Seaham Hall Hotel

NE 45 SW B1287

2/50 (South Side, Off) SEAHAM HALL HOTEL

II

Country house, now a hotel. 1791-2 for Sir Ralph Milbanke; 1861 additions by Lewis Vulliamy for Frances, Lady Londonderry. Incised rendered rubble painted white. Welsh slate roofs. Rendered and pebble-dashed chimneys. Classical style. Long 2-storey garden front: symmetrical 9-bay centre with projecting bay at left; added flanking wings, 6 bays at left and 3 bays at right. Continuous plinth and band between storeys painted black. Replaced doors and mainly 6-and 12-pane sashes. 9-bay section: tall projecting gabled centre bay with 2-storey canted bay window and round-headed light in wood open-pedimented gable; flanking sections, each with a central square bay window on ground floor; roof with coped gables. Bay at left has tripartite window on ground floor and hipped roof behind parapet. Wing at left has altered doorway and roof with coped left gable. Wing at right has end doors; similar square bay window, with narrower projecting bay under hipped roof above; eaves cornice and hipped main roof. Conjoined square-plan ridge stacks. 2-storey, 9-bay block on centre rear. Entrance front : projecting 3-bay centre with 6-panel double door behind tetrastyle Tuscan portico; band, sunk panels and string between storeys; 12-pane sashes and C20 casements except for enlongated sashes on ground floor right; eaves cornice and low-pitched hipped roof with ridge stacks. Flanking irregular 2-storey ranges with scattered sashes and hipped roofs. Interior much altered. Original upstairs Drawing Room, in which Lord Byron was married, retains marble chimney-piece, 6-panel doors in architraves and enriched cornice. Other rooms by Vulliamy include: Entrance Hall with recessed round-arched wall panels; large Staircase Hall has cantilevered staircase and landing rails with ornamental cast-iron balusters, round corridor archways, modillion cornice and glazed ceiling; Dining Boom and Drawing Room with moulded skirtings, dado rails, 6-panel doors and enriched cornices; Drawing Room retains wood chimney-piece with barley-sugar columns. Historical note: in the upstairs Drawing Room, on 2nd January 1815, Lord Byron married Anne Isabella Milbanke; "The Siege of Corinth" and part of "The Hebrew Melodies" were written at Seaham Hall. (H.L. Robson, "Byron, the I.iilbankes and Seaham Village", Antiquities of Sunderland, Vol. XXV, 1970-73).

Listing NGR: NZ4206350560