12 to 15 Skiers Hall Cottages

Four estate workers' cottages built between 1797 and 1798 by John Carr for the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam.

The building materials are hammer-dressed coursed sandstone with scored stone dressings. The roofs are hipped sandstone slate with central brick chimney stacks.

The plan consists of four cottages arranged north to south as a pair of semi-detached cottages connected to end cottages by single-storey linking units. Each cottage is two rooms up and two rooms down, with all rooms originally heated (parlour, kitchen, and bedrooms). Numbers 13 to 15 are reported to have central stone staircases, while number 12 has a west-aligned staircase. A narrow flagged courtyard lies to the south.

The main south elevation presents a seven-bay design using alternating storey heights and symmetrical bays to create a unified appearance when viewed from Barrow Lane west of Wentworth or Armroyd Lane. Three cottage units of one, three, and one bays are connected by set-back single-storey link units. The two-storey cottages sit on coursed stone plinths and have low-hipped stone slate roofs to the end cottages and double broken hip and valley stone slate roofs to the semi-detached cottages. All roofs feature twentieth-century gutters and nineteenth-century central red brick ridge stacks. Windows throughout have wedge-shaped monolithic lintels cut with false voussoirs and projecting window sills. The semi-detached cottages have intentional blind central windows. Windows contain replacement eight-over-eight wooden sliding sashes or plastic glazing. The eastern link unit, partially rebuilt in late-nineteenth-century coursed stone, has an east window with flat lintel and draught margined jambs beneath a pitched stone slate roof and central red brick ridge stack. The western link unit has a modern window east of the central scored window beneath a slate butterfly roof with roof-lights. South entrances are provided by two-stepped access doors in the inner east or west elevation, except the eastern end cottage which has been blocked. Above these doors, centred within the elevation, is a first floor window with a monolithic sandstone lintel. The east and west returns of the end cottages each have two small late-eighteenth-century first floor windows with plain lintels and projecting sills. The rear north elevation matches the south elevation in its arrangement of storeys, bays, and windows. Nineteenth-century doorways to the east or west of the ground floor windows have modern porches, and a modern window has been inserted to the first floor of the western semi-detached cottage. The rebuilt eastern link comprises two separate units: the east unit retains the eighteenth-century wall as a capped parapet over a flat-roofed utility room, and the west is modern with an arched key-stoned window beneath a pitched and coped slate roof.

Number 12 retains its two-room-deep plan consistent with a late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth-century date. The north room retains the original quarter winder stone staircase set behind a partition against the west wall, and a large re-used spine beam with exposed rafter mortices. The south room has squared ceiling beams. Both rooms have a single monolithic sandstone fireplace, and the south room has flanking built-in stone cupboards. Joinery mostly dates to the cottage's construction and includes the south room with panelled splayed window and hinged shutter leaves, simple moulded oak architraves, re-used agricultural timbers as door lintels, plank and batten doors with original hinge straps and handles, and a two-panelled cupboard door with HL-hinges and handles.

Number 14's two-room-deep ground floor plan survives, consistent with a late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth-century date. A central straight stone staircase is set between the spine walls of the ground floor north and south rooms, with a flagged cupboard beneath. The south room retains squared ceiling beams and a monolithic sandstone fireplace surround with flanking built-in stone cupboards, that to the east concealed behind plaster. A late-nineteenth-century partition forms a passage from the external southern door. Following twentieth-century subsidence, panelling has been inserted between the exposed square beams in the south room. The first floor's two-room-deep plan has been adapted with stud partitions creating three rooms and a bathroom. The central room retains a monolithic sandstone fire surround. The roof structure is reported to be queen post with roman numeral carpenters' assembly marks. Most joinery is original, dating to the cottage's construction, including simple moulded oak architraves, plank and batten doors on both floors with original hinge straps and handles, and re-used agricultural timbers with exposed mortices as door lintels. Nineteenth-century ground floor features include an under-stairs pantry with a four-panelled door, brass handle, and the letters WT engraved in the right panel. The initials match a wedding stone reset into patio steps. The pantry has nineteenth-century L-bracket shelving. On the first floor, a nineteenth-century square window is set in the internal spine wall of the north room with glass retained behind wallpaper.

The eastern linking unit's south half houses a modern kitchen but retains historic features including a nineteenth-century pine planked ceiling, two exposed beams with one bearing two metal hanging hooks, and two sliding roof ventilation windows.

A narrow flagged south courtyard has coursed sandstone and flag-capped boundary walls. The wall has been partially removed south of number 14, its materials reused to create a two-step patio with a wedding stone inscribed 'WT 29 1802 ?? 20'.