Wallington Hall

Wallington Hall, originally built in the early 16th century (founded around 1500) and restored in 1925, began as a Church House for parish business. It later served as cottages and a school after 1715, and now partly functions as a Masonic Temple. The building is roughly T-shaped and constructed of rubble with ashlar quoins, topped with high-pitched stone-tiled roofs.

The long portion of the building is two stories high and features three windows and three doors on its south elevation. The transverse portion is single-story with a gable. Ground floor windows in the long portion are three-light leaded casements with stone mullions and four-centred heads within rectangular drip-moulds (restored). First-floor windows are two-light casements, except for the central window, which has four lights. A string course runs at first-floor window sill level and forms a rectangular drip-mould over a large three-light double-transomed window (restored) with stone mullions on the gable end of the transverse portion. An original two-light window with stone mullions and a drip-mould is located in the gable above. All doorways have four-centred heads within rectangular drip-moulds. There are three two-stage buttresses with weatherings on the south side of the long portion, and four similar buttresses along the gable end of the transverse portion, where a deep weather-moulded plinth course is also present. The west gable end features a restored three-light stone mullioned casement on each floor, a single-light window in the gable above, and a narrow, single-light “dole” window with bars on the ground floor. Blocked original windows with remaining tracery are found on the eastern wall.

The interior ground floor room in the two-story portion retains original oak-timbered ceilings with heavy, rough-hewn beams and close rafters. The room above has an original open stone fireplace and moulded beams that divide the ceiling into panels approximately 6 feet square. The transverse portion, currently used as a Masonic Temple and formerly a Cloth Hall, contains an original oak gallery. The north window’s surround is made of heavy moulded oak, and the walls are divided by pilasters topped with a stone frieze-cornice. Two Tuscan columns, originally from the Town Club and used to support a pulpit where John Wesley preached, have been preserved.

Wallington Hall forms a group with other listed buildings on Church Street, including the Chantry, Little Chantry, Barton Orchard, the Catholic Church of St Thomas More, Market Street, numbers 7 and 9 to 19 Barton Orchard, numbers 5 and 6, numbers 27 to 31 (consecutive), and a wall on Newtown.