| Description | Upper Saltonstall, Warley. Stone house originating in the 17th century but which contains remains of c.1500 timber framed hall.
'Traditional stone house with stone roof. 2 stories. Long mullioned windows to main south front. Rear retains some old windows but largely rebuilt and extended'.
(English Heritage listed building description. Date listed 23/11/1973. http://list.english heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1261489. Web site accessed 30/01/2014).
Upper Saltonstall was the subject of an archaeological assessment by Colum Giles in 1980 as part of the WYAS/RCHME Rural Houses Survey. The photographic images and sketch plan produced by the assessment are held by WYAAS (Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1980). The fieldwork report is transcribed below:
'This is a stone house of the 17th and 18th centuries, possibly incorporating the remains of a substantial timber framed house of c.1500. The ruinous nature of the greater part of the complex makes precise reconstruction impossible, but some general points are clear.
At its greatest extent, the house was of hall and cross wings form. It faces east and had a cross wing at its north end of 17th century date, a hall range of similar date and a linear lower end which was supplemented in the 18th century by the addition of a wing to the east.
The surviving timbers of an earlier structure are still found, collapsed in the area of the hall and the north wing [in 1980]. The timbers, which include posts, tie beams, braces and studs, are of heavy scantling and suggest an early date, say 1500. The precise form of the early build has been lost, but it is clear from photographs taken during demolition (Shibden Hall archive, Halifax Museum) that many of the timbers come from a side wall of the cross wing. The photographs show that the wall ran across the north end of the hall, which has apparently always been open from ground to roof. The fact that the dividing wall between hall and wing was of two storey height, with a middle rail, means that framing would have been exposed to the elements either side of the hall roof, which ran at right angles to that of the wing. The timber wall, therefore, was not merely an internal division within a stone house, and represents the remains of a substantial timber framed structure, which already had attained hall and cross wing form before a stone casing was applied. On the available evidence little more can be said of the late medieval house, except to point out that its possibly un aisled nature makes it likely that it was of gentry status. |