Woolley Hall

[1] In the mid-fourteenth century, the nucleus of what became the Woolley estate belonged to Sir William de Notton, a man of local origin who achieved wealth and fame as a lawyer, and was later appointed Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

[2] His lands in Woolley and Notton passed in 1365 to Sir William Fyncheden, by whose executor they were sold in 1377 to John Woodrove (or Woodroffe / Woodruffe) of Normanton.

The manor house remained with this line through four generations to her great grandson Robert Rilston, the son of Edmund.

[3] There is apparently some confusion as to whether Rilston's manor house stood on the same site occupied by the present Woolley Hall.

Walker, in his work on the Manor and Church of Woolley, seems to have assumed that Sir Richard Woodrove made Rilston's house his principal residence on acquiring it in 1490.

[4] However, Geoffrey Markham argues that Woodrove may have remained in his ancestral home in Woolley, itself a house of some importance, and that it may be this house, previously owned by Sir William de Notton and John Woodrove, that stood on or near the site of the present Hall.

[5] The present building in Woolley is an example of early Jacobean architecture, and was begun about 1635 and added onto at the turn of the 19th century by the architect Jeffry Wyatville.

The eastern wings which form the rest of the present building were added in the early nineteenth century.

A semicircular balustrade runs from the bottom of the steps to the edge of the south walls of the west and east wings.

The northern stable block was constructed by Watson and Pritchet in 1805-1810, of hammer-dressed sandstone, built in a U-shaped plan, facing south-east, and consisting of two storeys.

According to the receipt presented to Godfrey Wentworth in 1808, the staircase is of Norway Oak and cost forty pounds.

Late eighteenth century receipts held in Woolley Hall’s archives show that extensive alterations to the room were carried out by Joseph Hall in March 1796, including replacement of the chimney and parts of the walls, at a cost of eighty-one pounds, ten shillings and sixpence.