Listed Building record MDR10660 - Old Hall Cottage, Twyford

It is possible that this house was built or adapted by one of the Smythsons for the Harpur family after they had inherited it from the Findernes, who had previously held it, having inherited the estate from the Twyford family in the 14th century. In 1713 it passed to the Bathurst family, who had no need to live there, and it began to be reduced. In the 19th century there was a low timber-framed wing, but today, behind the Victorian brick façade of what was, until recently, two cottages, there survives an ashlar rear, with stone cross-wing and two great chimney breasts and fireplaces to match. (1) A two-storey north-facing house, built in part of brick and in part of sandstone, with a tiled roof, standing back from the east side of a lane leading south from Stenson Lock. The coursed sandstone south wall is marked by two great chimneystacks whose tops have been rebuilt in brick. Until 1960 it was a pair of cottages but at one time it was a manor house with a large timber-framed west range of which nothing now remains. Following a survey and the examination of an old drawing of the building, it was hypothesised that there was originally a medieval open-hall and crosswing manor house to the west of and in line with the present building, extended first to the south of the wing and later extended again by adding the present house which provided a more up-to-date hall and parlour. The small south wing was later added to this in stone but with some timber walling above, at least on the east side. At some point, probably by 1713, it ceased to be maintained as a gentry house, and the parlour was converted into a farm kitchen, with bread ovens being built onto the stack. From then on it gradually fell into decay. The brickwork of the front wall presumably replaced worn timber framing when the Harpurs converted the house into two cottages and pulled down the west end of the building. (2)