Wycoller Hall dates back to the end of the 16th century, and was built upon the site of a house occupied in 1507 by Piers Hartley.
He embarked on a large building project for the hall, to create a home that he felt would be worthy of his position, and that would attract a new wife.
[1][4] The building project took over a year to complete, during which time Henry moved out and lodged at the nearby public house.
[4] Despite this, much of the hall survived into the late 19th century, though it was unoccupied and steadily crumbling, with considerable amounts of the stonework being removed for local buildings.
[4] An exhibition about the history of the hall, the village, and the surrounding area was established in the aisled barn close to the ruins.
[6] The part of the house rebuilt in the time of Henry Owen Cunliffe was three storeys high, and contained the drawing and sitting rooms, and the bedrooms.
The seasonal celebrations shown in the above engraving (from a painting by Henry Melville) are the subject of Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poetical illustration Christmas in the Olden Time, 1650 in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836.
[8] Wycoller Hall is thought to be the inspiration for Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
Finding his wife terrified at the scene, he cursed her cowardice and raised his hunting crop as if to strike her.
[10] The squire is supposedly still seen at night returning to the hall, dressed in the costume of the early Stuart era.
[11] Paranormal Investigators Colin Veacock and Peter Crawley recorded a sound similar to a riding crop on 26 July 1996.
On the return voyage he began to have second thoughts of the suitability of his marriage, so he threw his wife overboard, where she drowned.