The New Hall

THE NEW HALL, FLETCHER GATE

A mid-18th-century house built for William Iveson Senior, a Hedon solicitor, understeward to William Constable (Lord of the Manor), and three times Mayor of Hedon (1767, 1775, and 1780).

The main house is constructed of red brick on a double-pile plan. The rear roof is pitched pantile with a tumbled gable, while the front roof was altered in the mid-19th century to pitched slate with overhanging eaves carried on long moulded brackets. The principal elevation features five ranges of sash windows with glazing bars and keystones. A substantial porch projects from the front, supported on two Tuscan columns and two half-columns, all with high bases. The porch carries an entablature and dentilled pediment. The doorway is set within a moulded frame and comprises six fielded panels, rising five steps from street level.

A wing projects forward to the north-west. Its ground floor is the converted part of an adjoining 18th-century barn, while the top floor is a mid-19th-century addition with a steep pitched gabled roof and bracketed eaves. This wing has two ranges of sashes with glazing bars on each elevation and an oculus in the gable end. The rear of the main house has a brick parapet with stone coping to the eaves and the same fenestration as the front.

An early 19th-century porch is glazed entirely, including its roof, and features reeded pilasters and a pedimented gable. The internal pilasters have rosettes at the points where they join a reeded band.

The interior contains a large double-height hall with a plaster ceiling of moulded panels. The central panel is circular and encloses a circular festoon of roses and acanthus. A staircase occupies two sides with a gallery on the other two sides, featuring curved corners instead of newels. The balusters have urn-shaped bases and inverted gadrooned knops one-third of the way up, with a moulded handrail and spiral terminal at the bottom. The newel in the centre has a gadrooned base facing the opposite way. A moulded dado rail with fielded panelling below runs around the hall. Five doors, each with six fielded panels and moulded frames with deep reveals of fielded panelling, open from the hall. A chimneypiece features a shouldered architrave, cyma recta frieze, and moulded mantelshelf with a Delft tile surround. Windows have window seats and shutters with fielded panelling.

The drawing room is fitted with contemporary pine wainscoting, with a moulded dado and moulded oblong panels above. Opposite the fireplace, a doorway and mirror have architrave surrounds, pulvinated friezes, and moulded cornices. The wooden chimneypiece has an egg-and-dart surround with a frieze ornamented with crossed palm fronds and a central die containing a mask of Diana in front of crossed bow and quiver. A deeply moulded mantel shelf is supported on inverted scrolled consoles. The overmantel has a shouldered surround breaking upwards at the centre to enclose a festoon of roses, a pulvinated bay leaf frieze, and a moulded cornice with a central pedimented section. Scrolled consoles flanking the frame carry a swag of grapes. Windows have window seats and shutters with fielded panelling.

The morning room is wainscotted in pine with a moulded dado and fielded panelling. Its fireplace has a marble surround and shouldered architrave with a moulded mantel shelf. A raised panel above the chimneypiece has a moulded cornice. Windows have window seats and shutters with fielded panelling.

The bedrooms contain contemporary wainscoting and good contemporary chimneypieces, two of which have marble surrounds to their fireplaces.

A wing of brown brick projects to the north, flanking Fletcher Gate. It is pitched pantile-roofed, two storeys, with one segment-headed door of six fielded panels and various other openings to the street. The yard side has various segment-headed openings, one planked door, and one door with six moulded panels.

The service block at the west end is of brown brick with a pitched pantile roof, two storeys. It features one tripartite cased sash with glazing bars on the first floor, one six-panelled door (four of them fielded), and a one-storey lean-to extension on the west side with one cased sash with glazing bars.