Elemore Hall School And Doorway And Archway Attached

Elemore Hall is a house now used as a local authority residential school, with an attached doorway to the north and archway to the north-east. It was rebuilt between 1749 and 1753 by Robert Shout of Helmsley (1734-97) and his brother John for George Baker, on the basement of a 16th-century house originally built for Bertram Anderson, mayor and Member of Parliament of Newcastle upon Tyne. The date 1750 appears on the pediment. The interior includes stucco work by Jos. Cortese and P. Robinson, dated to 1752.

The basement is constructed of 16th-century rusticated ashlar. The upper storeys are built of tuck-pointed Flemish bond brick with Penshaw sandstone ashlar dressings and alternately-projecting quoins, with some 20th-century patching to the pointing. The roof is finished with graduated Lakeland slates and stone gable copings.

The building is arranged in an E-shaped plan with a basement and three storeys of diminishing height. The front elevation is composed of seven bays, with a three-bay central projection and wings, each with two-bay inner returns, all crowned with pediments. A two-storey, three-bay extension to the left links the house with a doorway serving the former stable yard.

The principal entrance is reached by long central stone steps in two flights, the lower flight being wider. The steps have stone balustrades and scroll-buttressed panelled piers; the lowest pair of piers are topped with large acorn finials. The entrance doors are half-glazed and set within a lugged architrave with a stepped key, above which rises a pedimented Ionic Order with rusticated pilasters. The ground floor of each wing features a Venetian window opening onto a balustraded stone balcony supported on four large scrolled brackets. All windows are sashes with vertical glazing bars and have architraves; those above the door and Venetian windows are lugged and keyed. The building is articulated by floor bands. The central pediment on the front elevation, carved from soft sandstone, contains an eroded coat of arms for Baker and Routh with lion regardant supporters and a lion rampant crest; only the date 1750 is legible in the lower angles. The roof carries tall corniced chimney stacks above the eaves on the returns and rear.

The right return to the garden contains five bays, the outer two being wider, and is approached by a long flight of stone steps with flat-coped dwarf walls swept out to square piers. A half-glazed door in a pedimented rusticated surround provides access, with bracketed stone balconies serving all ground-floor windows. A small central pediment crowns the eaves cornice. The left return of the main building, facing into the former stable yard, has a chamfered stone surround to a blocked Tudor-arched door at basement level, with three and two transom lights of wholly-blocked stone-mullioned windows above. Sashes with glazing bars have been inserted below these blocked windows, with further similar sashes on upper floors, all within plain stone surrounds.

The left extension has a blank ground floor and three first-floor sashes beneath a hipped roof at the left. An adjoining stable doorway has a pedimented, keyed, rusticated surround. A rear stable yard entrance, attached at right-angles to the rear elevation, features a high keyed round arch with alternately-projecting quoins and voussoirs.

The interior contains significant stucco decoration by Peter Robinson and Jos. Cortese, whose signatures appear on the work. The front hall has a part dado rail, stucco panelled ceiling and modillioned cornice. A six-panel door in a pedimented lugged surround opens into the large central room, now used as a dining room, which has a stucco dentilled cornice; its original fireplace has been removed from the rear wall. A widened arch leads to a smaller room with a rich stucco frieze containing panels of thunderbolts, arrows, oak and laurel foliage, a lyre and Pan pipes, a crown and scroll, shield and spear—many of these symbols associated with Jupiter. Paired modillions over the frieze support a ceiling centred with Cupid and Psyche among delicate floral trails. Panelled window shutters and soffits are decorated with a Greek fret pattern. A door at the front wall of this room, now blocked, formerly gave access to the stair hall in the right wing.

The stair hall contains an open-well cantilevered stone stair to the first floor, with a narrow moulded handrail on an iron balustrade of square-section rods. The corner and central panels of the balustrade are decorated with tied scrolls and water-leaves. The room has a dado rail and six-panel doors with ovolo surrounds to fielded panels. The stucco ceiling decoration features a central panel showing Jupiter in clouds, holding a thunderbolt and wearing a crown, with an eagle beside him. Finely-moulded heads fill the four corner panels of the ceiling, with delicate floral trails defining the spaces. The ground-floor room at the front of the right wing, accessed from the stair hall, has ceiling decorations of similar quality with vine trails; this room is most likely the dining room, though some accounts suggest it may have served as a drawing room at different periods.

Other rooms in the house are plainer in finish, many having stucco cornices and six-panelled doors within architraves. The top floor has two-panel doors with L-hinges. The basement contains three 16th-century chamfered-arched door surrounds and a king-post roof with diagonal struts. Some small 20th-century additions are present.