Horkstow Hall

Horkstow Hall is a small country house built in 1776, probably for Rear Admiral Thomas Shirley. It is constructed of stuccoed brick with ashlar details and slate roofs, designed in the Classical style with 19th-century additions in a similar manner. The left wing was raised to two storeys and extended in the 19th century, with 20th-century alterations also made to the building.

The house has a double-depth main section with a 2-room central entrance hall to the front, screen walls, a later turret extension to the right, and a double-depth wing to the left with a forward projecting pavilion section and later extensions to the rear and left.

The entrance front faces the road. The main section is 2 storeys with an attic, arranged in a 1:3:1 bay pattern with a central pedimented section breaking forward. A single-storey single-bay screen wall is set back to the right, and a 2-storey single-bay wing is set back to the left. A 2-storey 3-bay forward projecting section with a single-bay gable-end to the road adjoins a front garden wall. Quoins articulate the main section and pedimented bays.

The entrance features a rusticated surround with a flat arch and carved mask keystone flanked by half-columns with square vermiculated bands. A full Doric entablature displays carved paterae and alternating triglyphs in the frieze, with a moulded cornice and pediment above. The large 6-fielded-panel door (boarded-up at the time of survey) is flanked by two 12-pane sash windows in reveals with bracketed cills and keyed and channelled flat arches. Similar windows appear on the first floor. A moulded ashlar cornice, stone-coped parapet, and pediment with a lunette in the tympanum (with bracketed cill and keyed surround) complete the composition. Double-span roofing with stone-coped gables and end stacks crowns this section.

The coped screen wall to the right has a blind Venetian window with bracketed cill, raised pilasters, moulded ashlar cornice, and keyed archivolt. The wing to the left displays a similar ground-floor Venetian window with central sash and blind side panels, an inserted entrance to the right, a moulded ashlar first-floor band, a 12-pane first-floor sash, and a 20th-century window to the right. It has a coped parapet and double-span roof with coped gables. The line of the original single-storey gable is visible in the stucco. The projecting section to the front has a similar Venetian window with blind side panels, a moulded first-floor band, and a coped gable. The right return of the projecting wing, facing the front garden, has two 12-pane sashes, an inserted door and window at ground floor, and a moulded band cut by three first-floor sashes.

The garden front is similar to the entrance front but without the projecting central section and quoins, and features a full-height canted bay window. The partly-blocked central entrance has a moulded stone step to a Gibbs surround with vermiculated rustication, pulvinated frieze, modillioned cornice, and pediment. The original canted bay window to the right has three 12-pane sashes to each floor and a moulded ashlar cornice. Two 12-pane sashes appear on each floor to the left, replacing a former canted bay (scars of which remain visible in the stucco). A first-floor Venetian window above the entrance has blind side panels. The screen wall to the left has a blind Venetian window with moulded capitals and raised keystones, a moulded ashlar cornice at first-floor level, and a coped parapet. The wing to the right displays similar details at ground floor (with an enlarged sidelight to the Venetian window) and a smaller Venetian window to the 19th-century first floor. All openings were boarded-up at the time of survey.

The interior contains particularly fine plasterwork. The stairhall ceiling displays Rococo ornament with an ornate modillioned cornice and delicately moulded panels. Elaborate cornices decorate the entrance hall and main rooms, with moulded ceiling roses and garlands to the ground-floor rear right and rear left rooms. Good original carved and moulded chimneypieces in the main rooms feature Classical, Gothick, and Rococo ornament. An open-well staircase with a ramped handrail and column-on-vase balusters with square knops was damaged at the time of survey. Pilastered openings serve the entrance hall and bay windows. Moulded dado rails and skirting, fielded-panel doors, and window shutters in ovolo architraves are typical of the period. A dated rainwater head, now lost, once bore inscription.

At the time of survey, the house was empty and in a state of decay. This is a significant mid-Georgian house of considerable architectural quality.