Queen Hoo Hall

Queen Hoo Hall is a country house built circa 1570-85, probably for J. Smyth. It stands as a substantial example of late 16th-century domestic architecture, with minor alterations from around 1800 and the 20th century.

The building is constructed of red brick in English bond with black brick diapering and cement rendered dressings. It has a steeply pitched tiled roof. The plan follows the traditional three-room arrangement in a rectangle, with two full-height projecting 'prospect tower' bay windows and a staircase wing to the rear. The house has two storeys with an attic and cellar, and presents a four-window front elevation.

The entrance is positioned in the screens passage to the right of the hall, with a plank and muntin door set in timber jambs and lintel, without an original porch. The hall windows are six-light mullion and transom casements with lattice lights and ovolo moulded surrounds, with one on the ground floor and two on the first floor. A small blocked opening with a moulded brick surround exists on the ground floor near the lower end of the hall. The plinth is moulded cement rendered, and the first floor displays diamond brick diapering. Eaves are slightly raised and swept out.

The projecting bay window at the parlour end has a later entrance featuring a chamfered four-centred arched head. The first floor of this bay has a six-light window matching the hall, with a three-light mullioned attic window above. The bay window at the lower end is similar, with six lights on the ground floor. The shaped kneelers to the moulded brick gable parapets have three original honeycombed finials.

The left gable end contains ground floor and first floor six-light mullion and transom windows, with two lights in the attic. Black brick diapering appears in the gable with shaped kneelers to the tumbled-in brick parapet. The right gable end has an inserted plank door, three lights on the ground floor, a first floor cross casement, two lights in the attic, and kneelers to the brick parapet.

To the rear, a staircase wing stands behind the screens passage. Three large external stacks with hearths serve each room. The stair wing has two two-light casements, a blocked opening with moulded brick surround, and a hipped roof, with an entrance in the right return. The hall stack adjoins the stair wing, with a tiled offset above the eaves, and tapers upward to paired diagonal shafts with oversailing caps. The parlour stack is similar but with only one offset to the right. The kitchen stack is larger, with three diagonal shafts, and is incorporated into an early 19th-century scullery outshut with a catslide roof and a 20th-century dormer. To the rear and extending to the left is a single-storey 20th-century outbuilding with a hipped roof.

Internally, the ground floor and first floor hall and parlour contain stone fireplaces with ovolo moulded depressed Tudor arches, splayed at the springings, and moulded square heads. A stop-chamfered timber lintel surmounts the larger kitchen fireplace. Partition walls display panel framing of large scantling with stop-chamfered binding beams. The staircase features a framed central newel with cupboards, representing a transitional form between the solid newel and the open well. The roof is of tenoned purlin construction.

On the first floor in the room over the parlour are late 16th-century wall paintings depicting an Old Testament scene, probably Solomon worshipping False Gods, and a decorative frieze of foliage, scroll-ornamented panels and sinopia work.

The house is historically associated with J. Strutt's Queenhoo Hall, a Romance completed by Walter Scott in 1808, which was set at this location.