1641

 

I  

Designated  

17/03/1953  

15/11/2005  

Halghton Hall  

 

Wrexham  

Hanmer  

 

Halghton  

341566  

342431  

 

Reached by a minor road and farm road on the S side of the A525, 4km SE of Bangor-is-y-coed.  

Domestic  

 

A house of medieval origin, evidence for which is the base cruck or arched-brace truss retained in an internal partition. The present house is said to have been built in 1662, probably by a member of the Hanmer family. It was probably intended to have an H-plan, which would have required building an additional bay on the R side of the main range and another cross wing, to make a symmetrical elevation. Although the present owners have reported evidence of foundations, there is no evidence that this plan was ever completed. The main alteration to the 1662 house was the subsequent insertion of a mezzanine floor and the rebuilding of the stair, using salvaged pieces of the original stair, to accommodate it. This alteration was probably made in the C18 as it has vernacular detail. An engraving dated 1794 shows the building much as it is today, at which time it was owned by Philip Lloyd Fletcher but was already a tenant farm. It subsequently became a part of the Gredington estate of successive Lords Kenyon, until it was sold in the mid C20. Major restoration was carried out in the 1970s.  

A Jacobean-style house comprising a main range with cross wing to the L (W). Of brick on a weathered freestone plinth, with stone quoins (badly weathered at the time of survey), string course and dressings, with mullioned windows, and slate roof behind coped gables with finials. The main range has a C19 brick stack to the R end and rear lateral stack. The main range is 2-storey, the cross wing 2 and 3-storey with attic. The main range has a 4-bay entrance front with doorway in the 3rd bay. This has an extravagant freestone (but much renewed in reconstituted stone) Jacobean surround with rusticated pilasters and pinnacles, a round-headed boarded door with relief strapwork above. The lower storey has cross windows, which in bays 1 and 4 are blocked above the transom with mullion removed, and in bay 2 has a half-glazed door and overlight inserted below the transom. The upper storey has shorter 2-light windows. The cross wing has a 3-light window in the lower storey. It is blind above a transom, where there is a round-headed panel, and is within an architrave with bold volutes (renewed in the 1970s in reconstituted stone) to the sides, and weathered entablature, incorporating a central round-headed blank tablet, and cornice. In the upper storey is a 3-light window renewed in the 1970s in reconstituted stone but retaining an original cornice, below a pediment with thin moulded cornice and blocked 3-light attic window. The 2-window R-hand return wall, facing the entrance front, has a cross window lower R blocked above the transom, blocked former cross window lower L with mullion and transom removed, and blocked 2-light windows in the upper storey. In the 3-storey 3-window L (W) side wall of the cross wing is a corbelled first-floor stack to the R of centre, rebuilt above the eaves, with 2 diagonal shafts. To the R of the stack are 2-light windows in each storey, blocked except for the middle-storey window which is renewed in reconstituted stone. To the L of the stack is a blocked window in the lower storey, with mullion removed, and renewed 2-light first-floor window under an original drip mould. At the L end is a segmental-headed window, blocked 2-light first-floor window and renewed 3-light upper-storey window. An L-shaped open-fronted projection set back towards the rear, has garage doors and loft window to the higher gabled L end. The rear of the house is brick and is dominated by the massive external stack R of centre, which has 3 diagonal shafts. There are 3 added single-storey lean-tos, and above them a segmental-headed window on the L side lighting the mezzanine floor. Further R, the cross wing has a 1-storey projection against the rear gable end. In the first floor is a mullioned window, originally of 3 or 4 lights, of which only 2 lights are now glazed, its L side obscured by an inserted 3-light window. Above it are blocked 2-light windows to an upper storey (with mullion removed) and attic.  

From the original entrance (now blocked) the hall was on the R side and kitchen on the L side. The ground floor now has a stair hall with rooms R and L. The room to the R has a cross beam supporting the mezzanine floor. The room to the L retains a stop-chamfered cross beam supporting the mezzanine floor, and has a wide lateral kitchen fireplace of 1662 with sandstone jambs and brick depressed arch. At the back of the stair hall is a ribbed door with strap hinges, opening to a rear lean-to, probably re-used from elsewhere in the house. The lower flight of stairs to the mezzanine level obscures a timber-framed partition incorporating close studding and diagonal bracing. This is set slightly behind a possible base cruck with tie beam, the underside of which has slots for a post-and panel partition which was presumably removed when the new framing was introduced. Above the tie beam are substantial traces of an arched brace, and close-studded framing. The stair from mezzanine to upper storey incorporates material from earlier stairs. It has on the R side fret-cut balusters of C17 type, and on the L side turned balusters and newels around the well of the lower flight. At mezzanine level the original hall ceiling is retained in the R-hand room, which has large square panels with heavy plaster strapwork and foliage. On the L side of the stairs, a doorway with ogee head leads to a corridor, with timber-framed partitions, to the main range and the cross wing. The latter is divided into 2 rooms and retains timber-framed partitions in its first floor. In the roof, the main range has 6 bays the cross wing 7 bays, of tie beams with raking struts.  

Listed grade I for its special architectural interest as a substantial C17 gentry house retaining high-quality external and internal detail, including substantial evidence of an earlier medieval house.