Earlham Hall And Attached Outbuildings

Earlham Hall and its attached outbuildings are a large house with a late 16th-century core, significantly altered and extended in the 17th, 18th, and early 20th centuries. More recent alterations were carried out in the 20th century by Edward Boardman. The house is constructed of brick and flint rubble with red brick dressings, a rendered plinth on the north (entrance) front, and a plain tiled roof. It features two sets of clustered red brick ridge chimneys, restored, and several other scattered stacks. The building plan is a cross-wing design, originally with a single-span range to the south, visible on the west front where brick and stone quoins are visible beneath added twin gables bearing iron numerals "16/42.” The original range was later converted to a two-span roof with the addition of parallel ranges and cross-wings, remodelled in the 18th century. A canted wing was added to the west, and the whole was restored in the 19th century. Single-storey pavilions were added at each corner in the 19th century.

The north (entrance) front has a three- or four-window range of sash windows with glazing bars, set within flush-fronted moulded architraves topped by flat-gauge brick arches. A modillion cornice runs along the top. Each cross-wing has two ground-floor and first-floor windows, along with canted front bays containing four windows. The south (garden) front displays a five-window range of sash windows with glazing bars and leaded lights, flanked by large two-storey canted bays added in the 18th century; the brickwork of two shaped gables indicates these are also later features.

A 19th-century red-brick coach house, now a stable, is attached to the north-east corner of Earlham Hall and has a pantiled roof. It features flint rubble walls on the rear elevation, dating to the 17th century, and internal 17th-century timbers. A tumbled brick gable is on the right wing, while a tall, blocked round-headed arch with end pilasters and oculi in the east wall is on the left. A brick and slate-roofed pentagonal donkey engine house, erected around 1880, served a well and retains its original equipment.

Internally, the entrance hall has re-set panelling, including some from the 17th century, and a remodelled moulded plaster ceiling with a fragment of the original above the stairs. There is a 17th-century staircase with flat balusters, likely originally one of a pair flanking the main entrance. A first-floor room in the west cross-wing contains a bolection moulded fireplace and 18th-century panelling, with fluted pilasters in the canted bay. A similar fireplace exists on a ground-floor passage. The first floor has 17th-century timbers, including a chamfered and stop-chamfered spine beam with run-out stops on a corridor doorcase. Plank doors are found in the attic. The former library in the single-storey south-east wing was fitted by E. Boardman in 1908.