| Description | Ryecroft Hall, Tong. Stone built hall dated 1669.
'Fine mid C17 hall of coursed gritstone on a rectangular plan with stone slate roof, saddlestones, kneelers, 3 chimney stacks on ridge. The south entrance front has 5 light chamfered mullion windows, some retaining diamond leaded glazing. The principal feature of the elevation is the large hall window to the left of the porch: mullioned and transomed in 2 groups of 4 double lights, the small square panes are leaded with simple tracery to the top of the upper row of lights. A moulded weathered string between storeys forms a drip mould over the ground floor windows and is carried up over the 1½ storey hall window. The porch was probably gabled, with the string carried over, but now has weathered flat coping. Chamfered doorway with slightly cambered head. Large lintel inscribed N over C I 1669 (Christopher and Isabel Nettleton). The interior has undergone some modernisation but the hall has the feature of a gallery with turned balusters now running around 2 sides at first floor level, the third side has had its floor cut through to allow for staircase. Very wide fireplace with flanking bearded head posts supporting massive chamfered bressumer which is arched to allow for formerly enclosed passage door at one end. Grooved panel partition butting stop chamfered beam. In the kitchen to the north side is a massive wall post: the 1665 date must therefore refer to a rebuild/recasing of an earlier timber framed house'.
(English Heritage listed building description. Date listed 04/09/1952. http://list.english heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1068660. Web site accessed 07/10/2013).
Ryecroft Hall was the subject of an archaeological assessment by Colum Giles in 1979 as part of the WYAS/RCHME Rural Houses Survey. The photographic images sketch plan produced by the assessment together with the research archive are held by WYAAS (Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1979). The fieldwork report is transcribed below:
'This is stone house, dated 1669. It faces south and is arranged on a linear plan, with an aisle or outshut at the rear behind the hall and east room.
The south front reveals instantly that Ryecroft is a very late example of an open hall. While the end bays have windows at two levels. The central area has a large mullioned and transomed window rising through two storeys. The entrance to the house is through a small porch; this is, in fact, little more than a shallow projection from the wall, single storey and originally gabled, but now with a flat roof. The porch door has a shallow arched lintel and a plain chamfer. The lintel is inscribed
' N
C I
1669'
The plan of the house shows that the 'archaic' element of the open hall was combined with more modern ideas to give a very unusual plan. The door opens not into a passage but against the side of the firehood heating the hall. Access to the east room from the lobby has been blocked. The hall has been little altered; it is still open to tie beam level, and still retains its gallery and much of the original heating arrangement. The present fire is modern, but the firehood surround survives. This shows that the bressumer ran across most of the span of the hall. The central area contained the fire, while to either side were screens and heck posts. Both heck posts remain in position, shaped and pegged to the bressumer. The bressumer runs over the southern heck post to terminate in the stone wall, but it is shaped to the south of the heck post to give a doorhead for a door from the lobby. Bressumer, doorhead and heck post are all well worked, with stopped chamfers and the hecks are formed of beaded planks.
Running round the north and west sides of the hall is the original gallery giving access to the chambers. The siting of the gallery demonstrates that the main stair cannot have been in the hall. The gallery has turned balusters and a moulded hand rail. |