Crompton Hall

Cadw's description

Location

Crompton Hall is reached from a private drive off the end of Park Avenue. It is sited in open agricultural land on the edge of the village of Higher Kinnerton and largely obscured by planting.

History

Crompton Hall was so named after William Crompton, a London merchant and later Clerk to the City of Chester in the C17. Said to have been built to escape the plague in Chester. It is believed to have remained in use as an official residence until the early C19 when Kinnerton Lodge was built for that purpose and Crompton Hall may have become it's Home Farm. In 1709 William Crompton left a sizeable bequest to be shared equally between the parish of Dodleston and the church of St. Peter at the Cross, Chester. By 1830 it is recorded as part of the Kinnerton Lodge estate of Thomas Topham.

Exterior

Early C19, with earlier origins, former farmhouse with attached shippon and barn constructed of brown brick under grey slate roof with wide dentilated eaves. Two storeys plus attic on a U-plan with a symmetrical gabled front. The ground and first floors are articulated by a cogged brick band. To the principal elevations are three-light casement windows with Gothick interlacing glazing bars under moulded dripstones. Fanlight to the centrally placed door also of similar Gothick design. Blocked door to southern elevation. The western portion is the former stable block now converted to garages. The connecting former shippon retains an exposed truss.

Interior

From the entrance hall rises a a fine Jacobean dog-leg staircase with splat balusters, newels with pierced finials and especially good carved string. Earlier chamfered beam to hall has been cut to increase clearance height of first flight. To the ground floor hearth a re-sited heavy moulded bressumer of sub-medieval character with later faint carved inscriptions to lower chamfer.

Reason for designation

Listed as a well-preserved estate house with C17 origins and retaining fine staircase.