The timber-framed great hall of Rufford Old Hall

Rufford Old Hall, nestled in the village of Rufford, Lancashire, is now under the care of the National Trust. Constructed for the Hesketh family, lords of the manor of Rufford, around 1530, the exact date may pre-date this estimation. However, Rufford Old Hall is designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner puts the date earlier, at the late fifteenth century, comparing the architecture with contemporaneous historic houses in Lancashire: Smithills Hall, Ordsall Hall, and Samlesbury Hall.

While some sources state the building was constructed for Sir Robert Hesketh, Pevsner calls this guesswork, and the Trust suggests his father, Sir Thomas Hesketh, as the builder. The only element remaining from the original structure is the great hall, which is an outstanding example of Tudor hammerbeam construction. The screen in the hall, constructed from bog oak, is the only known surviving example from the first half of the 16th century. The free-standing screen is nominally movable, but Pevsner calls it "a monster of a screen, and movable only if you accept a very optimistic meaning of the term".

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons