Farley Hall

Farley Hall is a large country house of Grade I listed status, situated on high ground in parkland with fine westward views across a lake. The landscape has been ascribed to Charles Bridgeman. Built around 1730 for John Walter, it was extended in the 19th century.

The house is constructed in brick with hipped old tile roofs of differing heights. It follows a rectangular plan with a seven-bay centre block, the oldest part of the building, connected on each side by two-bay links to lower four-bay pavilions. The structure rises to two storeys with cellars beneath. Details include a plinth, a moulded string at first-floor level, another string above the first-floor windows, and a panelled parapet with stone urns at the corners. Sash windows throughout have glazing bars and segmental heads. The roof is crowned with a circular cupola on plan, featuring four arched windows divided by coupled Doric columns, an entablature with a triglyph frieze, an ogee lead dome, a ball finial, and a wrought iron weather vane.

On the east front, the main block displays three projecting centre bays with sashes four panes high on the first floor and six on the ground floor. Bull's eye windows, some blocked, light the cellars. At the centre of the projection stands a tall half-glazed entrance door in an architrave surround with a doorcase of composite columns on small plinths supporting an entablature with an enriched bolection frieze. The door is approached by two moulded stone steps with cast lead vases on the outer corners. Two bays flank this entrance, with a further two linking bays connecting to the lower four-bay outer projecting pavilions at either end. These pavilions have a moulded first-floor string, a moulded painted wooden eaves cornice, and a hipped roof. Each pavilion displays four bays of narrow windows on the east front and three bays facing inwards. The right-hand wing incorporates a 19th-century brick quadrant connection in the angle.

The west front features a central projection of three bays with a central doorcase at ground floor level. This doorcase, nearly similar to its counterpart on the east front, employs Roman Ionic columns and an entablature with a plain frieze and bracketed cornice. It stands on a wide flight of stone steps with a stone balustrade that curves outwards at the base, leading onto a grassed terrace. The projection is flanked by two bays and a further two linking bays to the pavilion wings as on the east front. To the right is a further six-bay 19th-century extension in brick.

The interior features an entrance hall at ground level that serves as the principal feature of the house, rising through the entire height of the building. Bedrooms are reached by a gallery running along three sides. Above the cupola the hall opens upwards, with a wind indicator visible beneath. The enriched plastered ceiling around the cupola is painted with mythological scenes attributed to Lanscroon according to Pevsner, and to Nicholas Lancret according to the Victoria County History. On the back wall at first-floor level are five painted rural scenes inserted much later by J.F. Nollekens. Also of interest in the hall area is a fireplace with an architrave surround and side scrolls, an entablature with a carved frieze of floral ornament, flanked by two eight-panelled doors with architrave surrounds, carved frieze, cornice and pediment. Opposite the doors are two niches with architraves swept out to scroll form. Other principal rooms on the ground floor retain fireplaces contemporary with the original construction. On the first floor on the south side of the centre part is a Print Room displaying a collection of 18th-century prints in painted frames on all four walls.