Stretton Hall and Adjoining Stable Wing

Stretton Hall and adjoining stable wing

Stretton Hall is a country house built in 1763, constructed in Flemish bond red brick with buff sandstone basement, painted stone dressings, and a hipped roof of graded grey slate. The building rises to 2 storeys with a basement and attics.

The entrance front presents three bays with lower hip-roofed wings on either side. A canted projecting centre projects forward, approached by a divided curved flight of five stone steps leading to the entrance (the door has been replaced but retains its original character) surmounted by a pediment on consoles. The basement has six recessed 12-pane horizontal-sliding sashes under keystone lintels. The ground floor has four recessed 12-pane sashes in architraves, and the upper storey has five similar windows. The wings feature a basement, one main storey, and attics with single windows. Projecting bands run at first-floor and sill levels, while a moulded cornice carries a brick parapet above. Six chimneys, symmetrically placed, include two on the ridge and two at each end of the main block. The left end elevation has a replaced door in an architrave with 12-pane recessed sashes in architraves on either side.

The garden front is flush and features four windows and a replaced door to the basement and five windows to each main storey, detailed as in the entrance front with matching bands, cornice, and parapet. Each wing displays a Venetian window with Tuscan pilasters to the main storey.

The adjoining stable wing, linked to the house by a walled yard at the right end, is largely altered and constructed of coursed red sandstone and red brick with a graded grey slate roof. Its south-east face contains two leaded windows, one set in an opening with a late 17th-century flush mullion.

Interior

The basement contains barrel-vaulted rooms. On the lower main storey, the hall features a colonnade of four Ionic wooden columns, a marble mantelpiece (probably late Georgian), and a modillion plaster cornice. A door to the right leads to a corridor and a good back stair of oak comprising two flights with winders, turned newels, two turned balusters per step, and a swept handrail. The gun room, accessed from the corridor, has a cast-iron grate with a Georgian pine mantelpiece, gun rack, and cartridge cupboards. Behind the hall, facing the garden, are the dining room to the left and study to the right, both with panelled dados and reveals and modillion plaster cornices. These rooms are connected by an opening with a moulded panelled case containing a pair of folding doors, each with two 5-panel leaves. The drawing room in the left wing has a coved ceiling.

The open-well main stair ascends in three flights to the left of the hall, accessible through a round archway of painted wood with classical moulding. The oak steps feature an open string and good carved brackets, with a curtail on a square carved newel of oak and three renewed turned balusters per step. The stairwell has dado panelling, a modillion cornice, and an ornate plaster chandelier rose.

On the upper storey, a moulded basket archway of wood from the stair opens onto a broad central corridor. The left bedroom facing the garden has a 18th-century marble mantelpiece, a plaster cornice, and a basket archway (now blocked from the bedroom side) opening to a former dressing room, now a bathroom. The central bedroom facing the entrance front features a good wooden overmantel containing a mirror. The right bedroom facing the garden has a marble mantelpiece, probably late Georgian, and a simple moulded plaster cornice. Doors on both main storeys are fitted with six fielded panels with margin moulds. The three rooms facing the garden front and two facing the entrance front have painted doors, probably of oak, with two great panels. The three rooms to the garden front and two to the entrance front have painted doors, probably of oak, of two great panels. The back stair continues to the attic storey. The roof trusses above the hipped roof remain visible, displaying massive timbers braced with heavy wrought-iron straps.