Horncliffe House

NT 95 SW 1/57 22.12.69

HORNCLIFFE HORNCLIFFE Horncliffe House

GV II*

Country House. c.1800 for William Alder. Porch added mid C19. Ashlar with Welsh and Scottish slate roofs. Palladian style. Central 3-storey main block with single-storey concave linking wings to end pavilions.

Centre block 2 : 3 : 2 bays, the centre 3 bays pedimented and breaking forward slightly. Pedimented porch with panelled door and fanlight in broad, hollow- chamfered surround. The porch has rounded, rusticated corners. The centre section has 12-pane sashes flanked by narrow 8-pane sashes on ground and 1st floor, 9- and 6-pane sashes on 2nd floor. Outer bays have 12-pane sashes and 9-pane sashes on 2nd floor. Eaves cornice. Hipped roof with 2 tall, corniced ridge stacks.

5-bay concave linking wings with round-headed arches, square piers, archivolts and full-length glazing with radiating glazing bars. Arcade to right has conservatory behind.

End pavilions have Venetian windows in round-arched recesses; hipped roofs with 2 corniced ridge stacks.

To rear centre block has 3-storey, 3-bay bow window. Linking 5-bay wings have keyed round-headed windows. Pavilions have Venetian windows.

Interior: Oval geometric stair with wrought-iron balusters and boldly wreathed and moulded handrail. Many plaster friezes, with acanthus scrolls and other foliage. Modillion cornice in entrance hall. In Morning Room a pine fireplace with gesso decoration of entwined roses and thistles, also seaweed and shells and sheaves of corn. Drawing room has white and coloured marble fireplace with Ionic pilasters. The conservatory has mid-Victorian iron work and a niche with terracotta colonettes and the crestof Sir Hubert Jerningham who lived here in the late 1860s.

Source: North Durham : Raine J. : London 1852.

Listing NGR: NT9334350326