Rickeston Hall

Rickeston Hall is a large manor house, largely of the 18th century, with alterations and extensions suggesting earlier phases. The main fabric is rubble stone with slate roofs and rendered stacks. The front has a three-storey, four-window arrangement, with three bays evenly spaced and a fourth wider-spaced to the right, featuring end stacks and a stack at the South end. Red crested ridge tiles are present. Grey limestone flush quoins define the corners, and the windows are 12-pane sashes to the main floors and 6-pane to the upper floor, each with slate sills and painted brick cambered heads with keystones. A central door, featuring a traceried overlight, is positioned in the three-bay section. The North end of the front displays small first-floor and attic sashes, while the South end is rendered. The rear elevation features an outshut with partially grouted slate roofing, and a centre projecting hipped stair tower. A Gothic sash window with intersecting tracery is located at the main landing level, with a radiating-bar roundel above. A rendered stack sits on the roof slope at the junction of the South-East rear wing.

A further South-East rear range presents a double-fronted appearance with a large stone end stack, imitation slates to the front roof slope, and 12-pane sashes, smaller on the first floor, along with a central door and overlight. Stone voussoirs accentuate the cambered head details, and slate sills are present. The East end features a rounded bread oven and three small windows, while the rear is an outshut that slightly overlaps the stair tower.

The entrance hall contains stairs leading to the rear, with main rooms positioned on either side. A room to the left, likely the former dining room, has a Regency-style chimney piece with an iron grate and a segmental arched recess in the rear wall, ornamented by imposts. The room to the right boasts a deep cornice and a slate chimneypiece. Both rooms have 6-panel doors, panelled shutters, and picture rails. The curved staircase rises within a curved stairwell, with scrolled tread ends. First-floor front rooms are accessed via 6-panel doors, and a cambered archway opens onto the landing. At the rear, South end, a former external window splay exists between two bedrooms, indicating that the South end and rear wing are of an earlier date. The main roof spans seven bays with a further two at the South end, incorporating pegged collar trusses.

Within the rear range, the East end room features rough stone corbels supporting the ceiling, and a deep fireplace with bread ovens. To the North are a buttery and dairy with slate slabs, boarded doors, and some original 19th-century fittings, including a butter churn and cheese press dated 1831. The attic served as a corn-drying or seed loft, with slate skirtings and perforated tiles near the chimney.

A rubble-walled forecourt lies to the West, and a yard is situated to the South of the house. The forecourt provides South and North-West entries to the farmyard. The yard contains square piers, steps of projecting stones at the North-East corner, a poultry house with two levels of square openings, boarded doors, and a corrugated roof, and a small rubble stone brewhouse or outside kitchen with a grouted roof, brick chimney, and lead-lined boiler. The yard is in poor condition.