Otley Hall

Otley Hall is a manor house of 15th and 16th-century date, with alterations and additions made in the 17th, 19th and 20th centuries. It was built by Robert Gosnold and subsequent members of the Gosnold family. The building is timber-framed with some colourwashed render, English bond brick walling, and massive brick chimney stacks beneath a plain tile roof. It is two storeys with an attic storey.

The plan is uneven and cross-shaped, having been built in stages and evolved from what was probably an H-shaped or courtyard plan. The service ranges of this earlier layout have now been demolished.

The north face contains the early to mid-16th-century range to the right, which includes the hall, screens passage and parlour. The hall range is close-studded timber-framing with brick nogging and features a blocked doorway with a 4-centred head and decorated spandrels leading to the screens passage. Above this doorway and to its left runs a near-continuous ribbon window on the upper ground floor with ranges of 3 and 4 lights. The hall oriel is of 8 lights with 4 moulded mullions and transoms set in a brick base. The parlour window is T-shaped with 8 central lights and 3 lights either side. The first floor is jettied with a decorated bressumer. The close-studded walling to the right has decorative bracing supported on crown corbels. To the left is a jettied gable with decorative bressumer, beneath which is an oriel window of 6 lights with a decorative deep coved sill, either inserted or replaced in the 19th century. Adjacent is a 3-light canted oriel of which some decorated woodwork has been renewed in the 19th century. A 19th-century oriel of 5 lights stands to the right, and at the far right a further 3-light canted oriel of which only the sill remains.

The projecting later 16th-century gabled wing to the left has 4 bays, now infilled with early 20th-century windows and a doorway. The first floor is jettied with decorative pargetting including a band of vine trail ornament. A 5-light canted oriel and a similar window with coved underbelly are set either side of a 4-light window with ovolo surround. A similar 4-light window stands to the right, followed by a 2-light window with diamond-section mullions. A 3-light gabled dormer lights the attic. The gable end has a 5-light ground floor window with ovolo-moulded surround, either inserted or replaced in the 20th century, with a similar 5-light window at first floor level and a 2-light attic window above.

The valley between the two wings contains a massive brick stack with rectangular base and 2 octagonal flues with moulded stepped caps.

The east front features a projecting shallow-gabled wing at near-centre with close-studded walling to the first floor and four 20th-century French windows to the ground floor. A canted oriel at first floor level has 5 central lights and 4 lights either side, forming a T-shaped window, with a canted gable above containing a 3-light attic window. The left-hand return has a massive English bond stack with two 19th-century brick flues.

To the right of this wing, the rear of the later 16th-century wing has a massive chimney breast of English bond brick with 2 octagonal flues above a series of offsets. To its right is a 3-light ground floor window with moulded surround. To the left of the stack are 5-light and 3-light mezzanine staircase windows, a 5-light first floor window, and 2-light and single-light first floor windows. Immediately to the left of the stack is a 3-light gabled dormer.

The low wing to the left of the projecting central wing has near-random fenestration of 20th-century date: 6 ground floor 2-light windows, a 3-light and 2-light window at first floor level, and at the far right 3 small single casements and a 3-light attic dormer. The gable end of this wing contains a further massive stack with 2 rebuilt 19th-century stacks.

The south front (entrance front) is composed of the hall wing at left and the low wing at right. The hall range has a projecting gabled wing at right with a bowed front, originally the stair tower but converted in the early 20th century to an entrance. This is close-studded with brick nogging. A doorway and single-light casement occupy the ground and first floors respectively. Immediately to its left is a massive English bond chimney stack with blue brick diapering, bearing 2 octagonal flues and mostly rebuilt in the 19th century. To the right is an outshut with a pantile roof, above which at first floor level is a 4-light casement with a 3-light window in the gable above.

Projecting to the right is the low southern wing with four 2-light ground floor windows and three similar first floor windows. Projecting at the far right is a further wing with a cambered-headed doorway at right, 2-light windows either side, a 4-light first floor window and a 3-light attic window.

The interior is remarkably preserved. The kitchen in the low wing has pament tile flooring and jowled floor posts indicating a continuous first floor, part of which has been removed to create a 2-storey dining area. The hall has an 18th-century brick floor with 17th-century panelling to the walls, some with 20th-century additions or restorations. The ceiling is divided into 4 cells by richly-moulded beams of circa 1500 with roll and cavetto mouldings and fleurons to their sides. Richly-moulded joists have run-out end stops. The central beams are supported by arch braces with floral bosses to their spandrels. The chimney bressumer has roll mouldings and fleurons, some of which have been renewed. The screens passage contains a series of moulded muntins and two remaining doorways with 4-centred heads having decorated spandrels. Above the brattished cross rail forming the lintel of the doorways is a further series of uprights. No sign of doors to the service rooms remains; the side wall now has a window.

The parlour, now a dining room, has similarly-moulded ceiling beams, some shaved. A similarly-moulded wall frieze is present. The walls are panelled below this with late 16th-century work of very finely-moulded stylised linenfold, similar to that at Lavenham Guildhall. One contemporary door and three 19th or early 20th-century copies survive. A chamfered bressumer is present.

A Jacobean staircase of 4 flights with turned newels and balusters and a moulded handrail is present.

The banqueting room above the cockpit has been subdivided into bedrooms, dressing rooms and bathrooms. It retains fresco work to the walls showing strapwork cartouches, caryatids and hermes, with the Naunton and Gosnold arms above the fireplace, which has a 4-centred arch of moulded bricks. A moulded ceiling with square and L-shaped panels remains.

A further first floor room retains 17th-century panelling. Another room above the hall has richly-moulded wall posts and ceiling beams similar to those in the hall.

Otley Hall shares several features with the contemporary High House, Otley, apparently also built for the Gosnold family.