Willow Hall

Willow Hall is a house dating from the early 16th century, with alterations made around 1550-1570. It is a two-story, three-cell building featuring a lobby entrance. The construction is timber-framed and covered in roughcast plaster. The roof is thatched and hipped, with a chimney, the shaft of which was rebuilt in the 19th century using red brick. The windows are 19th-century, two-light, small-pane casements. A 20th-century battened and boarded door is located at the lobby entrance, and there is a 20th-century open thatched gabled porch supported by posts.

The house’s layout centres on a two-bay hall. An early timber-framed chimney originally stood in the left-hand bay of the hall. Within the roof space, there is an area of smoke-encrusted plaster, and a section of oak framing remains from the chimney head. A chamfered four-centred arched doorway is located behind the former chimney site, leading to the adjoining parlour.

The roof structure is a coupled-rafter design, with arch bindbraced close-studding and formerly diamond-mullioned windows (now blocked). Around 1550, the service cell on the right-hand side was demolished, and a parlour block was constructed with a brick chimney. The chimney bricks are unfired, except for the areas around the fireplaces in the hall and parlour. Good timber framing and unchamfered exposed joists are visible. The first floor above the hall was rebuilt during this phase of construction, and above the parlour block is an arch braced collar-beam truss.