Details
SJ 57 SE
1184/3/10005
NORLEY
TOWN FARM LANE
(South, off)
Norley Hall and adjoining Norley Hall Farm
II
Country house, now 2 dwellings. Rebuilt 1782 for William Hall, on the site of earlier houses of the Hall family. Remodelled in Tudor Revival style 1845 by Alfred Bower Clayton of Liverpool for Samuel Woodhouse, wine importer. Service wing extended in similar style late C19. Minor C20 additions and alterations. Rendered, with late C20 Tyrolean finish. Sandstone ashlar basement, porch and dressings. Gabled and hipped Welsh slate fish-scale roofs. Various clustered corbelled stacks, some truncated. Ground floor sill band, coped gables. Windows are mainly C19 plain sashes in mullioned openings with label moulds. Main block, 2 storeys plus basement and attics; 5 x 3 windows. This corresponds to the form of the 1782 house. NW entrance front has projecting central gabled bay. Single storey Gothic porch with diagonal buttresses, pinnacles and pierced balustrade. Moulded Tudor arched doorway and 4-light side windows with panel tracery. Pointed arched inner doorway and sidelights with similar tracery and coloured glass, and half-glazed door. To left, 2 cross-mullioned windows, and to right, an external stack. Above, 3 windows, and to right, 2 smaller windows flanking the stack. Above, 2-light window in central gable, and 3-light window in dormer to left. To left, setback link, 2 storeys, with 2 glazed-in pointed arched openings and above, 2 windows. In the return angle, an octagonal stair turret, topped with a pointed-arched bell turret under a conical roof. Former service wing, to left, 2 storeys, has a 4-light window with a C20 door inserted, flanked by single light windows. Above, a 3-light and a single light window. Projecting gable to left has 3-light cross mullioned windows on each floor. Right return has to left a slightly projecting gabled bay with a canted bay window under a trraceried balustrade, with 3 cross casements. Above, a French window, and above again, a 2-light window. To right, 2 cross-mullioned windows, and above, 2 smaller windows. Garden front has a central gabled bay fronted by a canted bay window, 2 storeys plus basement. This is retained from the 1782 design. Basement has small plain windows, and doorway to right, flanked by round arched recesses. Bay window has 3 windows on each floor, and renewed French window to attic. Flanking the bay window to left, a cross casement, and to right, a square bay window, 2 lights, with traceried balustrade. Above, 2 windows, and to attics, 2 gabled through-eaves dormers on sill brackets. To right, link has flat roofed porch with panelled door and C20 steps, flanked to right by a cross mullioned window. Above, 2 small windows. Former service wing, to right, has 2 gables. Square stone bay window to left, 4 light, and small C20 projection to right. Above, cross-mullioned window to left, and smaller mullioned window to right.
INTERIOR: The plan of 1782 is largely retained. Central entrance hall with dentillated cornice. Round arched opening to similarly detailed stairwell containing cantilevered stone dogleg staircase with triple wrought iron stick balusters and ramped hardwood handrail. Principal ground floor double room has at each end a moulded marble fireplace, Tudor Revival style, with the Woodhouse monogram. Elaborate pierced Gothic style cornice with drops, and ceiling bosses in the same style. Adjoining dining room has similar pierced cornice applied to C18 bow window with shutters. Billiard room has Tudor arched cornice with fan-vaulted bosses, and similar boss in central recessed ceiling panel. C20 fireplace, and windows with shutters. Basement has rendered segmental arches throughout, and wood and stone winder stair with paired wrought iron stick balusters and ramped hardwood handrail. Segmental arched major fireplace with rusticated jambs, and minor brick fireplace with hob grate. First floor has cornice to spinal coridor and principal rooms. Several late C18 5-panel doors. Several C18 moulded fire surrounds, that in the principal room marble, with cornice, all with grates c1845. Attics have open-well wooden stair with triple stick balusters and ramped handrail, all hardwood. Plain 4-panel doors, and fireplaces similar to first floor. King post roof trusses, exposed late C20, with lower ends chamfered, C19. This building retains architectural features of a high standard in two contrasting styles, and is largely intact. It forms a notable example of changes in taste between 1782 and 1845.
Source;
H Colvin Dictionary of British Architects re: AB Clayton
Listing NGR: SJ 56439 72985
