Ayscoughfee Hall

Ayscoughfee Hall

Ayscoughfee Hall is a medieval and later mansion built primarily of red brick—much of it medieval—with ashlar stone dressings, quoins, coped gables, crenellated parapets, tall brick ridge chimneys and slate roof coverings.

The building has a modified H-shaped plan, formed around an original open hall with cross-wings. Major extensions were added to the north cross-wing and a small addition to the south cross-wing in later periods.

The entrance front, facing west, presents a five-bay, two-storey central range with advanced gables to the north and south cross-wings. A striking five-bay loggia links the cross-wings, featuring pointed arch-headed openings with arcade piers and shallow stepped buttresses. These buttresses rise through a shallow ashlar parapet pierced by quatrefoils to form low domed pinnacles. Behind the loggia stand tall pointed arched windows flanking a centrally-placed doorway with slender attached columns and two-panelled double doors beneath an arched head. Above are five two-light Y-traceried windows with cusped lights, set below a corbelled string course. A low crenellated parapet crowns this composition, with a wide shallow broken pediment at its centre supporting a coat of arms surmounted by a stone eagle. The crenellated parapet continues along the inner side walls of the advanced cross-wings, which feature elaborate Dutch gables. These have full-height canted bays incorporating mullioned windows with ogee-headed lights and shallow crenellated parapets.

To the north of the north cross-wing stands a substantial 15th-century tower, square in plan and three storeys tall, with a much taller stair turret at its south-west corner. The turret, extended in the 19th century, has a crenellated parapet above machicolations. The tower's west elevation displays a tall transomed 19th-century two-light window to each upper floor beneath a deep parapet, while its north wall features a wide projecting chimney breast supported by stone corbels.

The rear south elevation reveals the building's complex developmental history. The steeply-pitched gables of the cross-wings are plainly detailed; the northern gable is now partially hidden behind mid-19th century extensions to the east of the cross-wing and tower. This gable has a first-floor three-light mullioned window beneath a hood mould. Adjoining it is a section of the rear wall of the former open hall and a much-restored medieval canted oriel window which originally lit the upper 'high' end of the open hall. Medieval brickwork here rises from a shallow stone plinth, now much decayed, with 19th-century crenellations added to the wall head and oriel. Further left is an advanced 19th-century extension to the hall, featuring an ashlar turret at the right-hand corner, a ground-floor doorway and an upper-floor two-light mullioned window. To its left stands a wide Tudor-arch-headed doorway with a three-pane rectangular over-light. The east gable of the south cross-wing has a ground-floor Venetian window with narrow side lights and intersecting glazing bars to the central section, and an enlarged first-floor opening retaining elements of two earlier window surrounds with hood moulds. The south elevation of the seven-bay two-storied section of the south cross-wing rises from a much earlier low stone plinth. It features late-19th-century two-pane sash windows to five western ground-floor bays and 19th-century two-light mullion and transom windows with hood moulds above, all beneath a crenellated parapet. The remaining two-bay section has no visible openings, with a single-storey garden room built against its east end in the late 19th century.

Interior

The building underwent significant early 21st-century alteration following its conversion to a museum. The principal ground and first-floor rooms now serve as display galleries, while the spacious arcaded entrance hall functions as a reception and sales area. A gallery above, supported by six slender columns with acanthus leaf capitals, is accessed via a stair hall in the central part of the north cross-wing. A curved half-turn stair with landings, plain iron balusters and a ramped iron handrail leads to the gallery, which links upper-floor display areas in both wings. The gallery ceiling, inserted beneath the medieval roof trusses of the open hall, displays Adam-style plasterwork decoration, as do the frieze below the iron balustrading and door and window reveals.

In the south cross-wing, most 19th-century interiors have been retained in the Library and Spalding Gentlemen's Society Room display areas. The Library is finished throughout in African mahogany with wall panelling, glass-fronted bookcases, panelled doors and moulded architraves. Other principal rooms in the cross-wings retain 18th and 19th-century hearths but have plain wall finishes and modern gallery lighting suited to their present function. The tower and its undercroft serve as display and storage areas, retaining much early fabric including remains of medieval door and window openings, a spiral stair in the stair turret, and at second-floor level, arch-braced roof trusses carried on corner post stubs. The 19th-century extensions to the north cross-wing house museum offices.

The conversion to museum use revealed substantial early fabric previously concealed by later remodellings. Most significantly, the original roof structures of the open hall and north and south cross-wings survive, each displaying different high-quality carpentry characteristics. The former open hall features arched-braced roof trusses with cambered tie beams and collars, ashlar posts, brattished wall plates, decorative pierced spandrels to the arch braces and two tiers of moulded purlins. The north wing roof comprises 47 closely-spaced pairs of scissor-braced and collared rafters carried on ashlar posts and wall plates. The south wing roof consists of queen post trusses supporting a single tier of purlins, with arch-braced collars and curved wind braces supporting the purlins. The variety of roof carpentry is remarkable for having apparently been erected in a single constructional phase. Dendrochronological sampling of the roof structures of the hall, tower and cross-wings produced a single site chronology with a tree-ring sequence spanning 1343–1451, strongly suggesting that timber used in all original parts was felled in or close to 1451. Other early interior features include moulded ogee-headed stone door surrounds, a vaulted brickwork undercroft and a cross-vaulted ribbed brickwork ceiling to a former staircase in the south cross-wing, partially removed when library bookcases were installed in the late 19th century.

Ayscoughfee Hall forms a group with the Garden Wall to Ayscoughfee Hall, the War Memorial in the gardens to Ayscoughfee Hall and the Parish Church of St Mary and St Nicholas.