Summary : Large house built in 1607 by Sir Thomas Walmsley. It is of sandstone rubble with stone slate roof and comprises two storeys with attic. The facade has one-bay cross-wings and recessed one-bay centre with gabled dormer. On each side of the centre is a projecting bay in the angle with the cross-wing, carried up to attic level as a gabled turret. The right-hand one forms a porch on the ground floor. The windows are mullioned, with hollow chamfer, outer chamfer, and hoods. Those to the cross-wings are of five lights on the first and ground floors and four lights to the attic. The windows to the angle turrets are of three lights except for the left-hand one on the ground floor which is of four. The central part of the facade has a six-light ground-floor window and one of five lights above. The porch has a door with moulded surround and Tudor-arched head. Chimneys on side walls of cross-wings and on rear wall of hall, all with projecting stacks. East chimney shaft now stops at eaves, but was said to be dated '1607' with initials 'T.L.' (VCH). Against this chimney stack there is a corbelled first floor garderobe projection. The house is allegend to have been built on the site of an earlier, moated manor house. There is no physical evidence for this earlier building - an accentuated natural scarp may have been mistaken for a moat. |