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Page 7 |
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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
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The Building ...The present rambling building grew from a two-storied hall built in the 14th century. It measured externally some 40 x 20 ft. (12 x 6 m.) in plan and was aligned east to west. The lower storey was built of stone. Only short lengths of the north, south, and west walls of that storey have survived and clear evidence of its internal arrangement has been lost. The upper floor was timber-framed in four bays. Its roof was of butt purlin type with wind braces and supported on arch-braced collar-trusses. The tops of the collar-beams were decorated with chamfered cusping. The interior of the upper storey was ornamented along both side walls above the moulded wall plate (and perhaps along the end walls) with a wooden frieze carved as a band of pierced flowing tracery. One bay and a half at the east end of the hall were demolished c. 1780 and most of the present east wall is probably of that date. Enough remains of the hall to show that the upper storey was designed to create a large room of some dignity. Traces of red colour remain on the internal surfaces of the wall timbers and wall plaster and in 1820 some gilding was visible. In the 15th century a stone-built wing of two storeys was added to the north side of the hall at its west end. It has not been drastically altered. The coping stone at the apex of the gable is carved with trefoils on its triangular east and west faces and is surmounted by a poppy-head finial. A stone carved with a matching trefoil terminates the roof coping at the eaves on the north east comer. The lower room was designed as a store: its floor is some 5 ft. (i.5 m.) below the outside ground surface. The upper room was entered from the large upper room of the main hall. Its mullioned window, stone chimney-piece, and wainscot are of later, perhaps 17th-century, date. Another wing was added on the south side of the hall opposite to that on the north. It has been virtually replaced by post-medieval work but the preservation of what appears to be the original chimney on the west side indicates that the wing had two storeys. The present upper storey perhaps preserves the dimensions of the original wing, suggesting that it measured some 16 ft. (5 m.) square in plan like that on the north. Of the original ground-floor room all that remains is the stone chimney. The carved chimney-piece has a row of five quatrefoils, each of the four outer ones having an emblem in the centre. From left to right the emblems are: a 'garb' (wheatsheaf) representing the earldom of Chester (since 1398 one of the titles of the prince of Wales); a rose representing the house of Tudor, halved with a pomegranate representing the kingdom of Granada; a rose; and a tower representing the kingdom of Castile. |
