Tone Hall

Description

House now subdivided into 2. C16 or early C17 and c1800. Random rubble partly rendered, with Welsh slate roof. 2 storeys. Double span. Front span was a bastle house and has walls 4 feet thick. c.60 feet by 25 feet. Original ground- floor door blocked on right return. Converted into 5-bay house c.1800. Central doorway has overlight with radial glazing bars in raised surround. Similar surrounds to 12-pane sash windows. Ground floor 4th bay converted into door with similar surround, early C20. Gabled roof with kneelers and flat coping. One ridge and 2 stone corniced end stacks.
Rear span, c.1800, has off-centre door of 6 flush panels and fanlight with intersecting glazing bars in round-arched raised surround with keystone and impost blocks. Similar surround and glazing bars to central staircase window. 2 outer bays have 12-pane sashes in raised surrounds. Lower 2-bay C19 addition to right has alternating quoins. C20 -glazed door and 4-pane sashes in raised alternating surrounds.
Interior has 2- and 6-panelled doors, panelled window reveals and early C19 staircase with fluted newels and turned balusters. Hall arch framed by fluted surround and paterae. (Listed Building Report)

Tone Hall, said to be on the site of a grange of Newminster (NY 98 SW 15). By 1663 a Tone House belonged to the Widdrington family, but in 1693 came into the hands of the Hodgsons. The house consists of a front block of two storeys and five quite wide bays, not with a central doorway and windows of c.1800. This section, c.19.8m by 7.2m externally, is built of rubble (largely rendered) with massive quoins; its walls are c.1.3m in thickness. The only early feature visible is at the east end, where there are indistinct traces of a central opening, perhaps a doorway. There is a parallel range to the rear; its western part is earlier and has walls 0.75m thick. The original north east quoins of this part show a set back at mid height, in the manner of some bastles (eg Low Moralee NY 87 NW 15); the quoins are still quite large and roughly shaped. At the east end of this rear section and infilling the re-entrant angle between it and the eastern section of the main block, is an early 19th century extension, and there is another two bay extension, perhaps of mid 19th century date, at its west end. The rear elevation shows a round headed doorway and a similar stair window which are probably coeval with the quite impressive stair of mid 18th century date.
The very substantial wall thicknesses and the character of its masonry show that the front block of Tone Hall was clearly a defensible structure; its size is such that it is best classed as a strong house rather than a bastle, although the fabric and the apparent central end doorway are both bastle type features. The oldest part of the rear range may be of later 17th century date (Ryder 1994-5). (Northumberland HER)