Southwood Hall

COTTINGHAM SOUTHWOOD ROAD TA 03 SW (south side) 7/28 Southwood Hall 3.12.51 - II*

House. Before 1661, for the Bacchus family. Red brick, some rubbed and moulded, pantiled roof. 2 storeys and attics, 5 bays in symmetrical elevation. Central 2-storeyed gabled porch. Plinth. Ground floor: C20 glazed door in round-headed opening flanked by low pilasters with moulded caps. The side walls of the porch have lozenge-shaped piercings and pilasters rising through 2 storeys. To the body of the house is a massive boarded door which retains all its original ironwork including an ingenious and effective iron door-knocker. To left and to right are 3-pane sashes under flat gauged brick arches. Very broad and deeply moulded first-floor band, missing over the windows to right. First floor: 4-pane sashes throughout all under flat gauged brick arches; in addition that to the porch first-floor chamber has a deeply moulded floating cornice and pediment. Roll-moulded band beneath dentilled eaves cornice (probably representing raising of the eaves level in the early C18). Attics: small 6-pane window to the porch gable flanked by gableted dormers of different sizes with sliding sashes with glazing bars to the main roof. End stacks, raised gables on brick kneelers. At various places on the main elevation - particularly to the far right - are straight joints indicating previous phases of fenestration. Interior: the interior of this house survives completely unaltered save for the replacement of fireplaces to the principal rooms in about 1720. Closed-string stair with heavy turned balusters, moulded handrail, and square newels with pendants and ball-finials rising through to the attics with a short additional flight into the apex of the roof which is boarded out for storage purposes. Bolection-moulded fireplaces to all principal rooms: bolection-moulded panelling to the left- hand ground-floor and first-floor rooms. The doors to the 2 bedrooms are each of 3 bolection-moulded panels in eared architraves with friezes and broken dentilled pediments. The door to the first-floor room in the porch is boarded in a pilastered surround under a frieze and broken pediment with short central pilaster and finial. The attics retain the original boarded doors; virtually all the door furniture is of the mid-C17 or early C18. Most of the floorboards are original. The right attic room retains a very small round-headed C17 fireplace with continuous chamfer with fade-out stops. This house, to which no alterations have taken place since the early C18, is probably the best-preserved example of its type and period in North Humberside. In the attic are 3 loose C18 oak panels: one painted with a mythological scene, the other 2 with figures in stylised landscapes. These presumably formed part of the furnishings to the principal rooms but have subsequently been hung as pictures.

Listing NGR: TA0229030621