Ord House

ORD EAST ORD NT 95 SE 2/107 Ord House 22.12.69 II

House. Early C18 for the Orde family, new facade and front rooms added 1789 for William Grieve. Ashlar with concrete tile roof. Double span with staircase wing projecting to rear.

2 storeys plus basements and attics, 5 bays. 8 steps,with C20 railings, up to central 6-panel door, and fanlight with intersecting glazing bars,in open- pedimented surround with attached Tuscan columns. Basement has blank windows. Elsewhere C20 sashes in raised surrounds. Eaves cornice and 3-bay pediment. Gable roof with rendered end stacks. On each return a straight join between the two builds marked by down pipes with rainwater heads dated 1789. Lower 2-storey, 2-bay square pavilions attached to rear corners of older section. Windows in raised surrounds. Steeply-pitched swept, hipped roofs in Scottish slate.

Interior. The front rooms have late-C18 interiors including, in the former dining room, (now family room), a pine fireplace with delicate gesso decoration and Ionic pilasters with Adam-style necking; palmette frieze and elaborately enriched cornice. Drawing room has a fireplace which is bolder, with enriched cornice-shelf on big scrolled brackets; plaster frieze of urns, scrolls and palmettes; enriched dentil cornice. A similar pine and gesso fireplace on 1st floor.

In the rear section, an early-C18 staircase with carved tread ends, turned balusters and boldly-moulded handrail. Also a fireplace with enriched bolection-moulded frieze and egg-and-dart cornice shelf.

Raine: North Durham; London, 1852.

Listing NGR: NT9816651557