Houghton Hall

Houghton Hall is a large house dating to around 1760, likely designed by Thomas Atkinson for Philip Langdale, and remodelled in 1957-60 by Francis Johnson. It is constructed of pink brick with stone dressings, a timber eaves cornice, and a slate roof.

The main range is two storeys and five bays, arranged as a 2:1:2 pattern, with single-storey, three-bay quadrants flanking it. The pavilions are also two storeys with attics. The front elevation features a central three-bay section which projects slightly, topped with a low pediment. The porch, also from the 1957-60 remodelling, has a two-leaf door with raised and fielded panels, a fanlight with radial glazing, and an architrave with a decorative keyblock under the pediment. The ground floor windows are sashes with sills and glazing bars, set within cambered gauged brick arches. The first floor has nine-pane unequal sashes, also with sills and cambered brick arches. A modillion eaves cornice runs around the building; axial stacks rise above the roof, which is hipped.

The quadrant walls each have a plinth and three round-headed sashes, displaying radial glazing within blank, round-headed recesses, all topped with a coping featuring four urns. The pavilions have sashes to both floors, with oculi and radial glazing set within their pediments.

The garden elevation was largely rebuilt by Francis Johnson, featuring bracketed sills, architraves, and floating cornices on the ground floor. The first floor has nine-pane unequal sashes. The rear elevations of the quadrants are straight, with a service door set in the angle with the main range. The remaining bay has sashes with sills and glazing bars under cambered brick arches. The rear elevations of the pavilions mirror the front elevations.

Inside, the entrance hall features a glazed inner door and a half-turn cut-string staircase with sunk panels beneath the treads, turned balusters, and a moulded handrail. The drawing room contains an ornate marble fireplace with festoons, scrolls, wreaths, and chains of flowers. The smoking room features doors in eared architraves and a polychrome marble fireplace with tapering Ionic pilasters, an eared and shouldered overmantel with a pediment, a panelled dado, and a Vitruvian scroll to the mutule cornice. Houghton Hall is included in the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission (HBMC) County Register of Gardens at Grade II.