Dowsby Hall

Dowsby Hall is a country house dating from the 16th and early 17th centuries, probably designed by John Thorpe, with later alterations from the 18th and 19th centuries. The building is constructed of limestone ashlar and coursed limestone rubble, with slate double ridge roofs topped by stone coped gables featuring kneelers and small knopped obelisks at the apex. Four chimney stacks stand in the central valley between the roofs, one with three tall angle shafts and three others with tall paired angle shafts.

The house originally comprised three storeys plus basement and garrets, though the southern section of the east front has been significantly altered. Four of the original seven bays were demolished in the late 18th century, leaving only three northern bays. The basement level features two two-light cavetto mullion windows to the left and a single three-light cavetto mullion window in a canted three-storey bay window to the right. The main floors retain tall mullion windows with transoms, many with upper lights now blocked. A projecting moulded cornice runs across the facade above the first floor. The second floor contains notable corbelled and uncorbelled bay windows crowned with gablets and obelisks on kneelers and apex.

The south wall contains a doorway with moulded case that originally led into the screens passage, now fitted with double glazed doors and a 19th-century gabled lattice work porch. Moulded string courses mark the first and second floor levels.

The four-bay west front features a doorway with double glazed doors and a continuation of the wooden lintel over a two-light casement to the left. A canted three-storey bay window to the left has had its top floor removed. The north front, constructed of rubble with ashlar dressings, contains a mid-19th-century doorway set within a projecting gabled porch with semi-circular head, raised keystone, traceried fanlight and double panelled doors. A single-storey mid-19th-century curving stock brick addition stands to the right with three casements with segmental heads. The north elevation also features a "launder box" dated 1630, and a series of mullion windows with moulded cornices across multiple levels. Early 20th-century modifications include a plank door inserted into an existing opening. Two gablets with knopped obelisks on kneelers flank a smaller central gablet containing blocked two-light mullion windows.

Interior features include a cellar with beamed ceiling, notably containing a very long 16th-century chamfered beam probably salvaged from a former timber-frame hall on the site, and a brick-lined well. A 17th-century oak fielded panelled billiards room retains a chamfered beam and small panelled cupboard doors flanking the fireplace. An early 18th-century bolection moulded dining room and mid-18th-century marbled panelled drawing room were inserted into the original hall space. A 19th-century staircase serves the upper floors. The lower attic room to the south contains an early 17th-century ashlar fireplace with four-centred head, angled shoulders and simply moulded surround. The roofs contain two floors of garrets with numbered trusses; breaks in the sequence of numbering reveal that the roof has been truncated to the south.

Excavations carried out in 1972 by D. Roberts established the original dimensions of the house. Roberts has suggested that the reconstructed symmetrical front can be linked with designs by John Thorpe made on behalf of Sir William Rigdon of Dowsby. Following Rigdon's sale of the estate to Richard Burrell before the plans were executed, the latter erected a modified design. Roberts believes that drawings in the Thorpe Album reveal the process of discussion, correction and adaptation of plans leading towards the design of Dowsby Hall before its late 18th-century truncation.