Building record 729 - Platts Hall

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 57633 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

Platts Halll, also known as the Works House was built in 1655, but has later extensions and addittions. It comprises an oak-frame, largely brick-nogged with added brick left wing and tiled roofs. Brick stack in slope of roof. The right wing has gable to front and to left side (above left wing) and altered dormer to right side. Small framing; the front gable has ornate panel braces and shouldered mullioned window of 3 lights to attic, with date board 1655 XH. Interior: Stone corner fireplace in rear room; some chamfered oak beams; a little panelling; stair with wavy splat balusters, probably later seventeenth century.

<2> English Heritage/DCMS, Various, Notification of inclusion, amendment or removal from the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 31/10/2006 (Written Communication). SCH4885.

De-listed on 31/10/2006.

<3> Lancaster University Archaeological Unit, 1998, Platts Hall, Northwich, Cheshire: Fabric Survey Report, R2235 (Client Report). SCH4008.

Overstreet Farm is first documented in 1631, which is somewhat earlier than a plaque dated 1655 that was on the northern elevation of the western wing of the Hall. In 1663 the farm was leased to a Peter Venables, but it was not until 1665 that Venables purchased the farm. At sometime after 1680 it appears to have been acquired by the Brooke family of Mere. It was leased from around 1810 unitil the 1860s to members of the Kinsey family. The farm, shortly after 1885, appears to have been sold to Brunner Mond and Co. and the farmland was developed for a chemical plant (see CHER 4238).

An analysis of the buildings fabric was undertaken in conjunction with the building survey undertaken during the course of the dismantling of the structure. It revealed that the earliest part of the building was an inglenook structure, set against the eastern external wall of the west wing, and dated to c.1630 or earlier. This would have been set within the former hallway of this earlier building. As part of a rebuiding of Plaits Hall in1655, a new West Wing with suites of comfortable rooms and a staircase was built. The earlier hall became a kitchen.

The fabric analysis has demonstrated that the design of the west wing was of a type which came into fashion in the later seventeenth century and was adopted as part of the vernacular tradition of North West England. This tradition can be seen in the symmetry of the main west elevations, the obvious signs of comfort and luxury in the number of fireplaces in this wing, and the internal layout which puts emphasis on social entertaining.

By contrast the East Wing, which is predominantly of nineteenth century indate (but includes some twentieth century elements), has a very conventional vernacular style. It incorporates reused timbers in the roof which have a rustic quality and potentially come from a barn rather than a domestic structure. It does not display the level of majesty of the earlier wing and perhaps indicates that the fortunes of the family had deteriorated since 1655 and the construction of west wing.

<4> Lancaster University Archaeological Unit, 1998, Platts Hall, Northwich, Cheshire - Archaeological Evaluation, R2233 (Client Report). SCH4010.

In 1998 the building was dismantled and the west wing was re-erected at the nearby Bostock Hall.

An archaeological evaluation was undertaken after the demolition of the Hall. The evaluation was undertaken in two phases; the first was was confined to the footprint of the west wing, which contained the substantial remains of a timber-framed house of 1655. The second involved the excavation of a trench within the nineteenth century East Wing to investigate the potential for an earlier structure surviving in this locality. . However, documentary evidence has shown that there was a building on the site in 1631, prior to the construction date of the extant structure and the evaluation was therefore intended to demonstrate whether there was further evidence for an earlier building surviving.

Three trenches were excavated within the footprint of the west wing. One trench was extended across the northern external wall and a second across the western external wall. The excavations established that the archaeological stratigraphy has been extensively tuncated prior to the insertion of a concrete floor in the twentieth century. Only two deepeer features cut into natural subsoil had survived. One feature, a small pit, contained a single sherd of abraded late medieval pottery (fourteenth to sixteenth century date). These features clearly pre-dated the west wing, but were not necessarily elements of an earlier structure.

A single trench was excavated through the north western room of the east wing. Although the archaeological stratigraphy at this location was also truncated, it was less severe than in the west wing. The trench loacted the foundations of the nineteenth century wing, as well as elements of an earlier hearth. Within the interior of the room was a single post-hole and a natural tree bole; the latter clearly pre-dated the existing structure, but the post-hole was undated.