| Description | Lower Hall (also The Ridings), Warley. Stone rural house dated 1605.
Lower Hall was the subject of an archaeological assessment by Colum Giles in 1980 as part of the WYAS/RCHME Rural Houses Survey. The photographic images produced by the assessment are held by WYAAS (Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1980). The fieldwork report is transcribed below:
'This house (called The Ridings or the Lower Hall by Tordoff) is a stone dwelling dated 1605. It is of two storeys and is built of coursed rubble masonry, quoined at the angles. The house has been restored from a derelict condition, and bears the marks of re building especially at the east end. Photographs in the possession of the owner allow the original plan to be reconstructed with some confidence, however.
The south front retains much of its original fenestration; the window on both floors have recessed cavetto moulded mullions. The main doorway has square head and a broad chamfered surround. The lintel is inscribed; the letters are now difficult to decipher, but earlier reports have suggested that they read 'I M 1605'. It is not certain that this date refers to the construction of the house, for there are many features, both of plan and of detail, that point to a date much later in the 17th century. The double pile form of the house and the flush mullions at the rear of the range both suggest a date in the second half of the century, and it is possible that the date 1605 refers to an earlier stone house here, perhaps represented now only by some masonry on the west gable, where the walling is clearly of two dates.
The house had a through passage plan, the south door being balanced by an opposing door in the north wall; the west jamb of the north door survives. The passage ran behind the stack heating the housebody to the west; the doorway into the room is sited to the north of the fire area. The stone heck of the fire area survives, and there is evidence to suggest that there has been a fire hood. Both spine beams are broken on the line of a hood bressumer, but there is, unusually, no sign of there having been a fire window to light the fire area; instead, the main window lights both parts of the housebody. The room has stop chamfered joists (6' deep by 4' wide). To the west lies the parlour, heated by an original stack on the gable wall. In the parlour, the ceiling has heavy beams and joists (stop chamfered) but for some reason the joists here are more widely spaced (over 2' apart) and do not line up to give a regular pattern as they do in the housebody. At the east end of the house, below the passage, is a room which is featureless today and which in all probability was simply an unheated service room or shop originally.
The rear of the house is divided from the main span by a thin stone wall. Behind parlour and housebody are a number of unheated service rooms; the unusual flooring in the area between parlour and north west room may be connected with the evidence for rebuilding in this part noted earlier. Behind the eastern cell was an outshut; this has been extended in modern times to include the area of the passage, but old photographs reveal that it originally projected only behind the eastern cell.
There is no of sign of the original position of the stair. The windows at the rear are all at heights designed to light ground floor room rather than a landing. It is possible that the beam in the room behind the housebody shows evidence for a stair; on its north side it is regularly stop chamfered, with pegged mortises for joists to the north. It is conceivable that this is connected in some way with that sitting of an original stair in this position.
The first floor gives a number of chambers'.
(Giles, C. (WYAS/RCHME). 1980. 'Upper Saltonstall, Warley [later named The Ridings in body of text]'. |