Description

WRIGHTINGTON
SD50NW LEES LANE
1283-/10/10009 Douglas Bank Farmhouse
07/01/52
- II

Formerly known as Fisher's House. Farmhouse, now house. Dated 1656 on porch; altered, renovated and slightly enlarged c.1973. Very unusual combination of materials: coursed squared sandstone facade with sides and rear of handmade red brick in English garden wall bond (3+1); stone slate roof and brick chimneys. H-plan with one-bay baffle-entry hall-range and 2-bay crosswings, a porch coupled with the east wing and a stair-turret coupled with the rear of the west wing. Two storeys and attic, 1:1:2 windows, with a high moulded plinth. The porch has a Tudor-arched doorway with chamfered surround (eroded), a recessed square datestone over the doorway with raised lettering F
H M
1656
and a double-chamfered cross-window above with damaged hoodmould. Otherwise, both
floors have double-chamfered mullioned windows, all with 4 lights except that at ground floor of the hall-range which has 5 lights, and all with cavetto-moulded hoodmoulds except that at 1st floor of the hall-range; and the gables of wings have small attic windows (one-light, blocked, to the left, 2 lights to the right with a hoodmould. The east wing has a downspout with rainwater head lettered H F
1715
Ridge chimney in line with porch; side-wall chimney to west wing. The left return wall of the west wing has 2 large C20 windows at ground floor and C20 wooden mullion windows above (2 and 4 lights). The right-hand return wall of the east wing has a long panel of diapering in raised headers, and brick labels over 2 blocked or altered windows on each floor. At the rear the east wing has a Tudor-arched doorway with stone lintel and brick label, and one window on each floor above, with labels; the west wing has reduced restored mullion windows on both floors, the lower with a stone hoodmould and the upper with a brick label; and coupled with this wing is a gabled stair-turret which has a glazed door at
ground floor, a large wooden cross-window above, and a Greek cross of raised headers in the gable. (A C20 barbecue chimney now overlaps this turret, and between the wings is a shallow 2-storey flat-roofed addition of c.1973, trying to be sympathetic and failing).
INTERIOR: housepart has inglenook with chamfered bressummer, and 2 axial beams, the front one with 2 large iron rings fixed in it (associated with loom?); lateral partition removed from west wing, but Tudor-arched parlour fireplace and lateral beam in former front parlour, and 2 axial beams in former rear dairy survive (the outer of the latter beams with 2 large iron hooks fixed in it (associated with slaughtering?). HISTORY: built by Henry Fisher, yeoman, and his wife Margaret. Combined use of brick and stone unique in this area for this period. [Reference: private report and survey by Garry Miller, 1987.]

Listing NGR: SD5210508485

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26330557

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey