Sandtoft Hall

Sandtoft Hall

A house now converted into house and flats, with early to mid-18th-century origins to its rear ranges and a late 18th to early 19th-century south front. The building probably dates from the Popplewell estate. It is constructed in brick, rough rendered and colour-washed, with a Welsh slate roof to the front and sides, concrete tiles to the rear, and rear ranges largely covered in pantile roofs with some concrete tiles to inner slopes.

The building is L-shaped in plan. The south front comprises two rooms with a central octagonal entrance hall and a staircase hall to the rear; the left room was subdivided in the 20th century. An earlier three-room east wing and a three-room range in the north-west angle complete the arrangement, though both have had their plans somewhat altered in the 20th century. The building stands two storeys high.

The south front features a 2:1:2 bay arrangement with a central canted entrance bay and seven first-floor windows. The entrance door is half-glazed with three lights over three horizontal fielded panels, set beneath a moulded lintel and plain overlight. The windows are 12-pane sashes with narrow glazing bars in flush wooden architraves with sills. A moulded wooden eaves cornice supports a hipped roof, with a pair of corniced ridge stacks flanking the central bay.

The right return shows a south range with a pair of similar ground-floor sashes and a pair of painted first-floor dummy windows. The earlier east wing to the right has four first-floor windows. A 20th-century door and overlight have been inserted to the left, while to the right stands an original 12-pane flush sash with thick glazing bars, a 20th-century two-light casement (possibly inserted in a former lobby entry), and a pair of 20th-century three-light casements, with similar first-floor windows above. The wing has a hipped roof with a ridge stack to the left of centre. A board door sits in a short brick-coped screen wall ramped down to the right, with a later lean-to overlying its lower section. The rear of the east wing has an inserted 20th-century French window to the right and 20th-century casements to each floor.

The north-west range has three first-floor windows to the north side. It features quoins, 20th-century French windows to the left, and a pair of 20th-century two-light casements (probably in original openings) to the right. A pair of 12-pane first-floor flush sashes appears to the left, with a 20th-century casement to the right. The eaves are corbelled brick, supporting a hipped roof with a ridge stack to the right of centre.

The interior contains good original details to the south front. The entrance hall features a pair of half-domed niches with panelled pilasters, fluted friezes and archivolts, and six-fielded panel doors in architraves. A corniced dado rail runs around the space, with a Doric plaster frieze incorporating triglyphs, a guilloche band and moulded cornice.

The ground-floor right drawing room displays fine fielded panelling, probably dating from the early to mid-18th century, with a moulded dado rail and projecting central sections to two walls featuring eared and scrolled shouldered bolection panels. A carved wooden chimney-piece has an eared architrave and ornate moulded cornice, with an eared and shouldered bolection panelled overmantel. A late 18th to early 19th-century foliate frieze with a dentilled cornice is supported by delicate Adam-style plasterwork on the ceiling, featuring a central fan and garlands, side panels with lozenges and paterae, and reeded borders.

The ground-floor left dining room features a fluted dado rail and an ornate plasterwork frieze with urns and anthemion. A six-panel door with fluted fielding is set in a fluted architrave.

An open-well cantilevered stone staircase rises through the building with a ramped and wreathed corniced hardwood handrail, plain wrought-iron balusters and a column-on-vase newel post. A Doric frieze and cornice decorate the lower and upper stair-halls. The upper hall is lit by a fine plasterwork ceiling with garlanded panels flanking a central oval dome, featuring an ornate guilloche frieze, moulded cornice, garlands, ribbons and paterae, and topped by a domed top-light with radial glazing bars.

The first-floor central room has a dentilled cornice and a pilastered chimney-piece with fluted dosserets and a central panel to the frieze. The right bedroom features a chimney-piece with an eared architrave and moulded cornice, and an earlier 18th-century two-panelled door to the central room with bolection moulding and L-hinges.

Moulded skirting, fielded-panel window shutters and doors in architraves are found throughout, with some doors featuring L-hinges. The earlier north-west range adjoining to the rear contains beamed ceilings and six-fielded-panel doors. A good first-floor bedroom in this range displays early to mid-18th-century fielded panelling with a moulded dado rail and a deep moulded cornice. Its chimney-piece has a moulded surround, Greek key frieze and dentilled cornice, with an eared and shouldered bolection overmantel.

The Popplewell family of Temple Belwood owned Sandtoft in the 18th century. The initials "RP" (possibly for Richard Popplewell) appear on the nearby coach-house and stable.