Halghton Hall

Halghton Hall

A Jacobean-style house of brick with a weathered freestone plinth, stone quoins (badly weathered at survey), string course and dressings. It comprises a main range with a cross wing to the left (west). The building features mullioned windows and a slate roof behind coped gables with finials.

The main range is two storeys high with a 19th-century brick stack at the right end and a rear lateral stack. The cross wing rises to two and three storeys with an attic storey. The entrance front of the main range has four bays with a doorway in the third bay, flanked by an extravagant freestone Jacobean surround (much renewed in reconstituted stone) with rusticated pilasters and pinnacles, and a round-headed boarded door with relief strapwork above. The lower storey has cross windows, blocked above the transom with mullion removed in bays 1 and 4, while bay 2 contains a half-glazed door with overlight inserted below the transom. The upper storey has shorter 2-light windows.

The cross wing's lower storey displays a 3-light window that is blind above the transom with a round-headed panel, set within an architrave with bold volutes (renewed in the 1970s in reconstituted stone) and a weathered entablature incorporating a central round-headed blank tablet and cornice. The upper storey contains a 3-light window renewed in the 1970s in reconstituted stone but retaining an original cornice, beneath a pediment with thin moulded cornice and a blocked 3-light attic window. The right-hand return wall facing the entrance front has a lower cross window blocked above the transom, a blocked former cross window with mullion and transom removed, and blocked 2-light upper-storey windows.

The three-storey, three-window left (west) side wall of the cross wing features a corbelled first-floor stack to the right of centre, rebuilt above the eaves with two diagonal shafts. To the right of the stack are 2-light windows in each storey, blocked except for the middle-storey window which is renewed in reconstituted stone. To the left of the stack is a blocked window in the lower storey with mullion removed, and a renewed 2-light first-floor window under an original drip mould. At the left end is a segmental-headed window, a blocked 2-light first-floor window and a renewed 3-light upper-storey window. An L-shaped open-fronted projection set back towards the rear has garage doors and a loft window to the higher gabled left end.

The rear is brick and dominated by a massive external stack to the right of centre with three diagonal shafts. Three added single-storey lean-tos are present, and above them a segmental-headed window on the left side lighting the mezzanine floor. Further right, the cross wing has a one-storey projection against the rear gable end. In the first floor is a mullioned window, originally of three or four lights, of which only two are now glazed, its left side obscured by an inserted 3-light window. Above are blocked 2-light windows to an upper storey (mullion removed) and attic.

Interior

The original entrance (now blocked) opened into a hall on the right side with kitchen on the left. The ground floor now contains a stair hall with rooms to right and left. The right-hand room has a cross beam supporting the mezzanine floor. The left-hand room retains a stop-chamfered cross beam supporting the mezzanine floor and contains a wide lateral kitchen fireplace dated 1662 with sandstone jambs and a brick depressed arch. At the back of the stair hall is a ribbed door with strap hinges opening to a rear lean-to, probably re-used from elsewhere in the house.

The lower flight of stairs to mezzanine level obscures a timber-framed partition with close studding and diagonal bracing. This is set slightly behind a possible base cruck with tie beam, the underside of which contains slots for a post-and-panel partition presumably removed when the new framing was introduced. Above the tie beam are substantial traces of an arched brace and close-studded framing.

The stair from mezzanine to upper storey incorporates material from earlier stairs. The right side has fret-cut balusters of 17th-century type, while the left side has turned balusters and newels around the well of the lower flight. At mezzanine level, the original hall ceiling is retained in the right-hand room, which has large square panels with heavy plaster strapwork and foliage. On the left side of the stairs, a doorway with ogee head leads to a corridor with timber-framed partitions connecting the main range and cross wing. The cross wing is divided into two rooms on its first floor, retaining timber-framed partitions.

In the roof, the main range has six bays and the cross wing has seven bays, all with tie beams and raking struts.