Colville Hall

Colville Hall is a house, originally part of a larger manor house, dating to the early 17th century, with earlier origins. It is constructed of rubble sandstone with a plain tile roof. The building is two storeys high. The east front has a 1:1:2 arrangement of first-floor windows, with the second bay projecting and both the first and second bays gabled. Each gable has moulded coping and ball finials at the ridge. A stump of a wall projects forward between the two gables, and retains the moulded jamb of a first-floor window opening. The first bay has a 16-pane sash window on each floor. The projecting bay has a 20th-century part-glazed door on the ground floor and a first-floor 3-light double-chamfered mullion window with an ogee-section hood mould and shaped kneelers to the gable. The third and fourth bays, which form the hall, have a single-light and a 3-light double-chamfered mullion window under a continuous hood mould on the ground floor, with a matching single-light window with a hood mould also present. The first floor of these bays has a 2-light matching window with a hood mould, and an inserted single-light window. Coping is present to the right. Further to the right, the house incorporates two bays from a range added in 1890. The rear elevation features a massive stepped external stack to the hall fireplace, containing three diagonally-set chimneys. The rear windows are mostly of the 18th century and later, and the roof is pantiled.

The interior hall fireplace has an ashlar chamfered segmental arch, with the flue open to two chimneys. The hall itself has stop-chamfered oak beams. A cloakroom contains a reused oak door with five fielded panels and L-hinges. A parlour at the left end has an ashlar fireplace with a triangular-headed ovolo moulding set within a square-headed ogee moulding with stopped bases. The landing window in the projecting bay contains 17th-century painted glass by Henry Gyles of York (1645-1709), a notable early work by Gyles. The glass depicts the arms of the Bellasis family (of Newburgh Priory) above those of Paulet within an architectural canopy. Two first-floor timber-framed partitions are present, featuring moulded vertical studs, a segmental-arched doorway, and an upright post jowelled at the top, which extends from the ground-floor hall.

The building takes its name from the Colville family, who were granted the manor of Coxwold after the Norman Conquest and retained it until the mid-15th century. Around 1608, Sir Henry Bellasis of Newburgh Priory acquired the manor house, and likely built the present house.