Otley Hall

Details

OTLEY HALL LANE (West side) TM 25 NW 4/108 16/3/66 Otley Hall - I

Manor House. C15 and C16 with C17, C19 and C20 additions and alterations. Built by Robert Gosnold and subsequent members of the Gosnold family. Timber framed with some colourwashed render. English bond brick walling and massive brick chimney stacks with a plaintiled roof. Two storeys with attic. Uneven cross-shaped plan built at different stages and having evolved from what was probably an H-shaped or courtyard plan, the service ranges of which have now been demolished. North face: The early-mid C16 range at right contains the hall and screens passage and parlour, the projecting later C16 gabled wing at left had a banqueting room at first floor level and a ground floor room open to the west, know as the 'plahouse' and formerly used for skittles or cockfighting, both rooms now subdivided and altered. The hall range is close-studded with brick nogged infill and has a blocked doorway at far right, leading to the screens passage, with 4-centered head and decorated spandrels. The service range formerly at right of this has been demolished. Above the doorway and to left of it runs a near-continuous ribbon window set in the upper walling of the ground floor with lower ranges of 3 and 4 lights. The hall oriel is of 8 lights with 4 moulded mullions and transoms and a brick base. The parlour window is of T-shape with 8 central lights and 3 at either side. The first floor is jettied and has a decorated bressumer. The close studded walling at right has decorative bracing supported on crown corbels and at left is a jettied gable with decorative bressumer and below this an oriel window, either inserted or replaced in the C19, of 6 lights with a decorative, deep coved sill. To right of this is a similar 3-light canted oriel window of which some of the decorated woodwork has been renewed in the C19. At right again is a C19 oriel of 5 lights and at far right was a further 3-light canted oriel of which the sill remains. The projecting wing at left has 4 bays, now infilled and having early C20 windows and a doorway. The first floor is jettied and has decorative pargetting including a band of vine trail ornament. To the left is a canted oriel of 5 lights and at right of centre is a similar window with a coved underbelly. Between these is set a 4-light window with ovolo surround, at right is a similar window and at far right is a 2-light window with diamond-section mullions. To the attic is a 3-light gabled dormer. The gable end of the wing has a 5-light ground floor window with ovolo-moulded surround, either inserted or replaced in the C20. To the first floor is a similar 5-light window and above this a 2-light attic window. The valley between the two wings has a massive brick stack with rectangular base and 2 octagonal flues with moulded, stepped caps. East front: Projecting shallow-gabled wing at near-centre with close-studded walling to the first floor and to the ground floor a set of four C20 French windows. Canted oriel at first floor level with 5 central lights and 4 lights at either side forming a T-shaped window. Canted gable above with a 3-light attic window. The left-hand return has a massive English bond stack with two C19 brick flues. To the right of this wing the rear of the later C16 wing has a massive chimney breast at right of centre of English bond brick with 2 octagonal flues to the top above a series of offsets. To right of this is a 3-light ground floor window with moulded surround. At left of the stack are 5-light and 3-light mezzanine staircase windows and to right of these a 5-light first floor window and 2-light and single-light first floor windows. Immediately to left of the stack is a gabled dormer window of 3 lights. The low wing at left of the projecting near-central wing has near- random fenestration all of C20 date with 6 ground floor 2-light windows and a 3-light and 2-light window at first floor level and at far right 3 small single casements and an attic 3-light dormer. The gable end of this wing has a further massive stack with 2 rebuilt C19 stacks. South face (entrance front): Hall wing at left with the low wing at right. The hall range has a projecting gabled wing at right with a bowed front, originally the stair tower but converted in the early C20 to an entrance. This is close studded with nogged brick infill. Doorway at ground floor level and a single-light casement to the first floor. Immediately to left of this is a massive chimney stack of English bond brick with blue brick diapering bearing 2 octagonal flues, mostly rebuilt in the C19. To right is an outshut with a pantile roof and at first floor level above it is a 4-light casement and in the gable above this a 3-light window. Projecting at right is the low southern wing which has four 2-light ground floor windows and three similar first floor windows. Projecting at far right of this is a further wing with a cambered-headed doorway at right with 2-light windows at either side, a 4-light first floor window and a 3-light attic window. Interior: The kitchen in the low wing has pament tiled flooring, jowled floor posts indicating a continuous first floor part of which has now been removed to leave a 2-storey dining area. The hall has an C18 brick floor. C17 panelling covers the walls with some C20 additions or restorations. The ceiling of the hall is divided into 4 cells with richly-moulded beams of c.1500 with roll and cavetto mouldings and fleurons to their sides. Richly-moulded joists with run-out end stops. Supporting the central beams are arch braces which have floral bosses to their spandrels. Chimney bressumer with roll mouldings and fleurons with some renewed moulding. The screens passage has a series of moulded muntins and two remaining doorways with 4-centered heads having decorated spandrels. Above the brattished cross rail which forms the lintel of the doorways is a further series of uprights. No sign of doors to the service rooms remains, the side wall of the passage now having a window. The parlour (now dining room) has similarly-moulded ceiling beams some of which have been shaved. Similarly- moulded wall frieze. Panelling to the walls below this of late C16 date with very finely-moulded stylised linenfold, similar to that at Lavenham Guildhall. One contemporary door and three C19 or early C20 copies. Chamfered bressumer. Jacobean staircase of 4 flights with turned newels and balusters and a moulded handrail. The banqueting room above the cockpit has now been subdivided into bedrooms, dressing rooms and bathrooms but has fresco work to the walls showing strapwork cartouches and caryatids and hermes coats of arms and above the fireplace which has a 4-centered arch of moulded bricks, the Naunton and Gosnold arms. Moulded ceiling with square and L-shaped panels. One further first floor room has C17 panelling, another above the hall has richly-moulded wall posts and ceiling beams similar to those in the hall. The house shares several features with the contemporary High House, Otley (qv), apparently also built for the Gosnold family.

Sources: Nikolaus Pevsner, Buildings of England: Suffolk 1975 Eric Sandon, Suffolk Houses, 1977

Listing NGR: TM2070456245

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

286521

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Sandon, E, Suffolk Houses: A Study of Domestic Architecture, (1977)
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Suffolk, (1974)

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.