Norley Hall is a country house in the village of Norley

Norley

thumb|right|200px|Map of civil parish of Norley within the former borough of Vale RoyalNorley is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It lies to the north of Delamere Forest, near the village of Cuddington...

, Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, England. It was built in about 1500 on the site of an earlier house for the Hall family, enlarged in 1697 for John Hall, rebuilt in 1782 for William Hall, and enlarged again in about 1845 for Samuel Woodhouse, giving it a Tudor

Tudor architecture

The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...

 appearance. The architect responsible for this latest enlargement was Alfred Bowyer Clayton. The service wing was extended later in the 19th century, and further additions and alterations were carried out during the 20th century, including the division of the building into two houses. The gardens were designed by Edward Kemp

Edward Kemp

Edward Kemp was an English landscape architect and an author. Together with Joseph Paxton and Edward Milner, Kemp became one of the leaders in the design of parks and gardens during the mid-Victorian era in England....

. The house is rendered

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

, and has a sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 ashlar

Ashlar

Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...

 basement, porch and dressings. The roofs are slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

d. Its plan is irregular. The main block is in two storeys, plus an attic and a basement. On the entrance front is a projecting central gable

Gable

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

d bay

Bay (architecture)

A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...

. There is a single-storey porch with buttress

Buttress

A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...

es, pinnacle

Pinnacle

A pinnacle is an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire...

s, a pierced balustrade

Baluster

A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...

, and a Tudor arched doorway. On the left side of the house is an octagonal stair turret

Turret

In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...

 surmounted by a bellcote with a conical roof. The service wing also has two storeys. The house has been designated by English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 as a Grade II listed building.

Further reading