Goole Hall

Goole Hall

House, now residential home, built around 1820 for Jarvis Empson, with alterations and additions of 1985–86. The building stands on the south side of Goole Fields, Swinefleet Road.

The hall is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with sandstone ashlar dressings and brick stacks. It is roofed in Westmorland slate. The style is classical, with a rectangular plan of double-depth arrangement. The building is two storeys tall with a basement, arranged in 2:1:2 bays, with the central bay breaking forward. Twentieth-century wings have been added to the returns. The basement features chamfered banded rustication, with a ground-floor band running across the elevation.

The north front is the principal elevation. Access is via a flight of seven stone steps with moulded nosings, leading to a large Ionic porch. The porch has fluted columns and pilasters supporting an entablature with a modillioned cornice, flat roof, and a balcony with delicate cast-iron balustrade featuring alternating wavy bars and panels below a single top rail. The main entrance is a wide six-panelled door beneath a ribbed frieze and a fanlight containing a central carved fan motif, all within a rusticated ashlar surround.

The ground floor features large twelve-pane sash windows in reveals with flat lintels. Above them are projecting corniced hoods carried on scrolled consoles decorated with acanthus ornament, and projecting sills over recessed panelled aprons bearing relief carvings of leaf fronds with central Maltese cross motifs. A first-floor band separates the storeys, with a narrower sill band above.

The first floor has smaller twelve-pane sash windows. The central pair of windows is accompanied by small panelled doors below, opening onto the porch balcony, with an ashlar architrave and hood on consoles. The side-bay windows have rubbed-brick cambered arches.

A boldly moulded cornice and blocking course crown the front elevation. The roof is flat with hipped sides. Pairs of stacks stand to front and rear, built with ashlar shafts (the front left stack is rendered and incised to imitate ashlar), moulded ashlar string courses, moulded cornices, blocking courses, and square-section pots.

The left return comprises six bays, with a twentieth-century wing adjoining the basement. It has three sixteen-pane basement sashes with sills and rubbed-brick cambered arches; ground and first-floor windows match those of the front elevation but without carving to the aprons. The first two bays have blind windows.

The right return features a door and three basement windows, three twelve-pane ground-floor sashes, and one first-floor sash. All are in plain reveals with cambered brick arches.

The south garden front is arranged in 1:1:1 bays with the central bay breaking forward. The basement level has twenty-pane sashes. A ground-floor band is interrupted by a central rubbed-brick half-domed niche with an ashlar pedestal for a former sculpture. Large twelve-pane sashes flank this feature. The first floor has a band and sill band cut through by a large tripartite ashlar stair window. This contains sashes with glazing bars set in an architrave, surrounded by a panelled pilastered surround with projecting sill, cornice, and blocking course. Twelve-pane first-floor sashes sit above, all with sills and rubbed-brick cambered arches.

Interior features are considerable. The entrance hall contains a ribbed architrave to the front door, a pair of fitted marble side tables on ornate cast-iron brackets, and a painted wooden Roman Ionic screen with a pair of columns and flanking pilasters carrying a marbled entablature with modillioned cornice. A moulded plaster cornice and coved ceiling occupy the upper portion, with a central oil painting on canvas depicting mythological figures against a sky background.

The stairhall contains a fine open well cantilevered stone staircase with a cast-iron balustrade featuring alternating wavy bars and panels with a fleur-de-lys motif. The stair window has a ribbed architrave with Maltese cross ornament and an entablature with moulded cornice. The hall floor is laid in flagstone with black insets, and the walls are painted to imitate ashlar.

The north-east room features a grey marble chimney-piece with attached ribbed columns, festooned capitals, and a ribbed frieze. The plasterwork frieze displays vines and figures of young Bacchus and a girl gathering grapes in high relief, with a moulded cornice displaying a Greek key frieze.

The north-west room has fine coved plasterwork frieze depicting Bacchus and a gryphon with scrolled foliage and flowers in high relief, and a moulded cornice with an interlaced guilloche frieze. A damaged foliate ceiling rose is present.

The south-west room contains a good white marble chimney-piece with tapered ribbed columns on claw feet, foliate capitals, and an entablature with carved wreaths and strapwork ornament to the frieze. The ceiling is divided into seven recessed panels (formerly containing oil paintings on canvas) with a mutilated modillioned cornice, which was concealed by a suspended ceiling at the time of the survey.

An open well back staircase features ashlar treads, plain balusters, and a ramped handrail. The upper stairhall has a wide elliptical arch with panelled pilasters, archivolt, and panelled soffit. A bold ribbed cornice (partly concealed by a suspended ceiling) displays egg-and-dart and bead-and-pellet mouldings. A large acanthus and pineapple ceiling rose crowns the space.

Coved cornices line the first-floor side passages and central front room. The latter has imitation marble blockwork wall painting. Throughout the house, six-fielded-and-beaded-panel doors sit within architraves and panelled reveals. Windows are set in architraves with horizontal-sliding shutters. A six-fielded-panel door to the first-floor east room bears paintings of mythological figures, one inscribed: "E Empson Goole June 17th 1824". A pair of painted fronts to arched alcoves, decorated with oak-leaf garlands in a similar style, were not in situ at the time of the survey.

The former ceiling paintings, much damaged by damp, are held at Scunthorpe Museum. It is likely that some, or all, of these paintings are by amateur artist Elizabeth Empson, who lived at the Hall. The Maltese cross motif employed throughout the building is derived from the Empson arms, which appear on an eighteenth-century tombstone at Burying Hill nearby.

This is a distinguished building with notable interior details. It was undergoing renovation and alteration at the time of the survey.