Cotton College

Cotton College, originally known as Cotton Hall, is a late 18th-century house that has undergone significant alterations and additions. The core of the building is red brick with painted ashlar dressings and a slate-covered Mansard roof, while later additions, particularly those designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin between 1846 and 1931, utilize ashlar and red and brown brick with ashlar dressings and plain tile roofs. Additional 19th-century extensions employ ashlar with edged herringbone tooling and shaped tile roofs with plain tile bands and coped verges. The building presents a symmetrical 18th-century design incorporating Gothic details.

The original 18th-century section, aligned north-west to south-east and facing southwest, was extended to the northeast in 1846-8 and another wing, aligned northeast to southwest, was added in 1874-5, projecting from the northwest end. A further extension of 1886-7 runs parallel to the original structure and attaches to the northwest. The 18th-century block is three stories on the left and two stories on the right, sharing a common roofline, with a central two-story semi-octagonal projection featuring a pointed hipped roof. The left-hand range exhibits a central straight joint, revealing earlier construction of the two rightmost bays; it contains glazing bar sashes with horns and wedge lintels, with the second-floor windows having cambered heads. A two-leaf half-glazed door is set within a Tuscan portico supported by fluted columns. The central projection features glazing bar sashes on the ground floor and four-pane sashes above. The right-hand range has a first-floor sill band, a ground floor sill band, glazing bar sashes, and cambered heads to the second-floor windows. Corbelled eaves and attic dormers are present throughout.

The Pugin additions of 1846-8 comprise a three-story gabled block to the left and a lower ashlar building to the right. The left-hand block features six-light mullioned and transomed windows to the ground and first floors, a two-story bay window with a hipped roof on the left, and casements on the second floor. The right-hand block includes a single-story and attic range with a gabled bay containing a segmental pointed door, a pair of Carnarvon arch lights above, and a ball finial. A single-story passage links this section to the Church of St. Wilfrid. The 1874-5 wing is two stories with a high basement, featuring buttresses, a square tower with chamfered corners, basement windows with three lights, ground-floor windows with two trefoil-headed lights above a transom and supermullions, segmental pointed second-floor windows with trefoil-headed lights and reticulation, and dormers with shaped barge boards. The interior includes a Victorian staircase with turned balusters. The building retains stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops.