Carham Hall and outbuildings

This country house was built in the mid-19th century for Richard Hodgson-Huntley, then extended and altered around 1920 to designs by James Bow Dunn. It is designed in the Tudor Revival style with some Jacobethan details.

Materials and Construction

The hall is constructed of close-jointed, coursed buff sandstone with various hammer-dressed finishes, and features local pink sandstone ashlar dressings. The roof is covered in Westmorland slate. The outbuildings are built of random sandstone with Welsh slate roofs and ashlar dressings.

Layout and Plan

Carham Hall sits on the south bank of the River Tweed, facing south across parkland. The linear building has an original main entrance on the south side and a secondary main entrance to the north. The main structure comprises a double-depth east range with a spinal corridor separating living accommodation to the south from service areas to the north. An attached west range now extends northwards into the rear coach house. Behind the house lies a service court containing former stables, a barn, coach house and laundry, entered through the main north entrance. A detached kennels building stands outside to the west.

Exterior

The house features an eaves cornice and stone finials on the gabled sections. Windows are mostly stone mullions or mullion-and-transom types set within stone surrounds with integral lintels and sills. The roofs are pitched with kneelers, ridge copings and multiple tall corniced ridge stacks. The mid-19th-century portion also has a continuous moulded stone band. Window frames are timber in the mid-19th-century part and metal-framed in the west wing.

South Elevation

The main south elevation can be divided into four irregular sections, each of two storeys plus attics. The three easternmost sections comprise the mid-19th-century phase, while the westernmost section dates to the early 1920s.

The easternmost section has a projecting gabled double-height canted bay window of five lights; the gabled section is chamfered and bears a stone crest. The second section to the left features a Tudor-arched entrance with an overlight, and a projecting gabled bay with double-height bay windows and an attic window within an elaborate stone surround. The third section has a projecting gabled double-height central bay with four-light windows on each floor and a stone crest at the apex.

The fourth and westernmost section has an end gabled bay with metal-framed four-light windows on each floor. To its right are three bays with half dormers featuring ornately carved shaped gables. The easternmost of these contains a three-light oriel window. The decorative carving takes the form of floral motifs and floral plaques. The right return has a ground-floor cross window, a pair of first-floor single-light windows with hood moulds, and an attic light at the apex.

Attached to the rear of this section is a quoined two-storey tower with a pyramidal roof and bracketed eaves. It has a cross window on the ground floor and a two-light first-floor window with a drip mould. A matching tower at the original west return of the hall is now incorporated into the 1920s wing but remains visible from the rear. The gabled west return of the house has an end chimney stack and a single-storey flat-roofed porch.

North Elevation

The rear north elevation of the mid-19th-century building has triple gabled bays with a projecting porch featuring a segmental-headed entrance and stone drip mould, a canted staircase bay with a tall three-light stair window, and an oriel window. This section merges into the 1920 reconstruction with an eastern projecting service range that incorporates the tower of the original west return of the hall. The four-bay west end of this range is plain with regular fenestration, gabled half dormers and ground-floor service doors.

Interior

Entrance Hall

The entrance hall has early-20th-century panelling throughout, probably incorporating early-18th-century panels. It features a fireplace with a bolection-moulded surround with fluted pilasters framing a central inset panel above. The coffered plaster ceiling has chamfered circular motifs. Wide arched openings lead east and west, the latter opening to the impressive principal staircase.

Principal Staircase

The staircase has a decorative plaster Jacobean-style soffit, ornate splat balusters, and square newel posts with decorative finials and handrail.

Drawing Room

The drawing room is designed in an Adam style with plaster-panelled walls (much of the panelling now removed as of 2022) and a finely detailed plaster cornice and ceiling incorporating bird, flower, leaf and fruit motifs; a small section has collapsed onto the floor. The Adam-style fireplace retains a plaster panel above and bell pushes on either side. Ornate doorcases retain good-quality three-panelled doors.

Second Reception Room (Library)

A second reception room, probably the library, has a picture rail and a modillioned cornice. The former fireplace and skirtings have been removed.

South Hall

The south hall has a segmental-headed external door and a similar opposing opening from the rear hall with ornately carved timber engaged columns. The room has a finely detailed moulded plaster cornice and is lined throughout with what is considered to be reused early-18th-century panelling. This incorporates a four-centre arched fireplace with bell pushes on either side.

Dining Room

The dining room features reused 16th-century panelling throughout (except for a short section of the south wall), including linenfold panelling of two different patterns and some early-20th-century linenfold. The stone four-centre arched fireplace has a highly ornate timber overmantel that is also a mixture of 16th-century and early-20th-century work. It takes the form of a pair of cupboard doors complete with mock wooden hinges and decorative motifs including beasts and heads. Two of the room's doors also have old linenfold panels, one carved with 16th-century medallion portrait panels. There is a high-relief plaster frieze with festoons and pilasters, and a Jacobean-style ceiling with geometric patterns of plaster ribs decorated with fruit, flowers, leaves and plaster drops.

Early-20th-Century West Wing

The early-20th-century west wing has three further rooms opening off a rear corridor, with picture rails and moulded cornices. The rooms have inserted en-suites but retain original five-panel doors, and two have timber fireplaces. Early-20th-century plaster detail includes friezes, moulded and modillioned cornices, and in the westernmost room a coffered ceiling with decorative detail. The rear projecting range, converted from the former detached coach house, contains 21st-century bedrooms and en-suites.

First Floor

On the first floor, en-suite bathrooms have been inserted throughout and fireplaces have been removed. Bedrooms and corridors in the west wing have five-panel doors, plain plaster friezes and simple moulded cornices. Bedrooms in the east wing retain unusual plaster cornices with modillions in the form of guttae alternating with borders of flowers and leaves. Entrances have panelled jambs and the spinal corridor has plaster cornices and pointed-arched openings.

The first-floor principal stair hall has an ornate plaster cornice and a ceiling decorated with blue and white plaster plaques depicting the signs of the zodiac.

A back stair with stick balusters and a ramped handrail rises to a partial second floor forming a corridor with several rooms off, comprising former servants' rooms. An electric bell indication board is affixed to the landing. Rooms are plain and small, some with coved ceilings. Fireplaces have been removed and two cast-iron hob grates remain.

Similar plain rooms occupy a partial third floor. It is understood that there is a king-post roof structure.

Cellar

The cellar, which also has a bell board, is divided into several rooms for storage and other functions, including a vaulted wine cellar, larder and probable butler's room. One of the rooms has a boarded dado and a stone four-centred arched fireplace.

Service Buildings

Attached to the north elevation is an enclosed service or stable yard accessed from the north through a wide four-centred arch flanked by tall stone piers with pyramidal caps. Various former stone service buildings with slate roofs and some with prominent kneelers and finials are arranged around this courtyard.

On the west side stands a large two-storey coach house and stable with a gabled rear wing. It has a hipped roof and a projecting central bay with an arched coach opening flanked by double full-height openings. It is now linked to the main hall by a timber-framed raised walkway.

On the north side is a three-bay single-storey building thought to be a former barn, with a pitched roof and projecting two-storey central bay with a pitching door with drip mould.

On the east side there is an elevated service court with a single-storey L-shaped range (laundry and fuel stores) on its north and east sides. This has a three-sided north end, a pitched roof with prominent louvre ridge vents and a continuous porch.

Outside to the west is a detached single-storey former dog kennel building with pitched roofs, a mounting block at the gabled end bay and three dog cages attached to the south end.