Cotesbach Hall

Cotesbach Hall is a large house built around 1700 for Edward Wells, a rector and professor at Oxford University. It was remodelled and extended in the early 18th century, circa 1720, for John Farshaw, another Oxford professor. A service wing was added around 1880 by Charles Marriott. The house is constructed of brick with stone dressings, and has a plain tile and slate twin-span roof with four gable stacks and one ridge stack, incorporating coped gables with kneelers. The north front features a slate roof.

The building has a double-depth plan with a central stairhall, with the left and right wings added circa 1720, and a rear left (northwest) service wing added around 1880. It is two storeys and an attic, with six bays. A moulded wooden cornice runs along the top of the front, and there is a first-floor band. The most prominent feature is a large, off-centre round-arched window with a central mullion and transom. Below it, to the left, is a 20th-century doorway with part-glazed double doors, an overlight, and a wooden latticed porch, flanked by single glazing-bar sashes with cambered arches. Above it to the left are three glazing-bar sashes. To the right are two glazing-bar sashes with cambered arches, and above to the right are two glazing-bar sashes. Three dormers feature shallow-pitched roofs and sashes.

To the left is a one-and-a-half-storey wing with a plain tile roof and a gabled shape. It has a flat-roofed, polygonal three-bay projection with a brick band, a parapet, and three glazing-bar sashes with cambered arches. To the right is a one-and-a-half-storey single-bay wing with a single glazing-bar sash with cambered arch, and a dormer with a shallow pitched roof and a two-light casement. Adjacent to the north is a late 19th-century ancillary range and an 18th-century brick boundary wall extending east for approximately 50 metres.

The interior includes a mid-18th-century staircase with an open string, two turned balusters per tread, and a moulded wreathed handrail. There is early 18th-century panelling, a moulded and dentilled cornice, and a moulded stone chimney piece in a ground floor room in the southeast corner. Other rooms retain good 18th-century moulded plates cornices, friezes and chimney pieces. Original 18th-century joinery remains, including panelled doors and an arch to the stairs. The house was purchased by the Marriott family in 1750, and they have lived there continuously since 1768.