Shippon At Meols Hall

SOUTHPORT

SD31NE BOTANIC ROAD, Churchtown 664-1/2/303 (South side (off)) 15/07/98 Shippon at Meols Hall

GV II

Shippon or cowshed. 1951. By Roger Fleetwood Hesketh, an amateur architect, for himself. Brick with stone dressings and quoins, stone slate roofs. PLAN/EXTERIOR: symmetrical tripartite composition, with 2-storey centrepiece and four-bay wings terminating in single-storey end pavilions. Eastern elevation to farmyard has folding doors in stone architrave in stone surrounds with fanlight and keystone. Square sash windows with small panes in stone architraves to first floor. Wings have 3-bay square arcades with square piers complete with small capitals, leading to single-storey end pavilions with stable doors and toplights. Western elevation to park is a symmetrical composition with small rectangular windows, and a centrepiece mirroring that of farmyard elevation, save that there are double doors under the fanlight and that neither has a stone surround. HISTORY: Meols Hall was the Hesketh family home until the C18, when the then Roger Hesketh married Margaret Fleetwood, heiress of Rossall, and the latter became the family home. It was only in 1938 that it was reoccupied by the Heskeths, when the amateur architect Roger Hesketh fulfilled a lifetime's ambition. Hesketh and his brother Peter both studied at the Architectural Association, and had travelled extensively looking at architecture. While Peter Fleetwood Hesketh became a noted architectural writer, his older brother enjoyed a military and political career and it was only when he left the House of Commons in 1959 that work on the house commenced. The Shippon was a foretaste of what was to come, an entirely new building designed for his herd of Jersey cows. The Shippon is a remarkably accomplished essay in the Palladian style, unique for its date. Hesketh detailed it with simplicity and conviction and it forms a fine complement to the listed house and farmbuildings around it. (Robinson JM: The Latest Country Houses: London: 1951-: 180-2).

Listing NGR: SD3649218270