Oxnop Hall

Oxnop Hall is a farmhouse dated 1685, though it may be older. It is constructed of rendered rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings and has a stone slate roof. The building has two storeys and features five first-floor windows. It follows an axial stack plan with an entry through the service end, a two-storey porch, and a rear stair turret. The structure sits on a boulder plinth and has quoins.

The porch is located between the fourth and fifth bays and includes quoins, a basket-arched doorway with roll-on-wave moulding on the chamfer, and the inscription "A F I 1685" on the lintel, along with a hoodmould featuring a stud-on-boss motif at the terminals. Above the doorway is a plaque inscribed "J. S. & B.H. METCALFE 1876". The first floor has a chamfered mullion window with three stepped lights and a stepped hoodmould. The gable is adorned with shaped kneelers and coping.

On the second and third bays, both floors contain fire-windows with trefoiled heads. On the ground floor, to the extreme left, there is an inserted nine-pane fixed-light window. Other windows throughout the building are double-chamfered mullioned with segmental-arched lights and hoodmoulds featuring deep decorated terminals. The ground floor windows in bays two and four are four-lights with a central king mullion, while bay five has a two-light window with a damaged hoodmould. The first floor has three-light mullion-and-transom windows in bays two and four, and a two-light mullion-and-transom window in bay five, which also has a damaged hoodmould. The building features shaped kneelers and ashlar copings, with a double stack located between the fire-windows.

The rear elevation includes a two-light chamfered-mullion window on the ground floor to the left. Inside, there is a basket-arched fireplace in the parlour with roll-on-wave moulding on the chamfer. The king mullions of the main ground-floor windows project internally to form a partition in the window opening but do not extend down to the sill. The first floor has chamfered beams and moulded joists. The curved-principal roof is illustrated in Harrison and Hutton's work.

Oxnop Hall was the home of George Kearton, a notable boxer from Upper Swaledale, who passed away in 1764 at the age of 125. It is considered the best house of its type in Swaledale.