Lapley Hall

Lapley Hall is a house with a 17th-century core and substantial alterations carried out in the 1870s by Colonel Swinfen. The house is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and details, and has a red machine tile roof with side stacks containing multiple flues. It has a large “T” shaped plan, with a single gable front of two storeys and a gable lit attic. The left side features a two-tiered dressed stone buttress on a massive stack, which includes a stone-dressed niche at first-floor level and stellar-plan brick flues. Even stone quoins are present on the right side. The front elevation has three-light stone-dressed sash windows from 1875, with a mullioned and transomed bay on the ground floor. A pent porch, also of 1875, is set well back in an angle to the right, featuring a stone Tudor arched head and stepped label over a coat of arms. The interior includes massive 17th-century beamed ceilings on the first floor, which are not related to the 19th-century altered plan. During the Civil War, the hall served as a parliamentary garrison with 70 men and was captured in 1643 by Cole Heveninghem, as documented in a contemporary description.