Burnhopeside Hall

LANCHESTER A691 (South side) NZ 14 NE 6/59 Burnhopeside Hall 17/1/67 GV II*

House. Probably C18, altered and considerably enlarged early C19 for William Hedley, railway locomotive pioneer; late C19 billiard room. Sandstone ashlar, with rubble earlier right wing; Lakeland slate roof; Welsh slate roof on billiard room; stone-flagged right wing roof. L-plan. Main house 2 storeys, 3 bays on garden front, with central porch of one storey, one bay containing half-glazed door and fanlight with glazing bars in surround of pilasters and arch; lattice-glazed round-headed windows in porch returns; cornice and blocking course. Giant pilasters frame pecked-and-margined ashlar front. Tripartite ground-floor windows have aprons and floating cornices on acanthus- scroll brackets; lugged architraves and sill band to first-floor 12-pane sashes, the central bay projecting slightly. Top cornice and blocking course, with low triangular top over central bay. Hipped roof has 2 central corniced chimneys.

Right set-back wing, of 2 lower storeys, 4 bays, has flat stone lintels over renewed door and 3-light window; blank first floor; ridge chimneys. Left return has one-storey, 2-bay billiard room extension in same style as main house.

Interior: dado rails, stucco cornices with classical moulding, and stucco ceiling roses, with central acanthus leaves in roundel of oak leaves, in main ground-floor rooms; hall has pilasters; stone stair with wreath and curtail.

C20 rear one-storey, one-bay addition not of special interest.

Historical note: Hedley was the designer of Puffing Billy for the Wylam Colliery wagonway 1813-1815; he was also the first to demonstrate that the weight of the engine would create adhesion to the lines and that toothed wheels were not necessary.

Sources: Nicholas Wood, A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads and Interior Communication in General, 1825; letter from William Hedley in Newcastle Courant 17 December 1836.

Graded for historical interest.

Listing NGR: NZ1866946186