Calverley Old Hall

Documents and house together then tell a story of a steady climb in wealth and status as the Calverleys (the heirs all called William or Walter) added to their estates bit by bit and married into the leading families in the area. Many were knighted or served as magistrates and later as county sheriff. They never rose higher than that: they were county magnates, not national ones. Some stand out as individuals: Sir Walter, in the 1300s, was a vigorous improver, a pioneer of the iron industry.

A mighty hammer-beamed Great Hall

In the 1480s, a William Calverley married a wealthy Savile heiress and built the current enormous hammer-beamed Great Hall with a great stone fireplace. Its 30-foot span was made possible by the use of projecting hammerbeams, richly carved in the latest fashion. The original entrance was at the west end, where there was a cross passage between two doors, behind a screen and with a fine spere truss above. The first-floor hall now became part of the solar rooms. The chapel was built at the same time,  also a very rare survival. It has a private gallery for the family, entered from the solar (now the sitting room), a fine altar window (restored in the 1980s) and a miniature hammerbeam roof, very similar in its detailing to the great hall’s. A panelled oak ceiling is fitted over the two bays at the altar end. The chapel was first restored in the 1980s, reversing changes that had turned it into a cottage.

The Calverley wall paintings

More is known about the 16th Century Calverleys during the difficult years of the Reformation. Chief among them is another William (?1507-72), who was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London for religious opposition in the 1530s. He learnt his lesson, and embraced Henry VIII’s Protestant regime. He was knighted in 1545 fighting in Scotland, and became Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1548-9. He also found time to produce 17 children with his two wives before his death. Sir William also upgraded his father’s Parlour Block, where in 2022 the painted chamber was discovered beneath plasterboard in a bedroom. Covered in tightly planned wall paintings of Renaissance grotesque-work, it is a room national significance. In the next generation, the Lodging Block was added (dated to the 1580s).

Tragedy and decline

Tragedy struck the family in April 1605, when Sir William’s grandson, Walter Calverley, ran amok, murdering his two small sons, William and Walter. He was executed for his crime by pressing to death. A play was written about this real-life Jacobean tragedy, A Yorkshire Tragedy. This was long attributed to Shakespeare but is now believed to be by Thomas Middleton. The surviving son, Henry, became a poignant figure, dogged by ill luck in youth and later burdened by a huge fine imposed by Parliament for being a Royalist. Read more about Calverley's Yorkshire Tragedy here.

The story of the Calverleys ends on a happier note. Sir Walter Calverley (1629-91) was the last of his family to have much to do with the Old Hall, though he chose not live there but in the new mansion he built nearby at Esholt, having married heiress Frances Thompson. His son, Sir Walter, 1^st Baronet, married Elizabeth Orde Blackett of Wallington in Northumberland, and their son left Yorkshire altogether to live at Wallington.

The cottage years

Calverley Old Hall in 1902, by now divided into many cottages.

In 1754 the Calverley estate was sold to the Thornhills, another local family, and the Old Hall was divided into cottages, including the chapel and the vast volumes of the Great Hall and Solar Block. Many generations of cloth workers, labourers, cobblers and others lived on the site. Barns and stables which stood around it gradually disappeared as cottage gardens and orchards were replaced by streets and houses. But the cottage tenants had no reason to make major alterations, so the shell of the medieval house remained intact, a rare and complete survival. A remarkable aspect of this phase that came to light during the 2020s restoration was hundreds of everyday objects and fragments concealed by the cottagers in the walls of the Old Hall. We can only assume that these were in the tradition of good luck charms. After study and cataloguing, they have all been returned to the building.

For a short history of Calverley Old Hall please click here.

Forty years on, a brand new Landmark

The last cottage was vacated in 2010 and maintenance need had now built up, requiring major expenditure. Landmark decided it was time to bring the whole site back into use. In 2017, an open architectural competition was held with a brief to turn the Great Hall and Solar blocks into a new, larger Landmark. The Lodging Block, where the former holiday let was, became a community space on the ground floor and a one-bedroomed residential flat on the first floor. From the outset, we also looked for renewable energy use and sustainability, as well as accessibility compliance. The competition was won by Cowper Griffiths Architects of Cambridge.

Work began in 2021 during the Covid pandemic, when thanks to the Culture Recovery Fund, we were able to begin by re-roofing the Great Hall and Solar even though we had not yet met our appeal target. Under a canopy all the stone tiles were removed and re-bedded, the process yielding a great deal of archaeological information about the building’s evolution. The goods news of an enabling grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund meant we were then able to move straight onto the internals works, undertaken by local firm Dobson’s Construction Ltd of Ilkley.

A sustainable restoration

Six deep bore holes were drilled in the grounds for ground source heating, and this now feeds underfloor heating. The highest standards of sustainability were observed throughout the works, re-using salvaged fabric whenever possible, and using traditional materials even down to the sheep’s wool insulation of the Great Hall roof. The exterior stonework was meticulously repointed inside and out in lime mortar by masons who took great care to match mortar colour and pointing style. The last remnants of the cottage phase were cleared and the floor was reinstated in the Solar Block. Stairs and a new mezzanine level  gallery were created in the entrance area, where the medieval screens passage once stood. The gallery echoes a landing leading to the earliest 1320s first-floor hall.  

Secret items and astonishing discoveries

Throughout the works, hundreds of concealed objects were found in walls and openings, in places they could not have got to by accident: shoes, eggs, metal objects, plaster fragments, bobbins, scraps of clothing and many more. These were all carefully saved and studied and are now stored in the building in archive boxes. Humble objects in themselves, they are assumed to be charms against bad luck and tell a tale of enduring local folk superstition, another remarkable aspect of the story of Calverley Old Hall.

The ground floor of the Solar Block (originally service rooms) has become two bedrooms and bathrooms (one suite fully accessible), with a further ground floor  bedroom and bathroom in the 16^th-century Parlour Block, which has an original moulded ceiling. The airy upstairs sitting room in the Solar Block can be reached either by the stairs or a newly installed platform lift. The original entrance from Solar to Chapel has been re-opened, so that you can now step out onto the Chapel gallery just as the Calverleys did, its floor newly restored.

A (later) doorway into the upper floor of the Parlour Block, which holds the painted chamber, was also re-opened, allowing access to the chamber direct from the sitting room. This astonishing find after work had already started required us to re-think our scheme. We were determined that the paintings should be fully revealed and enjoyed, and use as a bedroom seemed the most appropriate given that light levels must be kept low. A sophisticated environmental monitoring system has been installed to manage heat and humidity levels, and a lobby created between it and an en suite bathroom for the same reason. The wall paintings have been sensitively cleaned and consolidated where there was decaying plaster by Opus Conservation. Covered by panelling soon after its creation, the scheme is in astonishingly good condition.

Community events and engagement

Throughout the restoration works, Landmark’s Engagement team carried out a lively programme of visits, activities and workshops for the wider community. Some of the results of these can be seen in the community space, and also the stone sculpture and community garden created in the grounds.

Calverley Old Hall has been altered many times over the centuries. It has now entered a new phase of existence, one that suits life in the 21^st century while still respecting the site’s long history and ancient fabric.