The poet John Clare (1793 -1864) tells us that there was a 'Bachelors' Hall' in his native village of Helpston (Northamptonshire, UK - although under Cambridgeshire since 1974).

His description is as follows:

"It was a sort of meeting place for the young fellows of the town where they usd to join for ale and tobacco & drink the night away the occupiers were two bachelors & the cottage was calld 'Bachelors Hall' it is an old ruinous hut & has needed repairs ever since I knew it for they neither mended up the walls nor thatch the roof being negligent men but quiet and inoffensive neighbours"

The two bachelor owners were the Billings brothers.

This doesn't sound like a recipe for quiet inoffensiveness to me - and it's lucky for the Billings' neighbours that this was in the days before amplified music!

I recall someone pointing this building out to me a few years ago and noting that it had been transformed into a bijou country residence.