Plait Hall

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The Sayle family and friends playing croquet in the garden, c.1870.

·  Plait Hall is older than it looks: most of the structure dates from the mid to late 17th Century (1650s – 1680s).

·  Beneath the white rendering are lath and plaster walls over a traditional timber frame on a brick base. The roof is of Welsh slate. The Georgian windows are a later addition. 

·  The front door used to be at the opposite end of the house – look for the threshold and door scraper in the High Street.

·  The house and land were part of the estate of the Sayle family of Hinxworth. In the late 19th – early 20th Century two Sayle sisters lived in the house.  The property included barns, stable and outbuildings, and a ‘farmyard, garden and orchard’.

·  Plait Hall was called ‘Rest Haven’ in the 1930s. The property used to extend to Hodwell but part of the garden was sold in 1964, when the main house was purchased by Robert Willis, the Trades Union official.

·  Phillida Shaw has lived here since 1976. Her partner David Whyman is a stained glass craftsman.