The Hall House

REDDITCH B LOWER GRINSTY LANE (south side) SP 06 NW

1/127 The Hall House

GV II

Hall-house, used as outbuilding, now dwelling. c1550, altered and extended early C17; restored late C20. Timber-framed with painted brick infill on brick base; plain tiled roofs. One-and-a-half framed bays aligned east/west; east half-bay is lower in height. Large sandstone and brick chimney at junction of bays with brick ridge stack; single storey and attic Framing: west bay has two rows of square panels from sill to wall-plate, short straight upper corner braces and a collar and tie-beam truss with two struts at its west end; east half-bay has two rows of rectangular panels and a collar and tie-beam truss with four struts beneath the collar and a single strut above. Main north elevation: west bay has a 2-light C20 ground floor casement with leaded lights and a ledged and battened door to right; east half-bay has a similar door. Attic light in west gable end. Interior not inspected but recorded as having a large fireplace with chamfered mantel-beam; it probably had a timber-framed smoke hood originally replaced by two inch bricks in C17. Floor was inserted in C17, now removed. It is probable that the house consisted of just the main west bay originally and the east half-bay was added in C17 when the building became part of the adjacent Lower Grinsty Farmhouse (qv). The east truss is identical to that on the north gable end of the farmhouse and the fact that originally no communication between the bays would support this theory. An inventory of 1617 suggests that "the hall-house" became the dining hall to the farmhouse and the addition a parlour. However it is possible that the "hall-house" in question may be the hall inside the main building as is usually assumed, in which case may have become a separately tenanted dwelling with an attached workshop or animal shed. The Hall House and the farmhouse form an unusual and remarkably well-preserved domestic group of considerable interest. (BoE, p 152; Richard Harris, Survey for Avoncroft Museum of Buildings, January 1984; FWB & Mary Charles, Conservation of Timber Buildings, 1984, p 77).

Listing NGR: SP0232765598