Holderness House

House, now old people's home. Built in 1838, converted and extended in the mid-20th century. Designed by James Clephan of London.

The building is constructed of yellow brick with ashlar dressings and steep pitched slate roofs, some featuring fish-scale patterns. It is styled in the Elizabethan Revival manner.

The exterior comprises two storeys plus basement and attics, with a five-by-five window arrangement. The building features two side wall stacks, two ridge stacks and two gable stacks, several with grouped octagonal flues. Details include a plinth, sill bands, quoins, string courses, low parapets and coped gables, some shaped.

The entrance front is dominated by a square tower porch in four stages. Steps flanked by urns lead to an open porch with a round-arched opening on three sides, with paired Doric pilasters flanking the front opening. The doorway itself is a margin stile fielded six-panel door with moulded surround and cornice. Above this are corniced 12-pane sashes on each side, and above again similar windows with pediments. The fourth stage, above the main cornice, contains a round window on four sides. Flanking the porch on the first floor are two two-light windows on each side. Above, to the right, are two through-eaves dormers with two-light mullioned windows. Below these are small single windows, then two two-light windows. To the right of the porch are two further two-light mullioned windows, and to the left a corniced doorway flanked by similar windows. Beyond this, to the left, is a single-storey corridor with a three-light mullioned window, and further left a gabled kitchen range with a similar window and tall side wall stack.

The garden front to the right features projecting wings with shouldered shaped gables. Each has a canted two-storey bay window with parapet and a five-light window on each floor. In each gable is a graduated three-light mullioned window. The centre has a central two-light window flanked by single lights, the larger ground floor ones with transoms. Above are three through-eaves dormers with shaped gables and two-light mullioned windows.

The south-east front has a central projection with shouldered shaped gable containing a graduated three-light window. On the lower floors is a three-light window, the ground floor one being larger. On the first floor on either side are two two-light windows, and above are two through-eaves dormers with shaped gables and two-light mullioned windows. Below are two taller two-light windows on each side. To the right is a two-storey rear wing containing three windows, and a mid-20th century two-storey addition.

The interior contains an entrance hall with shouldered wall panels decorated with festoons and a panelled ceiling. To the left is a three-bay Tuscan colonnade overlooking the stairwell. A cantilever stone stair with landings features a patterned cast-iron balustrade. The stairwell itself has wall panels, and on the first landing a three-bay Ionic colonnade beneath a panelled ceiling with skylight.

The ground floor library has a moulded cornice and fitted bookcases with glazing bars. It contains an eared and shouldered wooden fireplace with overmantel mirror. Another ground floor room has a moulded cornice, frieze with Greek Key pattern and oval panelled ceiling, with a mid-19th century wooden fireplace featuring an overmantel mirror.

Holderness House was the home of Thomas H. Ferens, managing director of Reckitts and major benefactor to Hull, from 1909 until his death in 1930. Following the terms of his will, the house became a rest home for poor gentlewomen in reduced circumstances, endowed with £50,000. It continues as a residential care home for women run by the Holderness House Trust. The ashes of Ferens and his wife are buried in the grounds. A Methodist who served as Liberal MP for East Hull, Ferens was an advocate for women's rights and women's suffrage, and repeatedly drew attention to the trafficking of women and girls in the colonies. He provided funds to establish University College, Hull, later the University of Hull, and the Art Gallery that bears his name.