Bale Hall

Bale Hall is a house, largely of the late 17th century, located on Field Dalling Road, Gunthorpe. The main house is a two-storey, seven-bay red-brick structure with a red pantiled roof. The front facing the garden has seven sash windows on both the ground and first floors, with glazing bars, and three casement dormers with glazing bars beneath wooden moulded pediments in the attic. The exterior features a ground floor plinth, a first-floor plat band, Dutch gables, a wooden eaves cornice, and stone end quoins. There are three stacks, one off-centre and two at the ends. The front entrance is flanked by a hipped, two-storey staircase wing, also from around 1700, with a reused door dating to the 1830s. A single tripartite sash window with glazing bars is located on the ground floor to the west. An outshut, a two-storey addition, extends to the east, incorporating an earlier ‘L’-shaped brick house from the 17th century to the west.

Inside, a ground floor room at the west end contains panelling from around 1700 and a black marble fireplace with an architrave framed by egg-and-dart moulding. A panelled dining room has a wooden surround with lugged corners and a grey marble architrave. One further room is simply panelled. On the first floor, three rooms are partially panelled, all dating to around 1700. The staircase is a dog-leg design, with moulded risers and barley-sugar balusters. A wooden arch on the first floor has pilaster strips and a central keystone.