Great Killough

Great Killough

A substantial H-plan mansion comprising a medieval hall-house with cross wings and an attached former cider house. The building is constructed of rubble stone with some ashlar dressings and has a stone tile roof. Stone chimney stacks have bases and diagonally set flues; the south-east stack has a large square base and three flues, while the north-west stack has a rectangular base and four flues.

The south-west entrance front displays the medieval hall at its centre, flanked by three-storey cross wings to left and right, with a two-storey former cider house with hipped roof to the far right. The hall has a large 20th-century 3-light window with double transom. To its right stands a single-storey gabled porch featuring a Tudor-arched stone doorway with ovolo moulded surround and run-out stops, exposed framing to the collar truss at gable-head, and 20th-century boarded double-doors. The inner porch has stop-chamfered ceiling beams and a similar Tudor-arched inner doorway with a 20th-century 6-panel door fitted with ornamental strap hinges. The three-storey cross wing to the left has a 2-light mullion in the gable-head and 3-light mullions on the first and ground floors. The three-storey cross wing to the right has a 3-light mullion in the gable-head and 4-light mullions on the first and ground floors; to its right is a blocked Tudor-arched doorway and a small single-light window. The former cider house, now a 20th-century kitchen and service range, is attached at right angles to the south-east gable, forming a long two-storey range with 20th-century stone mullion windows. Windows throughout are 20th-century cavetto moulded stone mullions with rectangular leaded panes.

The north-east garden front is irregular, with the hall positioned off-centre to the right. At ground floor the hall has a chamfered Tudor-arched stone doorway with a 20th-century panelled door to the left and a 2-light mullion to the right. On the first floor is a single-light window, followed by a late 15th-century 2-light barred window, formerly a transom. Between the hall and the cross wing to the right, the house roof is carried down to form a small projecting outshut with a 2-light mullion. The cross wing to the right has a 2-light mullion in the gable-head, two 1-light windows on the first floor, and a 3-light mullion on the ground floor. The cross wing to the left has a 3-light mullion in the gable-head and 4-light mullions on the first and ground floors, with a two-storey projecting stair turret to the right. Between this block and the kitchen range to the far left are small single-light windows serving a mural stair on the ground and first floors, and also an attic lean-to stair turret.

The most remarkable feature of Killough is the great 4-bay hall, with its fine arch-braced collar truss roof incorporating three tiers of purlins. The cross-passage entrance to the stone-flagged hall is documented in Peter Smith's Houses of Welsh Countryside. The inner jambs of the cross-passage doorways contain drawbar holes. The hall transom window houses an ex-situ 16th-century stained glass panel depicting Saint George and the Dragon. At the north end of the hall, the vast projecting chimneystack features a wooden fireplace lintel with cavetto and ovolo moulding and moulded stone jambs. Along the east side of the hall runs a 20th-century gallery with turned balusters and shaped rail. At the south end of the hall, the entire upper wall is timber-framed. The unusually large tie-beam truss has two collars with close-studded panels and V-struts above the top collar. Below the tie-beam, the upper wall displays two tiers of close-studded panels with mid-rail; side by side in the centre are two doorways with Tudor-arched headboards and chamfered door frames with diagonal stops. The lower wall is rubble stone to a height of about 2 metres and contains a plank and batten door with applied fillets and fleur-de-lys strap hinges on the left, leading into the outer room (now the dining room) at the passage end. The ground floor room has chamfered ceiling beams, some with straight-cut stops, and a fireplace with a flat monolithic lintel and monolithic jambs. Adjacent to the entrance door are winding stone steps in a stair turret, now blocked on the first floor. Tradition holds that mass was celebrated in the attic room known as the chapel during periods of religious persecution, and a secret fireplace stair is said once to have existed to the right of the chimney breast. The attic is ceiled at the collar with plastered purlins and cheeks bearing reed moulding and fine symbolic ornamentation, probably of the later 17th century, including pomegranates (emblem of Catherine of Aragon) and a pelican piercing its breast (symbol of Christ's sacrifice). The ground floor of the cross wing to the north has a fine later 17th-century decorative plaster ceiling featuring a square fret, angle sprays, and an encircled rose at the centre.