Bank Hall - Architecture

Architecture

Bank Hall, built in the Jacobean style in 1608, is a brick built mansion of three storeys with Dutch gables and a square central tower on the south front. Some of the original brickwork in a diaper (lozenge) flushwork pattern is visible on one gable. The house was restored and enlarged by architect George Webster in 1832–3. He added a wing to the west elevations, built a porch on the north side, remodelled the 1608 north elevation windows, covered the roofs with blue Cumbrian slates and finished the walls with stone details. Webster carried out the alterations sympathetically, in a style corresponding to the 17th-century building, but the difference is marked by the colour of the brickwork and sharpness of the detail. Most windows were renewed during the restoration and two Italian style bay windows added to the south front, altering its appearance.

The clock tower which rises to a height of 60 feet (18 m), was built between 1660 and 1665 and remodelled in 1832–33. The tower, which contains an original oak balustraded, cantilevered staircase, is the chief architectural feature of the building on the south side. The brick built tower has stone quoins at the corners and the staircase has eight original stone cross-windows with mullions, transoms and hoodmoulds irregularly spaced at different levels which contained leaded glass in an octagonal pattern. The tower has a south-facing 19th-century clock in the top storey, (the north facing clock fell when the north east elevation of the tower collapsed during the 1980s) the cogs and wheels were manufactured by John Alker and the tower parapet has ornaments from the 19th-century restoration.

Decorative features include lavish stonework and finials on the west wing bay window and false windows on the kitchen chimney stack wall creating a decorative feature on a plain wall. The Legh Keck coat of arms is carved in stone above the front porch, with two carved green men on either side of the doors. Other features from the 1832 renovation include Legh Keck's initials "G.A.L.K" and "1833" inscribed above the Italian bay windows. There were once four cast iron ram's heads holding laurel sprigs and maiden's heads on the building. The lead rain hoppers have the initials "LK" and there are stone statues on the tower battlements. Another feature is the chimney stacks, the oldest is diamond shaped, while others are square and the chimneys on the west wing are octagonal. The clocks on the tower feature a fleur-de-lis at each corner of their faces, thought to be from the Bannastre family coat of arms.

The house once had a pair of 12-foot (3.7 m) concrete statues (thought to be of a gothic floral design, with the Legh Keck symbols on the base) near the front porch that were destroyed and a sundial, which has been lost. A pair of lion statues from Atherton Hall that stood by the front porch were moved to the Lilford Estate offices in Tarleton.