Meols Hall

SOUTHPORT

SD31NE BOTANIC ROAD, Churchtown 664-1/2/248 (South side (off)) 15/11/72 Meols Hall (Formerly Listed as: CHURCHTOWN Meols Hall)

GV II*

House C17 (reset datestone of 1695), C18 and C19 alterations with substantial additions 1960-94. C20 works by Roger Fleetwood Hesketh (as amateur architect) for himself. Two and three storey red brick with stone and cast stone dressings (including materials salvaged from Tulketh and Lathom Hall), timber sash windows, hipped Westmoreland slate roofs with lead ridges. Main block with lower additions to sides. EXTERIOR: entrance (west) front three bays reworked from earlier facade with central door with cornice and architrave, central bay projecting, cornice with parapet containing three blank recessed roundels with low gables over, stone ball finials to projecting parapet piers. To the right single three-storey bay with gable and inset lozenges, to the right of this two-storey projecting wing of 1960s in late Georgian style. To left of main frontage a single-storey library wing with centre three bays recessed, all of 1960s build. Stone and cast stone plinth, quoins and cornice below second floor windows, central stone Gibbsian doorcase. Three bay return elevation to right flanked by blank rear wall of library with central chimney stack and covered way of treillage. To left, gabled bay of original C17 house with arched brick hoodmoulds over windows and lozenges framed with projecting brick. To left of this, single bay two-storey link block with Gibbsian doorcase, flanked by three-bay two-storey elevation of kitchens with blind window recesses. In garden, two gazebos of 1960-64 modelled on gazebo at Rossall with stone quoins, Gibbsian doorcases, cornice and crenellated stone parapet with triple oculi. INTERIOR: Entrance Hall in centre of original block of house, flanked by Yellow Drawing Room with two exposed beams, leads to Library incorporating marble chimneypiece and C19 bookcase from Bold Hall, dentil cornice. East from Drawing Room, with simple cornice and marble chimneypiece of 1962, leads to Garden Hall with salvaged chequerboard stone floor, leading to Dining Room with marble chimneypiece. Staircase includes balustrade from Harrock Hall. Painted bedroom decorated with panoramic mural by Richard Willis, 1968. HISTORY: Hesketh inherited the remains of this seventeenth century house in 1938. He adapted and extended the house to suit a portrait collection, using a mixture of salvaged materials (many from demolished wing of Leoni's Lathom Hall, Lancashire) and his own impeccable knowledge of classical detailing. For its mix of old and new, Meols Hall has been acclaimed as one of the most convincing country houses created since the war.

Listing NGR: SD3659218333