The Wilford Archive
The Entrance Porch
The Entrance Porch to the Hall is one of the interesting external features of the Hall.
It protects the amazing old heavy timber door with its wicket door and is in line with the medieval ‘screens passage’ beyond. The Porch underwent extensive repair work during the early part of 2012. The original oak structure is timber clad, but the latter had weathered significantly over the years. Differential movement between the various elements of the timber cladding quickly caused external paintwork to crack and peel, resulting in a shabby appearance.
Following extensive discussions with English Heritage, Scheduled Monument Consent was obtained to replace the areas of defective timber with external grade marine ply.
At the same time, the existing paintwork was stripped away, and the whole structure was repainted with linseed oil-based paint to a rigorous specification. As the Porch is south-facing, the paint finish suffers from the effect of direct sunlight. Rather than repaint it in its former dark brown colour, which absorbed the heat, a light limestone shade was chosen, thus prolonging the life of the paint and, in fact, restoring it to an earlier colour. The work was completed by picking out the ‘MERCHANT TAYLORS’ wording in a bright red.
Other photos of the Porch over the years
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1900
Probably one of the earliest photos of the Porch. This photo interestingly predates the addition in the 1920s of the brick buttress between the two right hand windows designed to look like a chimney breast!
GAW Nov 2024
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1978 (Approx)
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1985 The tympanum painted red
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1996 – the Porch was painted black and white, but this colour was not generally well received.