Whitgift Hall Including Attached Walls To North Outbuildings And Screen Wall To South East

Whitgift Hall is a small country house with attached screen walls and outbuildings, built in the early 18th century for the Stephenson family. It underwent later 18th- and early 19th-century alterations for the Stovin and Coulman families, including the addition of wing walls to the north front, bow windows and a screen wall to the south front, and extensive interior remodelling. Minor later alterations have also been made.

The house and northern wing walls are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with scored joints, while the south front of the kitchen wing is stuccoed and incised to imitate ashlar. Dressings are of limestone and sandstone ashlar. The roof is Welsh slate, with lead and felt roofs to the dormers. The south-east screen wall is red brick, partly stuccoed, with stone coping.

The main range originally had a double-depth plan with a two-room central entrance hall serving both the north and south fronts. Single-bay wing walls flank the north front, with a kitchen extension and later outbuildings to the east. The main range is two storeys with a basement and attic.

North Front

The north front is arranged as 2:1:2 bays, with the central bay breaking forward and low two-storey single-bay wing walls to either side. The basement forms a plinth, with recessed six-pane sashes in the side bays set in plain ashlar surrounds linked by a plain ashlar band at ground-floor level. The main range and central bay have chamfered quoins.

The entrance has a 19th-century swept flight of ten stone steps with a wrought-iron balustrade of alternate plain and wavy bars carrying a wreathed handrail. The fine ashlar doorcase has an architrave flanked by fluted Ionic pilasters carrying an entablature with dosserets, a plain frieze, a dentilled cornice, and a dentilled segmental pediment breaking forward over the dosserets. The door has six fielded panels and a radial overlight in the reveal.

At ground-floor level, recessed twelve-pane sashes are set in ashlar architraves with projecting corniced sills. An ashlar entablature with a stepped frieze and moulded cornice forms a first-floor band. The first-floor sashes are similar to those of the ground floor. A deep, finely-dentilled ashlar eaves cornice breaks forward over the quoins.

There are four drainpipes with moulded rectangular rainwater heads bearing raised roundel ornament. Three full dormers have unequal nine-pane sashes in flush wooden architraves. The central dormer has a radial overlight beneath an elliptically arched head, while the side dormers have triangular pediments. The roof is four-sided and hipped, with a pair of large ridge stacks to the sides bearing remains of stucco, ashlar dentilled cornices, and blocking courses.

The wing walls each have a plinth and impost band. Each features a central full-height round-arched recessed panel containing a single ground-floor opening with a dummy six-pane casement above a recessed panelled apron in an ashlar architrave, and a single first-floor segmental-headed dummy six-pane sash with painted glazing bars in an ashlar architrave with sill. They have moulded ashlar cornices and blocking courses in line with the first-floor band of the main block.

South Front

The south front has three bays, with the central bay breaking forward, flanked by full-height semicircular bows. A single-storey kitchen extension is set back to the right. The plinth and quoins are similar to the north front, but without quoins to the central bay. A six-pane basement window sits beneath the entrance stairs, with a single blocked window to each side.

The 19th-century entrance has a flight of eight stone steps with a wrought-iron balustrade of alternate plain bars and geometric panels, a wreathed handrail, and baluster-shaped newels. A sandstone Doric porch has columns on tall pedestals carrying dosserets with triglyphs and guttae, a moulded cornice, and an open pedimented roof. Pilasters flank the original entrance, which has a six-fielded-panel door, a moulded lintel, and a radial fanlight in an eared architrave beneath an entablature with a plain frieze and moulded cornice.

The flanking bows each have three twelve-pane ground-floor sashes in wooden architraves with ashlar keystones. Slight differences in the bows suggest two separate builds. A first-floor moulded band runs across the front. First-floor sashes to the central bay and bows are similar to those of the ground floor, but with shallower keyed flat brick arches. The bows have moulded cornices and flat roofs. The main range has a deep moulded cornice.

Three full dormers are similar to those on the north front but without a radial overlight to the central flat-headed window. Drainpipes are similar to those on the north front. The kitchen wing to the right has an inappropriate 20th-century casement and a parapet with a moulded ashlar band (a continuation of the first-floor band of the main range) and blocking course.

An early 19th-century flat-roofed projecting canted first-floor bay on the east side of the main range, contemporary with the bows, has a central dummy window flanked by single twelve-pane sashes in surrounds similar to those of the south front, and a moulded cornice similar to the bow windows.

