Lady Waterford Hall

FORD FORD VILLAGE NT 9437 17/103 Lady Waterford Hall GV II*

Former village school. 1860 for the Marchioness of Waterford. Snecked stone with ashlar dressings. Roof has bands of Lakeland and Welsh slate roof. Tudor style. Single storey, 6 bays. Outer bays have boarded doors in flat-topped porches with corbel tables. Bays 2 and 5 each have 2 widely-spaced narrow side lights with 4-pane sashes in chamfered surrounds under floating cornices. The 2 centre bays have similar 4-light windows. Corbel table. Over bays 2 and 5 very high and very steeply-pitched gables with overlapping coping and tall corbelled-out octagonal corniced chimneys at the apex. In each gable an oval panel in moulded frame bearing a crown and the monogram of the Marchioness of Waterford. Very high, steeply-pitched gabled roof with overlapping coping.

Interior: the main hall was decorated from 1861-83 by the Marchioness with a series of paintings, done on paper and stuck to the wall, like murals, in the Pre-Raphaelite style. On the north wall 9 panels with biblical scenes in arched surrounds with texts; in the spandrels roundels with portrait heads; the spaces between have foliage and naturalistic detail. The east wall has a large "Jesus in the midst of the doctors", the west wall a large illustration of the text "Suffer little children to come unto me".

9-bay roof with moulded scissor braces.

All the figues used are portraits of village people and castle servants.

Hastings Neville: Under a Border Tower: Newcastle: 1896.

Listing NGR: NT9471337597