High Coniscliffe; The Old Hall (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Old Hall Farm

In the civil parish of High Coniscliffe.
In the historic county of Durham.
Modern Authority of Darlington.
1974 county of County Durham.
Medieval County of County Palatinate of Durham.

OS Map Grid Reference: NZ22531536
Latitude 54.53317° Longitude -1.65327°

High Coniscliffe; The Old Hall has been described as a certain Bastle.

There are major building remains.

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

Description

Late C17 farmhouse, the main interest is the northwest wing, dateable to C13. Similar in form to 'Borders' Bastle but of an earlier date and finer architectural detail. The northwest wing has a barrel vaulted ground floor and the remains of a corbelled-out gardrobe. Site is located at number 23, The Green. The ground floor of this part of the building has a fine vaulted stone ceiling and the remains of a garderobe.

Large house. Circa 1700 house with medieval wing on left rear. Medieval wing coursed rubble with pantiled roof. House painted roughcast masonry; pantiled roof with stone-flagged eaves; pebble-dashed chimney stacks. 2-storey, 5-bay house with raised-and-chamfered quoins. 6-panel door, in broken- pedimented stone surround,in fourth bay. Replaced 12-pane sashes with projecting sills and wedge lintels. Small square sundial with circular face and replaced gnomon above door. Blocked oval window, in cable-moulded surround, above sundial. Steeply-pitched roof with swept eaves, coped gables and shaped kneelers. End and ridge stacks. Medieval wing: 1.5-metre thick ground-floor walls; chamfered plinth and remains of corbelled-out garderobe, with later stone stair cut into side, on left return; alternating quoins, blocked doorway and small first-floor lancet (possibly ex- situ) on rear gable end; roof with brick rear end stack. Narrow 2-storey gabled stair wing, with replaced sash, on rear of house. Interior: medieval wing has barrel-vaulted ground-floor room with deep arched splay of former gable-end doorway. House contains a possibly reconstructed 2-flight dogleg staircase with closed string, square-section moulded handrail and balusters with 3 rounded knops. 2-storey, 2-bay addition on right of house is not of special interest. (Listed Building Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1322964
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 1399661.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) D11560.

Books
- Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles and Tower Houses of County Durham (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 63 (slight)
  Ramm, H.G., McDowall, R.W. and Mercer, E., 1970, Shielings and Bastles (London: HMSO) p. 66
Periodical Articles
- Ryder, P.F., 1992, 'Bastles and bastle-like buildings in Allendale' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 149 p. 370

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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