Ashwicke Hall

Ashwicke Hall is a country house, now used as a school, built between 1857 and 1860 by J.K. Colling for John Cavendish Orred of Liverpool. It was altered around 1900 to 1920. The house is constructed of coursed squared rubble with freestone dressings and quoins, and has slate roofs behind embattled parapets. Designed in an irregular and asymmetrical castellated Gothic style, it follows a double pile plan.

The most prominent feature is a four-stage polygonal water tower to the left, topped with an embattled parapet and pseudo machicolations. A projecting stair turret, truncated on the south-east side, features slender pointed windows. The windows on the first two stages are two-light cross windows with Y-shaped tracery, angular four-centred heads, drip moulds and carved head stops. The windows on the third and fourth stages are single-light, pointed, and have cusped heads. To the right of the tower is a four-bay hall and staircase section, featuring a moulded string with gargoyles, foliage, and fleurous details. The windows here are two- and three-light casements with chamfered and ovolo moulded mullions, surrounds, and square and segmental heads. To the left are two fine, square-headed, four-light windows in the Perpendicular style, with cusped tracery and carved foliage in the spandrels of the upper window. A central three-stage square tower has pseudo machicolations. A 20th-century door sits beneath a four-centred head, overlight, and pediment with ball finials, flanked by single casement windows (intended to be moved to the original position of the front door). To the right is a five-bay range of two-light cross windows; a large canted bay window is on the ground floor, with two, four, two-lights, and an embattled parapet. Further to the right is a late 19th-century, three-story block with a steeply pitched slate roof, two bays, and two- and three-light casement and cross windows, with a projecting bay window on the ground floor.

The interior has been altered, but the former hall and library (now subdivided) retain a Jacobean-style plaster ceiling and a fine carved stone fireplace. This fireplace has terms, a marquetry overmantel of four Ionic columns, fluted frieze, paterae, two niches, and a rectangular central panel. There is also 20th-century panelling and a three-bay arcaded screen with Ionic columns and pilasters, accompanied by Jacobean-style plasterwork in the spandrels, soffit, and frieze; a linenfold panel door is present. The staircase has an open well, open string, and twisted balusters. The newel posts are chamfered and decorated with fleurons, foliage pendants, and square finials. A panelled room at the base of the tower features a plaster rib ceiling and a fine foliage frieze, and a carved stone fireplace with a decorative frieze. A chapel extension built in the 1960s is not included as part of the listed building.