Middleton Hall

Middleton Hall is a house now serving as the preparatory department of Brentwood School. It dates to the 18th century with substantial additions made between 1898 and 1900. The building is constructed in red brick with stone dressings, with old peg tile and 20th-century tile roofs mostly concealed behind parapets. It is designed in Elizabethan style and follows an L-plan, comprising an early east-west block with an added wing to the north at the west end.

The exterior displays 2 and 3 storeys. The south front elevation is a plain 18th-century rectangular block with ruddled brickwork and tuck pointing, particularly evident at the west end. A parapet with cornice and lower stucco band was rebuilt around 1985, at which time stucco quoins were removed, although scars remain. The 18th-century fenestration at the east end comprises a 2-storey range of 4 first-floor windows with deep sashes of 3x4 panes. The west end is 3 storeys with 2 widely spaced windows—one at ground floor and one at first-floor level with sashes of 3x4 panes, and a second-floor window with one pane arrangement of 3x4 and one of 3x2. Two chimney stacks rise above to the west.

Centrally positioned is a late 19th-century 3-tiered stone porch in Elizabethan style, stepped back. The ground floor features 4 Tuscan columns flanking a central elliptical-headed doorway with 2 round-headed side lights. The door is 2-leaved with upper glazing and lower sunk panels, and a balustrade above with a central foliage panel. The first floor has a T-shaped mullioned and transomed bay window with 1:3:1 lights and a pierced strapwork balustrade swept up to the centre. The second floor displays a broad 5-light mullioned and transomed window surmounted by a parapet with a taller central device and coping swept up to enclose. To each side are similar late 19th-century mullioned and transomed windows, asymmetrical to accommodate existing differences in storeys.

At the east end is a large late 19th-century stone and brick bay window on the ground floor of 5 cants with similar windows—two of 2x3 panes, one of 3x3, two of 2x3—all with a pierced strapwork parapet featuring a central decorated lunette and stepped parapet.

The rear north elevation exposes the east half of the 18th-century block, similar to the west end of the south front and 3 storeys high. The first-floor windows are sashes with glazing bars of 3x4 panes; the second floor similarly has 3x2 panes. The ground floor at the east end contains a large 19th-century canted bay window similar to that on the south front, with 3 cants of 2x3, 3x3, and 2x3 panes and a plain parapet. Two 19th-century narrow windows have 1x2 panes, with a similar window of 2x2 panes. A sash window with glazing bars of 3x4 panes is of 18th-century type, and a double sash window follows with each 3x4 lights. To the west, a late 19th-century wing gable end incorporates a central stack and a 20th-century ground floor projection. A 19th-century sub-wing to the west has a large stack at the roof apex. Two ground-floor mullioned and transomed windows have 2x2 lights; the first floor displays 2 narrow windows of 1x2 lights and a corner diagonal oriel window on a corbel with 1x2, 2x2, and 1x2 lights.

To the east of the 18th-century house are later 19th- and 20th-century additions not of special interest and not part of this listing. The 18th-century stucco quoins survive at ground floor level at the east end.

The west end elevation to the south shows the 18th-century house similar to other elevations with tuck pointing, a parapet with cornice and stucco band, and quoins removed. It is 3 storeys with sash windows: first-floor windows of 3x4 panes and second-floor windows of 3x2 panes. On both levels, the second window in from the south has been altered, with the upper window now louvred and the lower blocked. One 18th-century window at the ground floor south end has 3x4 panes. To the north is a 19th-century 5-cant bay window similar to those on the south and north elevations, with north-south cants: one blank, one 2x2, one 3x2, one 2x2, and a sash with glazing bars of 3x4 panes.

To the north is a 2-storeyed 19th-century wing with a recessed bay adjoining the old house. The ground floor has a 5-panelled door with lights above and to the sides. The first floor features a mullioned and transomed window of 3x2 lights, followed by bay windows through both floors with an attic gable, each with mullioned and transomed double 2x2-light windows and a pierced strapwork parapet above. Another bay has flush windows and an attic gable with both windows double 2x2 lights, topped by a bulls-eye with 4 keystones in the attic gable. A diagonal oriel on the first floor at the north end is visible on the north elevation.

The east end elevation shows, to the south, a 2-storey 18th-century house similar to the south elevation with quoins removed, though the ground floor is obscured by later additions. At the first floor's south end are two 3x4 sash windows with glazing bars; some repointed brickwork shows a vertical straight joint at the centre line. Behind to the north is a 19th-century block with an additional recessed linking bay to the 18th-century house. The link has a ground-floor panelled door with lights above and to the sides, and above, a first-floor window of 3x2 lights. The main 19th-century block comprises 5 bays with a pierced parapet, end stacks, and a facade gable with a keystone roundel at the north end. The second bay from the south has a tall ground-floor window elaborated with clasping pilasters and blank intermediate panels between a pair of upper and a pair of lower lights; above is strapwork and an elliptical bulls-eye with 4 keystones. Moving south to north, bays 1 and 2 have 2x2-light windows, bay 3 has 1x2 lights, and the north bay has 3x2 lights. A 20th-century ground-floor extension to the north is not of special interest.

Internally, the building was considerably reworked in the late 19th century with late 18th-century and Jacobean-style decoration of ceilings, friezes, and fireplaces. The central staircase in the 18th-century block is now boarded in but follows 18th-century style. The anomaly of the 2 and 3-storey division of the 18th-century block apparently derives from the 18th-century house once being L-shaped, with 3 storeys at the west end, which was the principal front. Floor-board alignment suggests a central west-east passage from the west side. A thick internal wall breached through, running south to north on the east side of the present hallway, appears once to have been a load-bearing wall defining the rear extent of the house, which, from window evidence on the north side, continued as a wing towards the east. The 2-storeyed area to the southeast appears to be a later 18th-century addition, infilling an internal angle, hence the straight joint visible on the east side. When the parapet of the whole 18th-century house was renewed around 1985, timber-framing was reported to have been found in the brick walling of the southeast section. It is likely that the L-shape of the first brick build was dictated by an earlier 17th-century timber-framed building in the internal angle, which would explain the anomalies and make the house an example of alternate rebuilding. The rearrangement of the house making the south front the principal elevation probably dates to the late 19th century, when the elaborate porch was added.

A cellar lies beneath part of both the 18th- and 19th-century blocks. Two brick culverts exit from the cellar beneath the north side of the 18th-century house. A water cistern, now with a man-hole cover, lies to the east of the 18th-century house. Middleton Hall, together with the garden wall east and wall and railings west, form a group.