Listed Building record MDR11716 - Wakelyn Hall, Main Street, Hilton

Grade II listed 16th century house, partly rebuilt in the 18th and 19th centuries, also with mid-20th century restoration. The house has a close studded and ornamental panelled timber frame on a stone plinth with plaster infill, partly rebuilt in red brick. There are slate and plain tile roofs with large brick ridge and side wall stacks. The building is H-plan, with two storeys plus attics and three bays. The interior is said to contain chamfered beams, an inglenook fireplace and part of the original staircase. (1) Tree-ring dating of timbers from Wakelyn Hall has provided a felling date of 1573. (2) Wakelyn Old Hall may have been the residence of Wakelyn family who held Hilton under de Ferres during the Norman era and later became linked with marriage with the Chandos family. A fragment of a letter dated to 1919 states that the Wakelyns lived at Hilton until 1621. Wakelyn Old Hall did become an inn at some time, whether in the Elizabethan age or later. It is a rare example of half-timbering within Derbyshire- a feature that is not often seen in the county- where these timbers also have ornamental motifs in the timberwork. Some of this ornamentation is repeated though not the lozenges, in the projecting gables on each side of the house, but not at the back. The brickwork that cuts across the back of the house is a later addition, but there is known half-timbering behind it. The sitting room is the largest in the house, where it retains a brick floor that must have been there for at least a couple of centuries and some of the beams show signs of fire damage. The thick beam running across the room has the date '1671' scratched into it. In the dining room (formerly the kitchen) is a pump and below the pump was a Saxon font used to catch the drips from the pump spout. The font now stands outside. The stonework on the left of the fireplace looks ecclesiastical, possibly from the same source as the font. (3)