set on flagstone copings. The right return has a quoined, arched doorway.

The rear of the house shows bays one, two and five gabled. Bays three and four are set back and have a chamfered, bonded surround to a boarded door on the left, with an eight-light window to its right featuring a king-mullion and transom beneath a dripmould. The first floor has two three-light mullioned windows to the right of a former two-light window. Bays one and two feature external stone steps leading to a central first-floor doorway, with a large ground-floor opening on the left beneath a concrete lintel and a four-light window above it with a dripstone. A two-light gable window is positioned in the gable. To the right of the steps are paired casements in square-faced surrounds. Bay five, of late 17th-century date, has square-faced two-light mullioned windows with plain dripstones. The left return is detailed as outer gables. The right return has double-chamfered mullioned windows: two four-light windows beneath first-floor windows of two, four and two lights respectively, with the central window featuring a king-mullion.

Interior features are substantial. No 6, on the right, contains ashlar fireplaces, including a ground-floor rear fireplace with a large basket arch and brick oven in the corner, and a first-floor fireplace with a roll-mould. The kitchen contains a corniced fireplace within 18th-century panelling. No 7, at the centre of the range, has a large ashlar fireplace with a square soffit to a triangular-headed lintel. No 8 features a splat-balustered staircase and panelled plaster ceilings.