Norland Town House and the Cottage

Norland Town House and The Cottage is a house, partly now a separate cottage, with a complex history reflecting several phases of building, a 16th-century core and substantial additions dating primarily to the 17th century. The construction is of coursed squared stone with a timber-framed core, covered by a stone slate roof. The house originally comprised a hall with cross-wings, with an aisle to the rear (north) and a wing added to the front (south).

The house has two storeys and four bays. The south-facing garden front features three gables, the left one being a two-bay gable with a lower roofline on its right side. The left wing has a plinth. It features double-chamfered mullion windows on the ground floor, including a four-light window, a nine-light window with a king mullion, and a three-light opening now serving as a doorway, all set under a continuous dripmould. The first floor has three-light and six-light windows with king mullions, each under a dripmould, with an arched window to the right. A break in the masonry separates this section from the next bay, which contains a chamfered doorway with tiestones, now a window, alongside a four-light, now a two-light, double-chamfered window under a roundel-stopped hoodmould and a similar two-light window above under a heart-and-lozenge-stopped hoodmould. The right wing projects forward, with a three-light chamfered window and a matching two- and three-light window above (mullions have been removed). A lean-to porch from approximately 1980 is located on the ground floor right. Rainwater spouts run down between the gables, and there are kneelers, moulded coping, and finial bases.

Several chimneys are present: a rebuilt stack to the right of bay three, two to the right end of the hall ridge behind (one rebuilt and one truncated), one to the ridge of the right wing, and one to the left of the ridge of bays one and two, with the latter being corniced and featuring diamond-set flues.

At the rear, the left wing has a three-light chamfered window, with an inserted window above. The hall has a moulded, basket-arched doorway with an ogee moulding to the lintel, a small two-light chamfered fire window, a nine-light double-chamfered mullion and transom window with king mullions, and a low-sloping roof over the aisle. The right wing has an inserted window and a stop-chamfered door on its right side. The left return exhibits a three- and three-light single-chamfered window, with a four-light, now two-light, double-chamfered mullion window above, and a chamfered arched window to the first floor right with a rainwater spout to its right. The right return has a four-light double-chamfered mullion window to the ground floor left, and surviving surround of another window to the right.

The hall interior reveals a large, 17th-century, moulded segmental-arched fireplace, arcade posts with curved braces to plate, and, to the west, an original closing truss with a mid rail and close studding above, curved braces, and a collar rafter roof with two queen strut trusses; the central truss has a tie-beam with a moulded soffit. The west wing is reported to contain panelling to the front (south) ground floor room, chamfered cross-beams, and a central truss with heavily-jowled posts, a cambered tie-beam with a morticed soffit for a former partition, and a king post. Relevant historical documentation includes H P Kendall's "Ancient Halls of Norland" and the RCHM(E) report (31469).