Beckford Hall

Beckford Hall is a large house situated on Main Street in Beckford, originally the site of an Augustinian priory founded around 1128. The building was substantially rebuilt in the early 17th century and altered and extended during the mid-19th century. It is now divided into five separate dwellings.

The house is constructed of coursed dressed limestone rubble with limestone ashlar dressings, and has a plain tiled, multi-gabled roof concealed behind a parapet, punctuated by large ashlar stacks. It is two storeys high, with an attic and a cellar, and features dripmoulds over the windows. The main façade has seven bays, with 3-light chamfered mullion and transom windows on both the main floors. The attic storey has seven gabled dormers, each with a parapet, 2-light mullioned windows, and hood moulds, with skylights positioned between them.

A central gabled porch with a tall parapet and ornate corner finials provides access to the building. It features a moulded plinth and a central doorway with a 4-centred head, moulded relief decoration in the spandrels, and flanking rectangular leaded lights. An inscription panel, set within the parapet above the doorway, is surrounded by strapwork and topped with a pediment, displaying the inscription "NISI: CRUCE: MUNIT: HOMO:/ NULLA: SOLUS: EST: IN: DOMO" and a relief of a cross on a shield. The sides of the porch have large rectangular windows, and are accessed by a flight of six steps.

A three-storey addition from the 19th century extends from the left side, featuring a moulded eaves cornice and two bays. The left bay projects as a shallow full-height gabled wing with 5-light mullioned windows on each floor, the ground floor window having two transoms, and the upper storey windows having a single transom. The right bay includes rectangular windows on each floor (two on the first floor). The building has extensive rear additions, primarily from the 19th century, matching the detailing of the main structure.

The south elevation incorporates a central square tower with an embattled parapet and an oriel window on the first floor. A former 19th-century chapel, located to the north-east, has large pointed windows with Perpendicular tracery. A figure, possibly of a bishop, is set within an ogee-arched, crocketted, and finialed niche at the north gable end, flanked by slender pilaster buttresses with crocketted pinnacles.

Internally, a large open-well staircase features turned balusters and ornate foliated carving at the rear of the main 17th-century range. The south-east end of the building is believed to be situated above a 12th-century vaulted crypt, and a ground floor room in this area is said to have an elaborately carved ceiling with naturalistic detailing. The chapel is reported to have retained its painted ceiling. Beckford Hall was formerly the seat of the Wakeman family in the 16th century and was later used as a theological college until 1975.