Letchworth Hall Hotel

The Letchworth Hall Hotel is a complex building with a history spanning the late medieval period to the 20th century. The core of the building likely dates to around 1470-90, probably built for Thomas Snagge, and is evidenced by the four-way strutted crown-post roof in the south range. In the early 17th century, the Lytton family significantly altered the building, rebuilding the hall and south range and adding a north cross wing that contained a two-story solar block (west end), a staircase (centre), and a new kitchen range (east end).

Major changes occurred in the late 19th century, around the 1870s, when the Alington family demolished the north cross wing and replaced it with a range featuring a central tower. The north-east wing was rebuilt in 1935-6 by Parker and the southwest wing, built circa 1911-2 by Murray Henell, originally served as a golf club. The roof is now a modern tiled construction, with the hall itself re-roofed with modern open timber trusses. Modern, clustered Tudor-Gothic brick chimney stacks have been added.

The original medieval timber-framed building has been replaced by an early 17th century red brick structure with a plinth. The south wing retains original coped gables with octagonal finials, though these have lost their original caps; other gables are modern replicas of this style. A hall fireplace is located in the west wall, with a projecting chimney breast featuring a moulded brick cornice. A doorway was broken through the chimney breast in the late 17th century, later blocked. This fireplace was reconstituted in the early 20th century. Windows are generally of 3 and 4 lights with transoms and mullions, ovolo mouldings, stay bars, leaded lights, and iron casements. Additional two and three-light mullioned windows of matching character are in the south range.

A gabled, two-story entrance porch, leading to the former screens passage of the hall, features moulded strings and rusticated brickwork above the doorway. It has a modern entrance and boarded door. Internal features include ovolo-moulded posts to the altered hall screen. The rebuilt north-west wing contains original fireplaces from the earlier 17th-century solar room: a ground floor fireplace with an elaborately carved oak chimney piece decorated with caryatids and a first-floor fireplace with a clunch chimney piece featuring a carved panel depicting the Judgement of Paris in bas relief.