Alston Hall

Alston Hall is a country house in Tudor Gothic style, built between 1874 and 1876 by the architect Alfred Darbyshire. It is constructed of buff sandstone with banded slate roofs, cast-iron rainwater goods, and timber and metal windows.

The house has a square plan arranged around a central stair-hall, rising two storeys with an attic and a four-storey tower over the entrance. A single-storey range projects from the north-east corner and along the north side. The property sits in four acres including a walled garden, woodland walk, and croquet lawn, positioned on a building platform above a steep slope to the north of the River Ribble.

Exterior

The house is built of regular-coursed, rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings and a banded slate roof laid in regular courses. The principal east front is dominated by the four-storey tower, which has a porte-cochère at its base and a square turret in the north-east corner. The tower features angle buttresses and a central first-floor oriel with stone mullions and transoms, supported by a buttress that divides a pair of open pointed arches with hoodmoulds. The stages are separated by moulded bands, and both the tower and turret parapets are machicolated with angled gargoyles.

Third-floor windows on the front and side returns are mullioned with quoined surrounds and hoodmoulds with stops. At second-floor level is a pointed-arched niche containing the Mercer family crest with the motto "Esse quam videri" ("to be, rather than to seem"). The south side has two transomed windows, while the north side displays a central cartouche with intertwined numerals "1876". The first-floor returns each have a mullion-and-transom window.

The porte-cochère openings are elaborately gabled with grotesque stops, over two successive four-centred arches, the outer one on squat columns. The front elevation on either side has mullion-and-transom windows at ground and first floor, and steps back to the right. The eaves cornice is dentilled, with projecting kneelers to the gable copings to the right and a corbelled gable stack. There is a single steep dormer to either side of the tower, and at the left the roof is hipped where it returns to the garden front.

The south garden front has three bays, stepping forwards twice to the left with gabled bays featuring kneelers, finials, and attic windows similar to those of the tower's third floor. To the right are another small, steep dormer and a ground-floor canted bay window to the billiard room. The left-hand bay has a two-storey square bay window, narrower at first floor and crenellated. The windows retain a central mullion, as does the window over the canted bay, but the centre-bay windows have no mullion or transom. At the left is a tall, corbelled chimney, with a similar one close to the ridge to the right of centre. Attached at the left is a single-storey gabled, apsidal chapel.

The west elevation projects at the left with a hipped roof with central chimney stack and two windows at first floor, and one at ground floor. A scar at the left indicates where greenhouses were formerly attached. In the angle with the main block is a two-storey turret with a frieze above the cornice and steeply-pitched hipped roof. Behind this is another tall chimney stack. The first-floor window of the turret is mullioned and transomed, with a similar window in the south face of the projecting block, with two steep dormers above. The ground floor is partly concealed by a conservatory, probably early 20th century, and the chapel. A scar on the face of the turret indicates where the pitched roof of the original conservatory was attached, with brickwork beneath this now exposed. At the right, the large chimney stack visible from the garden front has a hoodmoulded cartouche with the initials "JM" (for John Mercer).

The north elevation has mullion-and-transom windows, one in a shallow square bay to the kitchen. In the centre is a gabled attic with pointed, transomed window, and a chimney stack to the right and a kneeler to the left. Beyond this is the recessed, gabled return of the front elevation, which is blind save for one small first-floor window, and with a projecting central chimney stack rising from the first floor. The gabled centre bay has a 20th-century single-storey extension with a shallow roof and tall gable stack, with a further, low extension projecting to the right of the chimney and returning to the right along the north elevation and linking with earlier brick outbuildings. The extension is executed in materials and details matching the main house. The brick outbuildings are original, with stone dressings. The outbuildings and extension all have scored render on the elevations facing the house.

Interior

The porte-cochère has a timber ceiling with moulded ribs and pendant bosses, and timber tiercerons to the corner corbels. The front doorway has a tall pointed arch with a drip mould and stops, and a door reached by four steps. The double doors match the arch, with four panels to each door. The details are very similar internally, where a small lobby leads via a painted stone archway to the hall. The floor throughout is of white marble with a diagonal pattern. A porter's room opens off the hall to the right through a pointed-arched door.

The open-well stair has a barley-sugar balustrade with square newels and ramped banisters, and barley-sugar stair rods. At first floor is a fine gallery with Gothic arches on foliate columns. The ceiling is coved with corbelled ribs and a large skylight with leaded glass and a chandelier.

Most rooms at ground and first floor have original doors and brassware, joinery, fireplaces, ceiling mouldings, and light fittings. Particularly elaborate are the drawing room, which has a Grecian frieze, modillioned cornice, and a very large arched, mirrored alcove, and the dining room, which is similar.

Windows are a mixture of timber and metal with historic fittings. There are separate stairs to the tower and for the service staff, with ramped banisters and skirting. A large cellar has encaustic tiled floors, with a strong-room and safe at the top of the cellar steps, beneath the service stair. The roof structure is largely original, with a large glazed timber lantern over the hall skylight, with a chandelier winch.

Stable Block

Abutting the south wall of the walled garden is a linear former stable block of one and a half storeys, gabled at the east and west and roughly symmetrical, with a gabled dormer to either side of a central gable in the south front. This is in red brick in English Garden Wall bond. The front openings are somewhat altered but appear to have originally served looseboxes and a carriage house, with a hayloft door in the right-hand dormer. The east gable has a similar "JM" cartouche to the south-west chimney of the house, for John Mercer. What appear to be original roof trusses are visible in the first-floor rooms.

Walled Garden

The walled garden stands to the north of the house, with entrances in the south-west corner (adjacent to which is a lean-to brick-based timber greenhouse), the centre of the north wall, and towards the south end of the east side. The walls are of brick in stretcher bond with angled tile copings. The internal brickwork appears original although the west side has been raised in height. The north and east walls have stepped buttresses and there are some openings into the garden in the north wall of the stable block.

Subsidiary Features

The house is approached by a driveway leading from a set of iron gateposts and gates. The south lawn is enclosed by an iron hoop-top fence with gateway.