Thorns Hall And Attached Stable Wing To Rear

Thorns Hall is a large house with an attached stable wing, likely dating from the early to mid 17th century, and significantly altered in the 19th century. It is now a hotel. The building is constructed of mixed random rubble with quoins, and has a roof of green and blue slate. The main range is a single-depth, three-unit design on an east-west axis, featuring a projecting gabled porch, a rear outshut to the first bay and part of the second, and 19th-century additions to the west end and rear. A stable wing is attached to the rear of the west end.

The main range, two storeys and an attic, has a two-storey gabled porch offset to the right of centre. The porch features a restored round-headed doorway, a 19th-century 12-pane sash window above, gable coping with kneelers and a finial, and double-chamfered mullioned windows with hoodmoulds in each side wall. A blocked mullioned window is located above the right-hand side wall window. An attic dormer, gabled and with a 2-light chamfered flush mullion window with diamond leaded panes and a ball finial, sits behind and above the porch. Other windows are 19th-century, incorporating 12-pane sashes and large tripartite hornless sashes. A large extruded chimney is present at the left gable, with a rebuilt shaft, and 19th-century chimneys are positioned on the front wall to the right and at the right-hand gable. A 19th-century two-storey wing, set back at the left end, displays two 12-pane sashes on each floor and a pyramidal roof. At the rear, an outshut to the west end, under a catslide roof, has a 2-light mullioned window at cellar level and a blocked window to the right. The former stable range, linked to the rear of the 19th-century west wing, is constructed of coursed rubble with a stone slate roof. It features a stone slate dripcourse over each floor. It includes a wagon doorway near the left end, three segmental-headed stable doorways with rubble voussoirs near the right-hand end, and slit breathers at the first floor.

The interior hall contains a 17th-century muntin-and-rail panelled partition to the service end and a large chamfered beam. A quarter-turn staircase with a closed string, square newels, turned balusters, and a moulded handrail is present. The parlour is completely wainscotted with muntin-and-rail panelling and an intersecting arcaded frieze. The chamber above the parlour has 18th-century bolection-moulded panelling, some of which has been relocated to create en suite facilities. The roof is constructed of 6 principal-rafter trusses, with half-lapping at the apex and angle struts, integrating reused elements from a substantial timber-framed building.

Historically, the house was occupied in the 19th century by members of the Elam family, who are commemorated by wall monuments in the Church of St John the Evangelist, Dent.