Michaelchurch Court, Steps And Terrace Walls To Entrance Front

Michaelchurch Court is a substantial house dating from the 16th and early 17th centuries, altered and extended around 1866 by the architect G F Bodley for Guy Trafford. The building is constructed of coursed rubble with timber-frame, has a stone slate roof, and tall rubble stacks.

The house is planned as an L-shape, with a main range presenting its combined entrance and garden front facing east, and a cross-wing that projects eastwards from the south end of the main range over a cellar. A prominent porch range projects from and masks much of the east front of the main range. Large chimney stacks rise from the rear of the main range and the south side of the cross-wing, with an end stack at the north gable. The building comprises two storeys and attics.

The porch range is notably timber-framed with three gables, displaying close-stud and quadrant brace decoration on a rubble base. Fenestration across the front elevations is varied: the main range has six windows on each storey and two on the second storey; the porch range has three on the ground storey and two on the first; the cross-wing has one window on each main storey. Most windows are mullioned and transomed with lead quarries set in metal casements. The porch range features two- and three-light casements on its ground and first storeys respectively. The cross-wing's ground storey has a five-light window under a late 19th-century segmental hood; the first storey has five smaller lights, and the gable contains three lights. The main front shows a blocked entrance (now a single large light to the right of the cross-wing), a five-light 19th-century window, a two-light window to the left of the main entrance, and two further two-light 19th-century casements to its right. The first floor features a two-light casement above the blocked entrance, a two-light window partly obscured by the porch, a two-light casement, and casements serving each of the three bays of the jettied timber-framed upper portion of the porch range. The attic storey contains two four-light dormers with cambered and embattled tie-beams beneath gables containing quadrant-braces. The entrance itself lies beneath the south bay of the early 17th-century porch, flanked by two layers of plank and muntins.

The rear elevation displays random mullioned and transomed fenestration, probably largely from the late 19th or early 20th century, except for four evenly spaced dormers with three lights beneath each gable. A side entrance from the north, immediately to the rear of the porch range, features a framed oak door frame with three chamfered mullions and a fanlight above a nail-studded six-panelled 17th-century door.

The interior is remarkably rich in period detail. The porch features elaborate plasterwork with interlacing motifs of grapes and leaves enclosing the date 1602 and the initials MLCEN P, a grotesque face above large chamfered door posts, and a 19th-century twelve-panelled nail-studded door. Floors are flagged throughout. The principal room to the left of the entrance contains 19th-century panelling, whilst to the right is a 17th-century-style dog-leg staircase, probably largely 19th-century in execution though rising in part from a genuine 17th-century structure, with a two-light window in its rear wall. The main front room of the cross-wing retains 17th-century panelling and fireplace. Behind the cross-wing is a plastered wall of posts and rails with remains of decorative early 17th-century floral painting. An early 18th-century repositioned door surround stands in the cross-wing at the foot of the 19th-century staircase.

The first floor includes another 17th-century panelled room with a contemporary plaster ceiling in the cross-wing. The chief room of the main range contains a circa 1800 Dale cast iron basket grate and two conch niches, probably from the 1930s. To the rear is a 1930s bathroom retaining its original bath, tiling, and heated towel rail. The landing at the junction of the cross-wing and main range features broach stop-chamfered beams, with a blocked segmental head through the timber-framed wall between the two parts. Above the porch is a close-studded partition, with external decorative quadrant braces visible from the interior. The attic room of the main range spans six roofing bays and contains three types of roof truss: open uncollared triangular trusses; queen struts rising to the collar from the tie-beam; and a central post rising from tie to collar. Three rows of purlins run beneath.

The walls and steps to the east front are possibly by G F Bodley.