Lane Head

A house dating to the late 17th century, it was altered into three cottages and has recently been restored to a single residence. The construction incorporates ashlar facing, with thin, coursed rubble to the return walls and rear, featuring dressed quoins. The roof is covered with stone slates and has coped gables with kneelers. The house is double pile, arranged with a three-room front and a through passage. A plinth and string course run above the ground-floor windows. The windows are double-chamfered mullioned, including a five-light window with a lowered sill and a five-light window above it on the first floor. An inserted doorway bears a recut lintel inscribed “1627 RF: MF” (Rachel Foxcroft, Michael Foxcroft). The front facade also showcases a six-light window with a lowered sill, a two-light fire-window, an eight-light window above it, a through-passage doorway with a straight lintel and chamfered surround, and a three-light window above that, and an eight-light window with a four-light window above it on the first floor. The right-hand return wall features a three-light window to each floor. The rear elevation has chamfered mullioned windows of four and five lights, positioned either side of the rear doorway which has composite jambs, and a seven-light window above it on the first floor. Further windows on the rear include chamfered mullioned windows of three and four lights, alongside a mullioned and transomed stair window of six lights. Gable stacks and a rear stack are visible on the through-passage side.

The interior through passage has an inserted 17th-century oak staircase with finely turned gun-barrel balusters, originally from the Manor House, East Hardwick. The rear doorway of the passage features a Tudor arched lintel with a chamfered surround. The main body of the house includes scarf-jointed spine beams, evidence of a former bressumer, 17th-century oak panelling with a carved frieze (imported from Earlesheaton Hall, Dewsbury when it was demolished), and widely spaced floor joists. A rear stair in its original position is a dog-leg and also reuses a 17th-century staircase with finely turned gun-barrel balusters. A fine mid-16th-century oak linenfold panelled door from Earlesheaton Hall is incorporated into the north parlour. The building appears to have initially been a single-depth house; the internal wall of the later double-pile construction relates to the earlier build, retaining its original Tudor arched doorway to the rear of the through passage, now forming an internal porch. Originally, the east end of the house was unheated, possessing its own ladder stair to the upper chamber which did not connect to the rest of the house. This suggests its utilization for cloth storage or manufacture within a wealthy yeoman-clothier's dwelling.