A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



42 ft. from north to south. It is now overgrown 

 with grass, though the cobble pavement was in good 

 condition till a quite recent date (i.e. in 1889). 

 The principal room on the north side of the quad- 

 rangle is about 38 ft. in length, and 24ft. in breadth, 

 and has a flat ceiling. There is a large ingle-nook 

 IO ft. wide at the west end, now built up. Until 

 recently the room was occupied as cottages, and the 

 wall dividing it into two still remains. The whole 

 of the courtyard side of the room is taken up by 

 the sixteen-light window before mentioned, with a 

 smaller window on each side, one single light in each 

 return. The bay is 23 ft. in length inside, and is 

 carried up with a projection of 2 ft. 6 in. to the first 

 floor, where a similar window lights the room above. 



17*- CENTURY 



17- CE.NTUFU (LATt) 



THIS PART REBUILT "752 6* RICHARD Tn\dNi.E.Y 



PLAN OF BELFIELD HALL 



On the other side are two smaller bays facing north, 

 one of them awkwardly contrived behind the pro- 

 jection of the ingle-nook. These seem to be later 

 additions or afterthoughts to the original design, and 

 built with more regard to outside than inside appear- 

 ance. The staircase is said to have been in the 

 north-east angle of the house, though there are now 

 no traces of it. In the west wing, supposed to have 

 contained the kitchen, is a fireplace opening 1 7 ft. 

 wide, since built up, and two modern grates in- 

 serted, the room having previously been divided into 

 two. 



The exterior elevations of Belfield Hall are chiefly 

 distinguished by the long low stone windows without 

 transoms, which give the building a rather squat and 

 monotonous appearance. The entrance front to the 

 east has a thirteen-light window of this description to 



the left of the gateway and two similar windows each 

 of five lights to the right. Above, on the first 

 floor, are five windows of five lights each and one 

 with two. All the windows in the old part of the 

 house, with the exception of those to the great 

 bay on the south side and four in the west wing,, 

 have transoms are of the same type, and the lack of 

 variety in detail makes the building just miss that 

 note of distinction which otherwise it might have- 

 possessed. There is a continuous moulded string- 

 course at the height of the ground-floor window- 

 heads which is continued round the entrance arch- 

 way on the east side, and the upper windows on the 

 outer elevation have hood-moulds. The two great six- 

 teen-light transomed windows to the courtyard, one 

 over the other, separated 

 by a plain wall-space, to- 

 gether with the gable on 

 the west side, make the 

 inner elevations far more 

 picturesque than those on 

 the outside of the house 

 a picturesqueness, how- 

 ever, the full effect of 

 which is lost by the other- 

 wise straight and un- 

 broken lines of the eaves- 

 and roofs. 



The northern elevation 

 now facing the railway is- 

 broken up by the two- 

 small projecting bays,, 

 which go up both stories 

 and finish with stone 

 gables. This front seems to- 

 have been much patched 

 and altered. The end 

 gable and wall below to- 

 the east, as has before been 

 stated, has been entirely 

 refaced in modern times, 

 and the two doorways 

 which now give entrance 

 to the chief apartments 

 are modern insertions. 

 On the other hand it ap- 

 pears that a projecting 

 bay 1 1 ft. in width for- 

 merly existed in the centre 

 of the wall on this side, as 

 shown by the break in the 



plinth. The south side of the quadrangle is occupied 

 by the back of the 18th-century building erected by 

 Col. Townley which rises a full story above the lines 

 of the eaves of the old roofs, and consequently over- 

 shadows the courtyard on the side where the light 

 could be least spared. No attempt has been made 

 to harmonize the new work with the old except that 

 the wall has on this side been faced with stone prob- 

 ably the old materials used up and the south side 

 of the quadrangle is properly a back elevation. In 

 later times an enormous buttress has been introduced 

 to strengthen the wall, further destroying the pic- 

 turesqueness of the courtyard. 



The new south front erected by Col. Townley 

 in 1752 is a classic composition of two stories in 

 brick and stone possessing a certain dignity and state- 

 liness, but rather coarse in detail. It is about looft. 



216 



