| Summary : Nappa Hall is a fortified manor house tradtionally dated to 1459, although construction appears mainly to have taken place slightly later in the 15th century. It is built in limestone rubble with stone slate roofs and gritstone surrounds and detailing to the windows and doors. The central hall is flanked by a four storey tower to the west and a two storey tower to the east. A service wing southwards from the east tower forming one arm of a courtyard. The opposing western arm is provided by a stable and coach house range added when the hall served as a shooting lodge in the late 18th and mid 19th-century. A third range, across the southern side of the courtyard, is shown on a map dated 1756. This may have been demolished when the stables were built, and replaced by a terraced walk, which has also since been demolished. The Hall is flanked by the earthworks of yards and gardens, and overlooks a wider setting of medieval fields, trackways, fishponds and a dam/watermill to the south. |
More information : (SD 96569080) Nappa Hall (NR). (1)
Nappa Hall former residence of the Metcalfe's built c 1450. It consists of two rectangular embattled towers connected by a single storied building (the original hall) with a projecting wing on SE tower. (2)
Gabled S wing dated 1747. Gde I building. (3)
As described above. See ground photograph. (4)
Built 1459. Extended in the 17th century and altered in the mid 18th century. Listed Grade I. (5)
LIsted as a possible castle by Cathcart King. (6)
In February 2013, in order to inform plans for the refurbishment of the Hall, English Heritage’s Assessment Team (North) carried out an architectural investigation (Level 2) and a detailed earthwork survey (Level 3) of the immediate grounds. At the same time dendrochronological samples were taken by the Nottingham University Tree-Ring Dating Laboratory, which also informed the final report (7).
The manor house complex, of fortified appearance rather than defensible design, is traditionally dated to 1459 and attributed to James Metcalfe, a veteran of Agincourt. Dendrochronological analysis has confirmed the likelihood of some building activity at Nappa, centred in the present service range, in the period 1461-5. The bulk of the medieval house, however, including the hall and the high-end tower, are securely dated to a slightly later period centred on 1472-6 and are therefore the work of James Metcalfe’s son Thomas. The medieval fabric comprises a four-storey high-end tower, a single-storey hall range and a three-storey low-end tower (the towers both roofed as cross-wings), a service range extending southwards from the low-end tower, and a single-storey porch in the re-entrant of the hall range and service range. The service range has been heavily altered but it is likely that the main roof was gabled north-south originally. A 1756 map shows a further range or structure extending westwards from the southern end of the service range and forming the third side of a courtyard. The range, which is likely to have been of 15th-century date and of which some architectural fragments appear to survive, was replaced by a terrace walk before 1805 according to documented reports and a late 18th-century plan for refurbishments by William Belwood. The same 1756 map shows the western side of the courtyard closed by a wall.
Tree-ring dates assign alterations to the service range, including the insertion of a first floor over the brewhouse, to the late 16th century. Documentary evidence appears to confirm the existence of the east wing, projecting to the rear of the main service range, by 1657 when the Hall was split between two brothers, one occupying the Hall and high-end tower, the other having the remainder of the accommodation. The divided household was short-lived but resulted in the drawing up of documents attaching names to a number of rooms.
A number of bolection-moulded chimneypieces and some associated wainscot point to a significant upgrading of the low-end tower in the early 18th century, probably around 1722 for Thomas Metcalfe (‘Justice’ Metcalfe). A lead apron dated 1747 documents renewed work on the service range by Metcalfe and in 1756, the year in which Nappa Hall passed to Richard Weddell of Newby Hall, the decayed south wall of the east wing was rebuilt. Probably in the late 1770s or 1780s William Belwood was employed by William Weddell to adapt the Hall for use, in part, as a hunting lodge. Later commentators considered that the work was not executed (8), but there is evidence that a stable and coach house range was built – probably to Belwood’s design – closing the western side of the courtyard. Eighteenth-century alterations are otherwise concentrated in the low-end tower and service ranges. The high-end tower, all but abandoned by this date, was described as ruinous in 1805.
Further changes can be dated to circa 1810-30, when a number of reeded doorcases and chimneypieces were introduced in the low-end tower and service range. In the third quarter of the 19th century a two-storey stable, coach-house and hay-loft range, also incorporating the main entrance to the yard, was built on the site of Belwood’s west range and retaining his west wall. At about the same time a small single-storey building (now used as a wood store) was built in the space between the coach-house range and the high-end tower. There are slight indications that the hall and the lower portion of the high-end tower were upgraded for use by hunting parties. Subsequent changes have been few and during the later 20th century the condition of the complex deteriorated seriously, a process only partially arrested by the re-roofing of the high-end tower and associated lead works (7).
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