Rushall Hall (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Walsall.
In the historic county of Staffordshire.
Modern Authority of Walsall.
1974 county of West Midlands.
Medieval County of Staffordshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SP02559989
Latitude 52.59702° Longitude -1.96369°

Rushall Hall has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

Curtain walls of c1300 with gatehouse of c1500, incorporating gateway of c1300, with second floor added and windows altered c1600, partly demolished c1830-40. Gatehouse of limestone rubble with some sandstone dressings and brick flues. One storey, with lower part of first floor walls surviving and with part of south wall surviving to above second floor level. West wall battered, with string course above chamfered gateway with segmental arch. Above the arch, and below the lower part of a blocked window opening, is the carved shield of arms of the Harpur family, who owned Rushall Hall from 1430 until 1540. The east wall has a gateway chamfered in two orders, with segmental arch and hood. Interior: the passageway has a rubble barrel-vault. In the north-east corner is a circular stair to the first floor. In the south wall is a, chamfered fireplace with shallow segmental head. At the upper level the south wall has two moulded fireplaces, formerly serving the first and-the second floors. In the north-west corner are the remains of a garderobe. The curtain walls are of limestone rubble and enclose a rectangular area of 5383 square metres used as a garden. They survive to a height of over six metres and are mostly crenellated. At the north-west corner of the site they are incorporated into Rushall New Hall. Fireplaces, presumably heating now-demolished buildings inside the enclosure, are built into the walls. They are chamfered, with canted herds and some brick dressings: to each side of the gatehouse one is visible, and there is a further one in the south wall. (Listed Building Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1013153, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 21574
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1320329
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 329433.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 1506.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Walsall Council
  A Click in Time
  Staffordshire Past-Track for old photographs and drawings.
Books
- Emery, Anthony, 2000, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 2 East Anglia, Central England and Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 431
  Salter, Mike, 1997, Castles and Moated Mansions of Staffordshire (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 40-1
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 229
  Salter, Mike, 1993, Midlands Castles (Birmingham) p. 66 (plan)
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 453
  Pevsner, N., 1974, Buildings of England: Staffordshire (London, Penguin) p. 295
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Lynam, Charles, 1908, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Page, Wm. (ed), VCH Staffordshire Vol. 1 p. 366 (homestead moat) online copy
  Willmore, F.W., 1892, Records of Rushall (Walsall) p. 6, 29-30
  Willmore, Frederic W., 1887, A history of Walsall and its neighbourhood (W.H. Robinson) p. 257-8 online copy
  Turner, T.H. and Parker, J.H., 1859, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol. 3 Part 2 p. 234-5 online copy
  Shaw, Stebbing, 1801, The History and Antiquities of Staffordshire (J.Nichols abd Son) (Republished 1976 by EP Publishing) Vol. 2 p. 62-6
Periodical Articles
- Larkham, P.J., 1983, Moated Sites Research Group report Vol. 10 p. 31
  Larkham, P.J., 1982-3, 'Moated Sites in South Staffordshire' Transactions of the South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 24 p. 15,20
  Barker, N.J., 1981-2, 'The Gatehouse of Rushall Hall, Staffs: a Survey and Excavation' Transactions of the South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 23 p. 79-99
  Youngs, S.M. and Clark, J., 1981, 'Medieval Britain in 1980' Medieval Archaeology Vol. 25 p. 219 download copy
  Hammer, M.E., 1974, 'The Moated Sites of Staffordshire' Staffordshire Archaeology Vol. 3 p. 40
  Palliser, D.M., 1972, 'Staffordshire Castles: A Provisional List' Staffordshire Archaeology Vol. 1 p. 5-8

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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