Gainsford Hall

Gainsford Hall is a manor house dating from the 16th century, with alterations made in the 18th and 19th centuries. It features a timber frame that is plastered and has a roof covered with handmade red clay tiles. The building consists of three bays aligned approximately east-west, with a northern aspect. There is an axial chimney stack at the west end and an 18th-century external chimney stack located at the rear of the second bay from the east end.

To the south, there is a three-bay east crosswing that includes an 18th-century internal chimney stack, as well as a single-storey extension with a catslide roof in the southwest angle. The west crosswing extends to the north and has an internal chimney stack against the west wall, which now terminates below the roof level, and the roof has been realigned to run east-west.

There is a long ancillary building to the north that retains many medieval features and is weatherboarded. The manor house is two storeys high and has a half-glazed door in a 19th-century gabled porch with fretted bargeboards. On the ground floor, there are three double-hung sash windows with 16 lights, and on the first floor, there are five windows, all dating from the late 18th century.

The east crosswing displays exposed high collar and purlin ends. It features an edge-halved and bridled scarf in the west wallplate, cranked braces to the collar, and an original east ground-floor window with three closely spaced moulded mullions that still retains its original ochre paint. The main range originally had a chimney stack in the short east bay, but this was removed in the 18th century. Inside, it has plain-chamfered beams and joists of horizontal section with step stops, and there are two front ground-floor windows, each with two moulded mullions and mortices for stiffening bars. On the first floor, there is an unglazed rear window with three diamond mullions. The wallplate scarfs are of a type not previously recorded, being face-halved and housed at both ends, and the roof features a crownpost design with plain posts and thin axial braces. The west wing has plain-chamfered beams with lamb's tongue stops and joists of horizontal section with die-away stops.