Hawkesdale Hall

Hawkesdale Hall is a house dating to the late 17th century, with an addition dated and inscribed over the rear entrance 1704, attributed to J. & M.N. Nicholson. The house is constructed of painted rendered walls with V-jointed quoins and a heavily moulded cornice on a chamfered painted plinth. It has a graduated greenslate roof and painted stone chimney stacks. A two-storey, three-bay extension to the right is of painted render over brick with a graduated slate roof and a large square painted stone chimney stack. The house has three storeys and five bays, with the extension adding a further two and three-bay section. The front entrance features a 20th-century door with a glazed fanlight set within a painted roll-moulded architrave with a pulvinated frieze. An early 19th-century porch with panelled pilasters and a radial fanlight is positioned in front of the entrance. Sash windows with broad glazing bars are set in painted chamfered surrounds under moulded cornices. Yorkshire sash windows are found in chamfered painted surrounds on the second floor. A mark of the Newcastle Fire Insurance Company is visible above the entrance.

Inside, a late 17th-century staircase rises through all three storeys, with barley-twist balusters and a broad moulded handrail. A ground floor room to the right of the hall contains a heavily carved and moulded 18th-century stone fireplace, flanked by a panelled cupboard to the right and a half-domed, shelved recess to the left, all within eared architraves. A room to the left of the hall has a panelled plaster ceiling. There are panelled doors throughout the house, and a late 17th-century wooden panelled bedroom is also present on the first floor. The extension features 2- and 3-light stone-mullioned windows in chamfered stone surrounds.

The house was known as Hawkesdale Low House in 1694, when it was owned by John Nicholson, brother of the Bishop of Carlisle. His son, Joseph, resided in the house until his death and was a joint author, with Dr Richard Burn, of a History of Westmorland and Cumberland published in 1777.