Words: Anne Akers
The Landmark Trust, which owns the Grade 1 listed Calverley Old Hall, is hosting a virtual meeting on Thursday to discuss renovation and fundraising plans.
Last month the Trust launched a £427,000 restoration appeal for the historic hall, which dates back to the 14th century.
Earlier this month the Trust submitted a planning application to create accommodation for ten people, along with a community space.
The design for the accommodation, by Cowper Griffiths Architects, will restore the main spaces of the house to their historic uses.
According to the Trust’s website, the great hall will become an impressive open space for living, cooking and eating, just as it would have been in the 15th century.
The solar block will hold bedrooms on the ground floor and upstairs, the Calverley family’s private rooms will become the sitting room; a convivial space beneath decorated roof trusses, lit by a long, stone, transomed and mullioned window, and warmed once more by a fire in its magnificent 14th-century stone fireplace.
It says the existing structures and surviving fabric of the building will be gently and sensitively repaired, and where the original fabric has disappeared – as with the lost cross passage and stairs – the new interventions will be clearly identifiable as 21st-century repairs.
The lodging block, the current place where people stay, will become a community space and residential flat, with separate entrances and parking.
The Trust has issued an open invitation to residents and those interested in the Old Hall to register for the Zoom meeting, and question and answer session, which will be streamed on Thursday from 7pm.