Owston Hall

Owston Hall

A mid-18th-century house with earlier 18th-century origins and late 18th to early 19th-century alterations, with further changes in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building is constructed of brick, rendered to the south front and whitewashed elsewhere, with a concrete tile roof to the main range and pantile roof to the east wing.

The main range has a double-depth plan with a 2-room central entrance hall facing both north and south. The east wing, dating to the 18th century, features a lobby entry to the north front and a stair turret to the south behind a screen wall, linked to a 19th-century outbuilding of no special interest. The main range rises to 2 storeys with an attic, while the east wing is 2 storeys.

On the north front, fenestration is irregular with 5 first-floor windows. The central entrance to the right features a stone step with moulded nosing leading to a fine Doric doorcase with engaged fluted columns topped by acanthus capitals, a figured frieze with griffons on the dosserets, and a central urn flanked by festoons beneath a moulded cornice and modillioned pediment. The 19th-century half-glazed door has margin lights in the reveal. A late 19th to early 20th-century canted bay window to the right contains plate-glass sashes with pilasters, an entablature with plain frieze, a bracketed hood and hipped roof. Two 12-pane sashes to the left, one beneath a segmental brick arch and the other slightly larger beneath a flat brick arch, are set in 18th-century flush wooden architraves with sills. The first floor has three 12-pane sashes to the left beneath segmental arches, a 19th-century plate-glass sash with margin lights above the entrance, and a tripartite sash to the right comprising a central 12-pane and flanking 8-pane sashes beneath a segmental arch. A 2-course brick band runs across the first floor. The eaves are stepped, with a double-span roof featuring tumbled-in brick to the gables and a later brick-coped parapet to the valley. 20th-century rebuilt corniced end stacks crown the structure.

The east wing has 3 first-floor windows. The entrance to the left of centre features a flight of 3 semicircular steps leading to a 6-flush-panelled door beneath a segmental arch, flanked to the left by a single 12-pane sash and to the right by a pair of similar sashes in reveals with sills beneath segmental arches. The first floor has similar sashes. An axial stack rises from this wing.

The south front displays 6 first-floor windows in symmetrical arrangement. An unsympathetic 20th-century brick entrance porch overlies twin 19th-century doorways with half-glazed fielded-panel doors and margin lights in architraves, flanking a central half-domed niche. Single 19th-century full-length ground-floor canted bay windows stand to each side, renovated around 1986, with flights of 3 stone steps to central French windows with glazing bars, single side lights, panelled friezes and hipped asphalt roofs. Late 19th-century four-pane first-floor sashes sit in earlier flush wooden architraves with sills beneath panelled and keyed stucco flat arches. A moulded wooden eaves cornice runs along the front. The east wing and adjoining screen wall set back to the right contain single 4-pane sashes to each floor in similar surrounds to the main range, with a stone-coped parapet and a wall ramped down to a square-section pier to the left, topped by a truncated stone finial.

The interior retains good details, largely from the late 18th to early 19th centuries but incorporating some earlier features. The entrance hall of the main range features a moulded dado rail and an elliptical arch to the stairhall with moulded capitals, an archivolt and moulded-panel soffit, topped by an ornate plasterwork cornice. The stairhall contains a fine open-well cantilevered staircase, possibly 19th-century but executed in early to mid-18th-century style, with profiled cheek-pieces, a hardwood balustrade featuring a ramped and wreathed ridged and corniced handrail, slender twist-on-vase balusters, and square panelled newel posts with pendant drops. The foot-newel is massive and ornately carved with bold gadrooning, acanthus leaf and cable moulding. A moulded dado rail and an ornate plaster cornice with open-work foliate mouldings adorn the space, with a fine plasterwork ceiling featuring a central oval design of garlands and scrolled foliage, and corner groups of musical instruments, cornucopia and other motifs in lyre-shaped foliate figures with fronds and ribbons. A moulded elliptical-arched opening leads to the upper stairhall.

All ground-floor rooms display ornate plasterwork friezes and cornices, with the eastern rooms also featuring spine beams with moulded panelled soffits. The south-east room has a fine composition chimney-piece with twin slender fluted columns, foliate capitals, dosserets and a panelled frieze with fronds, garlands and swags beneath an ornate cornice.

The first-floor south-east room has a late 18th-century foliate plasterwork frieze and cornice, and a fine composition chimney-piece with floral drops and acanthus capitals to the pilasters, a panelled frieze with Arcadian figures and festoons, an ornate cornice, original marble slips and a decorated cast-iron duck's-nest grate. The south-west room has a moulded cornice, a spine beam with fielded-panel soffit, and an early to mid-18th-century stone chimney-piece with panelled pilasters and frieze with fluted key, later fitted with an ornate cast-iron grate and flanked by fielded-panel alcoves containing 6-fielded-panel doors. The north-west room has a moulded cornice and a plain stone chimney-piece flanked by 6-fielded-panel doors with L-hinges. The north-east room features a moulded cornice, a mid-18th-century wooden chimney-piece with eared architrave, pulvinated frieze and moulded cornice, an ornate cast-iron grate, and fielded-panel alcoves with 6-fielded-panel doors flanking the chimney-piece. The attic has plaster floors. Throughout the house, moulded skirting, fielded-panel window shutters and 6-fielded-panel doors in architraves are evident.

The east wing contains a good open-well closed-string staircase dating to 1700-20 with a corniced handrail, turned balusters and plain newel-posts. The west room has a fielded-panelled chimney-piece with a segmental arch over an inserted 20th-century fire surround, flanked by 6-fielded-panel doors in a panelled surround with L-hinges. Both main rooms of this wing display late 18th to 19th-century moulded cornices. The east wing staircase shows similarities with that in Epworth Old Rectory, dated to 1709.

This is a distinguished house, somewhat marred by 19th and 20th-century alterations, but retaining some very fine interior details. Adjoining ranges to the east are not of special interest.