Thorpe Hall

Thorpe Hall, now a store, is a large house principally of the 18th century, though incorporating earlier fabric. It is located on the east side of Middleton Lane, off Thorpe on the Hill. The building is constructed of red brick with sandstone dressings, with the ground floor rendered. It has a slate roof and an L-shaped double-pile plan, with a rear service wing.

The main facade is three stories high and five bays wide, designed in a symmetrical Classical style. It features rusticated long-and-short quoins, a first-floor band, and a central doorway within a moulded architrave, topped by scrolled consoles and a pediment resting on the band. The windows are rectangular at ground and first floors, and square at second floor, all with moulded architraves. The ground-floor window heads have been altered and blocked, while those on the first floor have 12-pane sashes, and the second-floor windows are blocked. Moulded gutter brackets support a hipped roof with chimneys behind the ridge. The left return wall, of five bays, includes two bays that are a continuation of the service wing under a carried-down roofline. A doorway with a moulded architrave and pediment is in the third bay. Windows on this return wall have plain surrounds, many of which are blocked. The right return wall, of three bays, also has similar windows, except for a Venetian stairlight in the first floor of the third bay, and some have thick glazing bars. Lead downspouts are positioned along side walls and the rear angle, featuring decorated rainwater heads engraved with "1 7 MPMP 3 5," where “1 7” is presented as a monogram. The side wall of the service wing has sashed windows with original glazing bars (four at ground floor, three above).

The interior of the service wing retains a timber wall-post, wall-plate, and brace from an earlier building. A central passage connects the front range and service wing, leading to a dog-leg staircase with an open string, scrolled brackets, two balusters per tread, a ramped handrail, and a wreathed curtail. A wide stone-arched inglenook fireplace, now blocked and altered to accommodate a cooking range, is located in the kitchen at the rear of the passage. The principal rooms on the first floor are exceptionally well decorated. The right-hand front room, a saloon, is in the Classical style, with shouldered architraves to doors, a moulded fireplace with cornice on two consoles and a shouldered overmantel panel with a broken pediment. Other wall panels are surrounded by egg-and-dart moulding, and a modillioned plaster cornice adorns the ceiling. Two panelled rooms are located in the rear part of the building, partitioned by double-layer panelling: one room has square bolection-moulded panels with fluted pilasters, and the other is in a late 16th or early 17th century Renaissance style with fluted pilasters, a richly-moulded frieze, and a dentilled cornice (both potentially relocated). Panelling from two other rooms has been removed for storage or exhibition elsewhere. Thorpe Hall served as the seat of the Gascoigne and Proctor families.