A coped screen wall attached to the kitchen wing curves round to the south-east and has a pair of doorways and a boarded window, all with wooden architraves beneath rubbed-brick flat arches. The east end is ramped down to an early 19th-century single-storey privy, square on plan, with a south front containing a six-fielded-panel door and a twelve-pane sash in architraves beneath segmental arches. It has stepped eaves and a temporary 20th-century flat roof (formerly with a hipped Westmorland slate roof). A similar twelve-pane sash is to the rear.

Interior

The entrance and stairhall has an oak fielded-panelled dado with a moulded ramped corniced dado rail and a fine early 18th-century open-well cantilevered staircase. The staircase has a ramped and wreathed corniced handrail, twist column newels, carved profiled tread-ends, and three balusters to each tread, with alternating twist, column, and fluted columns on bulb-and-vase with square knops. The landing has a 19th-century balustrade in a similar style and a panelled balcony containing a bowed section with a moulded cornice and blocking course, flanked by attached twist columns. The lower hall has a moulded plaster cornice and ribbed ceiling border.

The upper stairhall has a boldly panelled ceiling with plain and leaf-and-dart mouldings and paterae ornament, and an elliptical arch to the inner hall with scrolled consoles, an archivolt, and a panelled moulded soffit. The inner hall to the south has a round-headed opening with an archivolt and fielded-panelled soffit, a moulded ceiling cornice, and a foliate centrepiece. The 19th-century south entrance hall has a half-domed niche, an elliptical arch with a moulded soffit, and a moulded cornice to the panelled ceiling with an acanthus centrepiece. The secondary staircase, in the east canted bay, has a moulded handrail and column-on-vase balusters.

The north-west room has fielded panelling with a moulded dado rail and an early 19th-century panelled marble chimneypiece inserted beneath a panelled overmantel in a full-height Doric surround with fluted pilasters and a frieze with triglyphs and guttae, flanked by round-headed half-domed cupboards with fielded-panel doors. It has a moulded wooden cornice with plasterwork guilloche border to the ceiling. The north-east room has a moulded cornice.

The south-west room has fielded panelling with later 19th-century burr wood graining, a reeded dado rail, reeded pilasters flanking the bow window with lions head ornament, a moulded wooden cornice with grapevine border to the ceiling, and a ribbed marble chimneypiece with roundel ornament. The south-east room has panelled pilasters with roundel ornament flanking the bow windows.

On the first floor, the north-east room has fielded panelling with later 19th-century wood graining, a dado rail, a moulded frieze with anthemion and paterae, a leaf-and-dart ceiling cornice, a spine beam with panelled soffit, and a similar corniced wooden pilastered chimneypiece with marble slip and ribbed cast-iron fire surround. The north-west room has a 19th-century marble fire surround and moulded cornice. The south-east room has a reset early 18th-century cyma-moulded stone chimneypiece. The south-west room has a moulded cornice and a pilastered chimneypiece with a fluted frieze. Pilastered surrounds to bow windows are similar to the ground floor. Two reset early 18th-century moulded stone chimneypieces are in the attic.

Fielded-panel window shutters and window seats, and six-fielded-panel doors in architraves are found throughout. The original roof timbers incorporate tie beams with Y-shaped ends, one arm attached to the wall, the other to the wall plate above.

The interior of the outside privy, derelict at the time of resurvey, has moulded skirting, a moulded dado rail, and a moulded plaster cornice, comparable to some of the fittings in the main hall and stableyard ranges.

Historical Context

John and Mary Stephenson owned the hall in the early 18th century, and Mary, described as of "Drypool (Hull) of Whitgift Hall", was still alive in 1740. By 1777 the estate had been acquired by Cornelius Stovin, succeeded in 1780 by James Stovin of Reedness. By 1801 it appears to have passed into the ownership of John Gee of Haldenby Park, to be inherited in 1818 by his daughter Mary (1782–1868). In the late 19th century their daughter, Mary Armitage, sold the estate to Thomas Bladworth. The early 19th-century remodelling of the hall and grounds, including the new stableyard ranges and privy, were probably undertaken when the Coulmans came into possession in 1818–19.

This is a stylish house with good details and a complex architectural history. Renovations were underway at the time of resurvey in April 1987.