Hardwicke Hall Manor Hotel

This is a medium-sized country house, now operating as a hotel, dating from the early to mid-18th century, though incorporating fabric of an earlier structure, possibly from the 16th century. The building is constructed of handmade brick covered with incised render, with a Welsh slate roof and rendered chimneys. It has an L-shaped layout.

The two-storey front facade has a low plinth and three prominent Tuscan pilasters, located at the corners and to the right of the centre, dividing the facade into three main bays, plus two smaller bays. A 20th-century glazed door, with a matching overlight, is set within an elaborate doorcase featuring a broken scrolled pediment supported by consoles. The windows are mostly 20th-century leaded casements in deep reveals with moulded surrounds and segmental heads, each topped with three dropped keystones. A tall, panelled parapet has ball finials at each end. The roof is low-pitched and hipped, with flat tops and ridge chimneys. The return to the left is a three-storey five-bay section, alongside a two-storey projecting wing. The arrangement of doors and windows is similar to the front facade. A central, partly-glazed door and three-pane overlight are set in a moulded surround. Most windows have been replaced, although two first-floor windows retain their original 12-pane sashes with thick glazing bars. The projecting end bays have round-arched niches on each floor; statues are housed in the right-hand niches, while the lower niche of the left-hand bay has been filled in. The roofline features ovolo-moulded coping, stepped over the central section and ramped above the end bays.

The interior was remodelled in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The cellar contains several stone walls, some up to 1.0 to 1.5 metres thick. The former chapel on the second floor retains two stoups, along with traces of mid-18th-century panelling and a modillioned cornice, now concealed behind 20th-century cupboards. A priest’s hole, believed to be from the 16th century, is located in the garret, behind an internal chimney breast.

A late 20th-century addition to the right of the entrance front and the detached outbuildings at the rear are not considered to be of particular architectural interest.