Little Warley Hall

Little Warley Hall is a hall and service unit of a larger building that once extended to the west, now used as a house. The building dates from the early 16th century, with later phases around 1600 and 20th-century alterations. It is constructed of red brick with diaper work in black burnt headers in essentially English bond, with a peg-tile roof and some 20th-century flat tile repairs. A chimney stack is intruded through the apex towards the west end.

The building has a rectangular plan with two storeys and an attic. All windows are 20th-century replacements with wooden mullioned and transomed frames and lattice panes.

The north front elevation is dominated by the early 16th-century hall and upper chamber block. A reduced service bay to the east has a hipped roof now abutting the end wall of the upper chamber. The north front of the hall features a projecting two-storey porch to the cross passage at the east end and a lateral chimney stack central to the hall. A string course runs between the ground and first floors. The porch has a two-centred doorway with moulded brick square hood-mould and a 20th-century door, diagonally boarded with studs and strap hinges. The porch first floor has an original window opening partially blocked with smaller windows of three lights, with a hood mould above and a crow-stepped gable. The lateral stack has canted sides. There are two circular stacks with zigzag decoration, bell bases with trefoil corbel table, and one plain square stack behind at the roof apex. The hall and upper chamber each have two windows, one on each side of the stack: two have three lights and one has four lights. Two lines of straight jointing of the brickwork through both floors to the west of the stack suggest rebuilding of the hall and chamber around the originally largest windows at the high end. The service bay has a ground floor original window opening with chamfered brickwork, now with a three-light window, and a 20th-century two-light window above on the first floor. To the east is a 20th-century single-storey link and cross-wing block, not of special interest and not included in this listing.

The rear south elevation of the hall and chamber block has a full-height 19th-century battered brick buttress added on the southwest corner. Off-centre to the east is a projecting garderobe tower with diaper work rising to the upper chamber. It has an arched opening now blocked at ground level, with a roof pitch continuous with the main roof and a small fixed window on the upper floor. Large areas of walling to the west of the garderobe, where diapering is absent and burnt headers are randomly distributed, suggest considerable later rebuilding. At ground floor to the east is an original rectangular rear cross-passage door opening with double-chamfer moulded frame and original wooden moulded head. The doorway now has 20th-century French windows in similar style to other windows of the house, with a similar French window at the west end. Each side of the garderobe tower is a window: one of three lights and one of two lights. The first floor has three three-light windows. The west elevation has one three-light window on each floor; the brickwork is different on the upper floor, showing rebuilding in Flemish bond. Ground floor brickwork has wooden inserted blocks horizontally at intervals, perhaps for attaching panelling to walls of a solar room now demolished. The east elevation is mainly obscured, with an attic window in the gable.

The interior shows a clear division between hall and cross-entry. The inner porch doorway has a square door frame in brick and timber with rich moulding (roll in hollow, cyma and hollow chamfers) and a four-centred arched doorhead with rose and molet in the spandrels. Interior spandrels are decorated with shields of arms. One four-centred arched service door is exposed with deep mouldings (double ogee with high stop), and spandrels decorated with a rose and a shield. The ground-floor hall has a high ceiling with roll-moulded cornice and principal and common joists board-panelled between. Central to the original hall length is a large fireplace with four-centred arch and double ogee mouldings, with foliage and shield decoration in the spandrels. A second door, similar to the service door, leads from the hall to the parlour area. The first-floor chamber was apparently as ornate as the hall; the high cornice remains, similar in style. A newel staircase, dating from around 1600, is set within the hall area immediately to the west of the garderobe tower. It has flat balusters with raking mouldings, a moulded handrail and square moulded newels. The hall ceiling has been cut away to accommodate it, and secondary internal partitioning surrounds it. There are three reset and partly reworked original 16th-century doorways giving hall-stair and first-floor access. The upper end of the hall has been divided off by a cross wall, probably 19th-century, that carries the stack intruded through the roof. Until the late 19th century, a north-facing double-gabled early 17th-century plaster-fronted range extended to the west (a painting of this is held by the owner). The house has been restored several times. It is probable that the early 17th-century stair has been repositioned in 19th-century subdivision of the two ground-floor rooms and may have come from the 17th-century western range, now gone. The service bay has been considerably altered, but the original end-braced axial first-floor joist with common plain joists mortices is exposed.