Graveley Hall

Graveley Hall is a manor house with origins in the late medieval period. The hall range was rebuilt in the 17th century and renovated in 1717 as a farmhouse by John Chalkley, as indicated by a restored panel on the south chimney of the east wing. Further brick casing and interior alterations occurred around 1840, followed by a restoration in 1958 by Donald W Insall & Associates for the Franklin family. The building is timber-framed and largely encased in red brick, with steep hipped roofs covered in old red tiles.

The house is L-shaped, facing south, with a single-storey service wing extending westward from the north end of the east wing. External features include a plat band, a brick dentilled eaves course, flush three-light casement windows, and three large lateral chimneys with square shafts set diagonally and crow steps to a heavy projecting moulded base; the chimney at the south end of the east wing has clunch quoins. The front (south) elevation has a projecting wing on the right-hand side with one window on each floor. The entrance is located in the angle between the main house and the wing, and features a six-panel door with the bottom two panels being flush beaded, and a moulded hood supported by shaped brackets. A canted bay window is present to the hall on the left of the door, with an upper window above it, and one window on each floor in the western portion.

The interior of the east wing reveals exposed timber framing, including a two-bay parlour at the south end, separated by an original staircase bay from a smaller two-bay rear room with a large side wall fireplace on the west side. Two large domed projecting ovens were removed from this room in the early 20th century. The parlour features a chamfered cross-beam with run-out stops and chamfered posts. A corner cupboard with a semi-circular head, shaped shelves, and doors made from re-used scratch moulded panels is located in the northwest corner. The parlour's elaborate leaf-carved stop to the moulded cross-beam is accompanied by smaller moulded axial beams, now exposed, and located near a 19th-century staircase inserted in the north part of the second bay. This staircase rises to a landing with scratch moulded panelling and an early 18th-century barley-sugar balustrade, originally from a former headmaster's desk in Hitchin Old Free School and incorporated in 1958. Plaster ogee-head openings date from around 1840; stop-jowled bay-posts are also present, along with a doorway to a lobby at the northeast, chamfered and stopped on the exterior, leading to the former stairhead in the adjacent bay. The upper floor of the east wing has chamfered and stopped axial beams supporting the former attic floor. Two steps lead up to the upper floor of the hall range, which contains rooms partially within the roof space. During the 1958 works, a stone four-centred arch fireplace with sunk spandrels, originally from a chamber above the parlour, was moved to the hall. A fine carved oak cupboard door with the cipher of James I, discovered within the house, was placed beside the hall fireplace.