Battel Hall

TQ 8253 8/79

LEEDS BURBERRY LANE (west side) Battel Hall

20.10.52.

GV II* Hall. Second quarter C14, with C17 and later alterations, restored mid C20. Roughly coursed galletted ragstone with stone quoins and dressings. Left side and front gable end of right wing stuccoed on ground-floor, weatherboarded above. Plain tile roof.

Open hall, at right-angles to road, with solar and defensible undercroft to left (towards road) from which garderobe wing projects to front. C17 wing with C14 core projecting to front at right end. Two storeys with hipped roofs. Main range has three brick stacks; one ridge stack towards left end, another towards centre, and one in front slope of roof at junction with right wing. Left wing has brick ridge stack at top of hip, right wing has stack in right slope of roof. Irregular fenestration of one C19 Gothik window with brick voussoirs to left end of left wing, two twelve-pane sashes in open boxes to right side of left wing.

Main range has two full-height C15 hall windows with moulded stone jambs and square-topped hoodmoulds with plain label-stops. Central portion of these now blocked; first floor of each has a two-light wood casement and ground floor retains restored C15 cinquefoiled lights, all with leaded panes. Right wing has two sixteen-pane glazing bar sashes, one to left side elevation and one to gable end. Two-centred arched moulded stone doorway to right end of main range.

Left side elevation: (to road) has three Medieval stone windows to first floor; one rectangular, with slightly coved architrave, partially blocked, one round-headed with hollow spandrels in rectangular opening and one probably restored narrow rectangular light. Three-centred arched doorway with hollow chamfer and broach stops to wing, towards junction with main range.

Rear elevation: doorway with portcullis groove and smaller door to right side of it, said to have been associated with stair turret linking solar and undercroft. Variety of Medieval and C19 windows.

Interior: large laver with cusped, crocketted ogee arch with heads to label stops, slender shafts and battlemented double-barrelled cistern with Lion's head spouts. "Nothing like it survives anywhere else in England" (J. Newman, 1980). Stone-seated windows. Early C14 Dominican reredos panel, possibly from Dartford. Interior only partly inspected.

Hall probably connected neither with Priory nor with Castle. (S. Rigold).

Listing NGR: TQ8276953308