Building record 913/2 - Norley Hall

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 475526 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

Country house, now two dwellings. Rebuilt 1782 for William Hall, on the site of earlier houses of the Hall family. Remodelled in Tudor Revival style 1845 by Alfred Bower Clayton of Liverpool for Samuel Woodhouse, wine importer. Service wing extended in similar style late nineteenth century. Minor twentieth century additions and alterations. Rendered, with late twentieth century Tyrolean finish. Sandstone ashlar basement, porch, and dressings. Gabled and hipped Welsh slate fish-scale roofs. Various clustered corbelled stacks, some truncated. Ground floor sill band, coped gables. Windows are mainly nineteenth century plain sashes in mullioned openings with label moulds. Main block, two storeys plus basement and attics; five by three windows. This corresponds to the form of the 1782 house. North-west entrance front has projecting central gabled bay. Single storey Gothic porch with diagonal buttresses, pinnacles, and pierced balustrade. Moulded Tudor arched doorway and four-light side windows with panel tracery. Pointed arched inner doorway and sidelights with similar tracery and coloured glass, and half-glazed door. To left, two cross-mullioned windows, and to right, an external stack. Above, three windows, and to right, two smaller windows flanking the stack. Above, two-light window in central gable, and three-light window in dormer to left. To left, setback link, two storeys, with two glazed-in pointed arched openings and above, two windows. In the return angle, an octagonal stair turret, topped with a pointed-arched bell turret under a conical roof. Former service wing, to left, two storeys, has a four-light window with a twentieth century door inserted, flanked by single light windows. Above, a three-light and a single light window. Projecting gable to left has three-light cross mullioned windows on each floor. Right return has to the left a slightly projecting gabled bay with a canted bay window under a traceried balustrade, with three cross casements. Above, a French window, and above again, a two-light window. To right, two cross-mullioned windows, and above, two smaller windows. Garden front has a central gabled bay fronted by a canted bay window, two storeys plus basement. This is retained from the 1782 design. Basement has small plain windows, and doorway to right, flanked by round arched recesses. Bay window has three windows on each floor and renewed French window to attic. Flanking the bay window to left, a cross casement, and to right, a square bay window, two lights, with traceried balustrade. Above, two windows, and to attics, two gabled through-eaves dormers on sill brackets. To right, link has flat roofed porch with panelled door and twentieth century steps, flanked to right by a cross mullioned window. Above, two small windows. Former service wing, to right, has two gables. Square stone bay window to left, four light, and small twentieth century projection to right. Above, cross-mullioned window to left, and smaller mullioned window to right.

INTERIOR: The plan of 1782 is largely retained. Central entrance hall with dentillated cornice. Round arched opening to similarly detailed stairwell containing cantilevered stone dogleg staircase with triple wrought iron stick balusters and ramped hardwood handrail. Principal ground floor double room has at each end a moulded marble fireplace, Tudor Revival style, with the Woodhouse monogram. Elaborate pierced Gothic style cornice with drops, and ceiling bosses in the same style. Adjoining dining room has similar pierced cornice applied to eighteenth century bow window with shutters. Billiard room has Tudor arched cornice with fan-vaulted bosses, and similar boss in central recessed ceiling panel. Twentieth century fireplace, and windows with shutters. Basement has rendered segmental arches throughout, and wood and stone winder stair with paired wrought iron stick balusters and ramped hardwood handrail. Segmental arched major fireplace with rusticated jambs, and minor brick fireplace with hob grate. First floor has cornice to spinal corridor and principal rooms. Several late eighteenth century five-panel doors. Several eighteenth-century moulded fire surrounds, that in the principal room marble, with cornice, all with grates c1845. Attics have open-well wooden stair with triple stick balusters and ramped handrail, all hardwood. Plain four-panel doors, and fireplaces similar to first floor. King post roof trusses exposed late twentieth century, with lower ends chamfered, nineteenth century. This building retains architectural features of a high standard in two contrasting styles and is largely intact. It forms a notable example of changes in taste between 1782 and 1845.

<2> Hartwell C, Hyde M, Hubbard E & Pevsner N, 2011, The Buildings of England: Cheshire (2011 revision), p.510-511 (Book). SCH7059.

A house of c.1500 and 1697 was rebuilt in 1782. The present appearance is from an enlargement of 1845 by Alfred Bowyer Clayton. Tudor Gothic style with many tall chimneys, a stone portico with pinnicles and turrets. The converted stables are also Tudor on a courtyard plan, with a turreted gatehouse.

<3> Ormerod, G., 1882, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, Vol.II p.143 (Book). SCH1389.

The previous house house was taken down by the late proprietor, William Hall, esq. who erected the present mansion.

<4> Gibson W & Waterworth A W, 1975, Kingsley, p.21 (Book). SCH1873.

Parts of the earlier masion are still standing incorporated in the present mansion built in 1782.

<5> Ordnance Survey, 1870-1982, Ordnance Survey Archaeological Record Card, SJ 57 SE 6 (Index). SCH2487.

No remains earlier than the eighteenth century were seen in the external fabric of Norley Hall. Not outstanding [DJC 23/02/1976].