Howlish Hall

BISHOP AUCKLAND

NZ22NW HOWLISH LANE, Coundon 634-1/5/128 (South side) 21/04/52 Howlish Hall

GV II

House, now nursing home. c1700 with extensive late C18 additions and alterations, plus C19 east billiard room and west wing. MATERIALS: painted ashlar and render with painted ashlar plinth, quoins and dressings. Welsh slate roof with brick and ashlar chimneys. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys except for one-storey billiard room. East front 2:3:3 windows. 2 bays of double-span original house visible at left, obscured at right by C19 addition. Extruded porch in angle has canted entrance with ramp up to 8-panel double doors and plain overlight in architrave. Each return of porch has a single 2:4-pane sash in architrave with cyma recta cornice. Above, original build has 6:6-pane sashes in architraves. Projecting late C18 addition has windows similar to those of porch and 4-pane sashes above in corniced architraves. First 3 sashes in wide, 2-storey canted bay, then 3 further sashes adapted as top-hinged casements on the ground floor. Block gutter brackets to roof of original build, which has moulded kneelers to double gable on left return with flat stone coping continuing over central valley parapet. Lower-pitched hipped roof over late C18 part, with hipped projection over canted bay; behind this the roof of the first build has been raised to flat roof at ridge level. Hipped roofs to C19 rear wings. Chimneys on first build gables are brick with ashlar plinth and cornice; others on ridges and at rear are brick with brick cornices. Left return has 3 tall windows to billiard room at rear, double gable has one 4-pane sash on each floor of left bay. Right gable has C19 canted bay window on ground floor and blocked window on first floor. C19 addition blank on this side. Rear elevation shows C18 Venetian stair window over c1900 porch with Art Nouveau detail. INTERIOR shows much original detail of each period, including 2- and 6-panel doors, dado rails, plain corniced chimneypieces, door architraves. Most room cornices lost, but some may survive behind suspended ceiling. Staircase in C17 part has moulded grip handrail on turned balusters, much renewed but gallery original; fire screen inserted behind gallery; Venetian window has pilasters and architraves. C17 roof accessible from C19 flat-topped addition and shows crossed principal rafters holding ridge purlin; one original collar each truss, some additional later collars. One level of purlins. Conyers Surtees gives Hopper family as early owners, purchase in 1808 by David Crawford of Newcastle, in 1848 by Sir William Eden, and in 1924 the property of Messrs Bolckow, Vaughan and Co. (Surtees H C: History of the Parish of Coundon: Mainsforth: 1924-: 8).

Listing NGR: NZ2423228812