PARK HOUSE (formerly listed as The Hall, New Street)

Park House, formerly known as The Hall, is a late 18th-century house built of red brick with ashlar dressings, slate and tile roof, three storeys and a basement. The building is encircled by a stone plinth and cornice, with a solid brick parapet topped with coping stones.

The western front is symmetrically arranged with five bays in a 1:3:1 pattern. The three central bays project slightly and are topped by a pediment containing a coat of arms flanked by swags. The central doorway features a porch with Ionic columns and responds, and a fluted frieze with an oval patera to the ceiling. Behind is a five-panelled door with an original fanlight decorated with delicate lead work between radiating spokes. On either side are arched ground-floor windows with a continuous cill band and a further band at the level of the arch springing. The first floor has a central window with shouldered ashlar architrave and brackets supporting the cill, flanked by 12-pane sash windows with stone cills. The second floor contains 6-pane sashes with stone cills; the central window has a lugged architrave. Stone-capped chimney stacks project from each side.

The eastern rear front features a large central bow of three bays with single bays either side and a continuous band at ground-floor window-cill level. A glazed door opens to the centre and left-hand bay. Ground-floor windows have 15 panes, first-floor windows 12 panes, and second-floor windows 6 panes. Single-storey 20th-century additions project from the north and south sides; both flanks have three bays of blind windows to the east, some fitted with 20th-century casements.

The interior has been considerably altered. The central staircase has been removed and rooms subdivided into flats, though the south-front service staircase survives with stone treads and a 20th-century wooden balustrade. The entrance hall on the west front has a relieving arch surrounding the fanlight, decorated with palm and frond ornament, roundels with harebell and ribbon details, and a rich cornice with mutules and oval florettes. The ceiling features panels with harebell and ribbon decoration.

The north-western room retains a rich cornice. The principal room to the east has a bowed east wall with frieze decorated in egg-and-dart pattern, sunken ceiling panels and guilloche mouldings to the ceiling border. The room above at first-floor level is more richly decorated with a dentilled cornice featuring egg-and-dart and a frieze with anthemia and vase ornament. Arched alcoves flank the southern chimney breast with arabesque ornament to their tympana and panelled soffits. Another first-floor room has a blocked arched opening, possibly originally for a bed alcove. Remaining rooms have plain cornice work or no decoration.

The house was formerly known as The Hall and is believed to have been built for the daughter of the family who owned the adjacent property, The Old Wall on New Street. Until the early 20th century the house had extensive gardens, now largely built over. A new road laid out to the north separated the house from its coach house and other service buildings. The house was converted to flats in the 1970s.