Dalehead Cottage Dalehead Hall

NY 31 NW ST JOHNS CASTLERIGG & WYTHBURN THIRLSPOT

17/104 Dalehead Hall and Dalehead Cottage

II

Formerly one house, now divided into cottage and residential meeting centre for Manchester City Corporation. Late C16, partly rebuilt 1623, with late C17 and early C19 extensions. Thick painted roughcast walls on massive battered plinth. Graduated greenslate roof with large square and round stone chimney stacks. Rear of house has incised stucco walls with patterned cast gutters. 2 storeys, 4 bays with 3-storey single-bay projection to right. Rear 2-storey, 5-bay C19 facade with projecting bay to right. Formerly of single span with late C17 stair projection to left rear; increased to double span in C19, filling the angle of the original L-shape. C18 panelled door in wooden surround within plain opening. 2 late C17 ground-floor cross-mullioned windows; one further wooden facsimile cross-mullioned window and C20 casement to right, all in plain reveals. Upper-floor fixed-casement windows with glazing bars in enlarged plain reveals. C19 lean-to extension to left has side plank door, covering a blocked doorway with wooden lintel inscribed R.L. (probably Richard Leathes born 1625). Contemporary extension to right has small original openings. Side wall right has early C20 doorway and windows. Rear has top-glazed panelled door under patterned fanlight in painted stone surround with pediment, all within C20 wooden-framed porch. Sash windows in painted stone surrounds. Interior has C17 plank and C18 panelled doors throughout. Semicircular original staircase with C20 wooden steps. Central chimney stack has 2 inglenooks in ground-floor rooms of cottage. Beamed ceilings. Upper-floor bedroom has C17 fireside door which has probably been the doorway to a cradle cupboard. Hall has late C17 oak staircase with barley-twist balusters and heavy moulded handrail. Upper-floor room has cupboard in what was originally the rear wall of the hall, which contains a small 3-light wooden-mullioned early C17 window with diamond leaded panes, in its original position. Dalehead was purchased by the Laythes family (later Leathes) in 1577. A stained glass window inscribed CHRISTOPHERUS LAYTHES HOC DOM AEDIF A.D. 1623 has been removed. Sold in 1879 by George Stanger-Leathes with Thirlmere, to Manchester Corporation, so that Thirlmere could be made into a reservoir. See Transactions Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, new series, 1x, pp109-119; R.W. Brunskill, Dalehead Hall, Thirlmere, Cumbria, An architectural report and commentary, 1980.

Listing NGR: NY3137517500