Walford Hall And Garden Wall Attached To Rear Right Corner

Walford Hall is a small country house, now used as an agricultural training college, dating from the early 18th century with substantial remodelling in the mid-19th century, and later additions and alterations. It is constructed of red brick with a slate roof. The building follows a U-plan, with eaves raised in the 19th century. It is three storeys high, featuring 19th-century dentilled cornices to the gables. The symmetrical façade has five bays across the central range, interrupted by a two-storey mid-19th century porch located roughly in the centre. Original flush-framed glazing bar sashes are present, some retaining original thick glazing bars, with gauged heads and projecting stepped keystones; one window on the first floor is blind and painted to imitate original features, and another on the ground floor is also dummy. Small four-paned sashes are found on the second floor of the central range. The porch has a flat roof with a moulded stone entablature and a tripartite sash window on the first floor, incorporated within Tudor archways, with contemporary half-glazed double doors. Oval-shaped iron discs are set into the left gable at ground and first floor levels. A central axial red brick ridge stack has three attached and rebated shafts, and a red brick stack in the roof slope to the right features four attached and rebated shafts. Similar stacks are present at the rear. The rear elevation is arranged in bays of 2:3:3:2, again with glazing bar sashes, the gables of which project. A single-storey mid-19th century canted bay is located in the centre of the rear range. Attached to the rear right corner of the right gable is an early 18th-century garden wall, constructed of red brick with ramped sandstone coping, approximately 100 metres long, featuring a bow projecting to the north towards the west end. The interior of the central entrance hall showcases a decorated plaster cornice and a 19th-century ceiling. An early 18th-century dog-leg staircase rises to the second floor, with a moulded wreathed handrail on the bottom flight and carved floral decoration to the tread ends; it has three balusters to each tread, one twisted, one fluted, and one turned, alongside a panelled dado. The second flight of the staircase, leading to the second floor, has three turned balusters to each tread. A rear left room on the ground floor contains a late 17th or early 18th-century coffered plaster ceiling, displaying a rich variety of floral patterns with pendants to the panels, and mainly geometrical designs to the stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops. An infilled fireplace with a fluted pilastered surround is likely from the early 18th century. A mid-19th century plaster ceiling, similar to that in the entrance hall, is found in the rear canted bay.