Old Hall And Old Hall Cottage

Old Hall and Old Hall Cottage

House and cottage standing on Wild Hill Lane. The house dates from the late 16th to early 17th century, with late 17th to early 18th century and 19th-century alterations. The cottage is early to mid-19th century. Both buildings are constructed of rubble with concrete interlocking tile and stone slate roofs.

The house is of two storeys plus attic, built to a hall and cross-wing plan with a gabled cross wing projecting to the left. The hall section comprises a two-storey cottage with three first-floor windows on the right, perhaps occupying the position of another cross wing. On the hall's ground floor sits a part-glazed four-panel door in an ashlar surround, a blocked quoined chamfered ashlar doorway, and a sash window with glazing bars in a double-chamfered surround. The first floor has a three-light mullion and transom window. An external stack rises to the right, and the verge is raised.

The cross wing features a boulder plinth and quoins. Its ground-floor has a 20-pane sash window with double-chamfered jambs, while the first floor displays a three-light double-chamfered mullion and transom window, and the attic a three-light double-chamfered mullion window. The gable has shaped kneelers and ashlar coping.

The cottage, recessed on the right of the main house, has on its left a round-arched carriage way with herringbone tooling on ashlar voussoirs. Other openings have deep ashlar lintels. The ground floor features a central board door between 9-pane unequally-hung sash windows. The first floor has two six-pane sash windows, with the third shuttered. Brick stacks rise between the first and second first-floor windows and at the right end.

The rear of the hall section contains a ground-floor four-light double-chamfered mullion and transom window. The first floor has a three-light double-chamfered mullion and transom window and a two-light chamfered mullion window. The cross wing's rear shows part of a chamfered mullion window on the ground floor, one light of a three-light chamfered mullion window on the first floor, and a blocked two-light attic window. The left return of the cross wing displays, from ground floor left to right: a two-light chamfered mullion window; a blocked quoined chamfered doorway with triangular head; a part-glazed door in ashlar surround with straight tooling below the head of a three-light staircase window; a three-light chamfered mullion window; and an external stack. The first floor has a two-light chamfered mullion window with "CHEESE ROOM" inscribed on its lintel, set within a doorway opening, a 16-pane sash window in ashlar surround with straight tooling in part surround of a mullion window, a two-light chamfered mullion window to an attic flight of staircase, and a three-light chamfered mullion window.

Interior Features

The ground floor hall is now divided. The dining room on the right contains in its north wall a large hidden fireplace, and to its right the original board door in a chamfered triangular-headed surround rebated to open into a demolished range. On the left stands a 17th-century type splat baluster staircase and beam with stepped stop chamfers.

The cross wing's front room contains a chamfered ashlar fireplace with a triangular head. On the first floor, the room above the dining room has a triangular-headed fireplace with ovolo moulding on the arris set within a square with ogee moulding, the two jamb mouldings running off into high-set stop-chamfers, with a stone and wrought-iron grate. The cross wing's front room has an ashlar basket-arched fireplace with an 18th-century cast-iron grate; a similar fireplace exists in the bathroom behind. In the rear room is a deeply-splayed niche and an ashlar chamfered doorway (now a window) with a rebate for an outward-opening door.

The cottage was unoccupied at the time of survey.