Colburn Hall

Description

Incorrectly marked on Ordnance Survey map as Saint Ann's Chapel. Courthouse, now storehouse. c1300. Rubble, pantile roof with stone slates at eaves. First-floor hall with undercroft. 2 storeys, 5 internal bays. Quoins. Main entrance to first floor on east side, with external stone steps leading up to board door in recess. Board door to undercroft. Raised verges with moulded coping and weathered finials. West elevation: buttress at left end; board sliding door to undercroft towards left; first-floor board door with quoined jambs to right. South gable end: first-floor window of 2 trefoiled lights divided by a shaft with Early English capital, tracery in head with a cusped quatrefoil, label. Above the window, a square opening blocked with brick, perhaps a dovecote. North gable end: 2 single-light windows to undercroft; on first floor, but at lower level than window at south end, single trefoiled light. Interior, in undercroft: segmental rear arch to eastern door; deeply-splayed reveals to north windows. Upper chamber: in eastern wall, fireplace with moulded segmental arch; end windows splayed, with chamfered segmental rear arches. Collared principal rafter roof trusses with trenched purlins, wall plate and common rafters, of C17 type, partially renewed. (Listed Building Report)

North-west of Brough and close to the river is the little village of Colburn, with a hall, once the residence of the D'Arcy family, but now a farm. In the out-houses of Colburn Hall there still exist remains of a 14th-century structure, which has been considered a chapel, but might be a tithe-barn. These form a rectangular building running nearly north and south and measuring about 39 ft. by 23 ft. on the exterior. In the middle of the south wall is a blocked two-light 14th-century window with trefoiled heads and a quatrefoil above, the dividing mullion having a moulded capital. There is a chamfered label with decayed mask stops. At the opposite end are traces of a similar window, and below it on each side two blocked-up square chamfered openings measuring 2 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 2 in. On the exterior of the west wall are traces of a window 3 ft. 8 in. in width, and on the east side is a doorway, possibly original, 4 ft. 6 in. wide, with a depressed arch and plain jambs; at the north-west angle is a buttress. The walls have been much repaired, and the interior provided with a partition wall and a loft, so that no further details of the original design can be traced. (VCH)

Comments

Ingham writes "hall of a fortified house, once home of the D'Arcys", although it is unclear what bases he suggests fortified. No suggestion of moat or perimeter wall.