Hare Hall

Hare Hall is a house dating from the late 16th century, with renovations carried out around 1965. The construction is timber-framed, with some portions built on yellow brick foundations from the 20th century, other areas plastered with exposed false framing, weatherboarded sections, and a roof covered in a mix of machine-made and handmade red clay tiles. The house comprises three bays aligned approximately north to south, with a 20th-century axial stack between the middle and north bays. There are single-storey lean-to extensions at each end of the building.

The house has two storeys. Most windows are 20th-century casements, with the exception of one original unglazed window on the upper storey of the rear elevation of the south bay, which retains three diamond mullions and 20th-century glazing. A 20th-century door is located at the rear, set within a glazed porch. The ground-floor walls are constructed of 20th-century brick. The upper storey of the west elevation, facing Hanging Hill Lane, is plastered with exposed false framing, while the upper storey of the rear elevation is weatherboarded.

The interior features unjowled posts, heavy studding with arched bracing trenched to the inside, and a timber frame constructed from high-quality oak, fully jointed and pegged. Much of the ground-floor studding is missing, with the exception of a cross-wall between the middle and south bays, where the external walls have been rebuilt in brick. The north and middle bays have chamfered axial and transverse beams with large lamb's tongue stops, along with exposed plain joists. In the south bay, the soffit of the axial beam has been removed to increase headroom. The upper storey retains much of the original studding and bracing. The wallplates are chamfered with run-out stops, and a splint was fitted early on to reinforce a scarf in the front wallplate, the type of scarf being uncertain. The roof retains its original clasped purlin structure with arched wind-bracing. The presence of lamb's tongue stops indicates a build date after 1565. The survival of the original unglazed window, along with the horizontal section of the joists, suggests a build date before 1600. The arched bracing within the studs and the roof’s form are consistent with this period. As the joists appear complete, the original heating would have been provided by a rear stack.