Garthorpe Hall

Garthorpe Hall is a house dating from around 1680, with later alterations and renovations carried out around 1980. It is constructed of red brick, some in English bond, with colour-washed and partly-rendered gable ends, and has a pantile roof. The plan originally comprised three rooms, with a lobby entry to the left of the centre, and a central rear stair turret flanked by later outshuts. The house is two storeys with an attic, and has seven bays, with four first-floor windows (three blocked).

A deep plinth is capped with ovolo and cavetto moulded bricks. The entrance bay projects forward, featuring a wide six-fielded-panel door with a five-pane overlight, set within a damaged early 20th century pilastered doorcase. The doorcase retains a partly-restored original floating pediment constructed of ovolo, cavetto, and cyma recta moulded bricks. Three 18th century 12-pane sashes are aligned to the left, and two similar 12-pane sashes and two 19th century lengthened four-pane sashes are on the right, all set within flush wood surrounds and beneath flat arches. The first floor has two 12-pane sashes to the left, two similar sashes, and two blocked windows to the right. A corbelled cornice of cavetto-moulded bricks runs along the top of the building. A ridge stack is situated centrally, with a cross-shaped footprint. The right return has single 19th century four-pane sashes to both ground and first floors. A 12-pane sliding sash is located in the attic of the left return. The rear elevation has an irregular pattern of windows, incorporating 20th century casements and sliding sashes, with cogged brick eaves to the main range.

Inside, the ground-floor room to the left features a reused chamfered spine beam with tongue stops and run-out stops, and an inglenook fireplace with a chamfered Tudor-arched brick opening, beneath a timber bressumer. This contains a salt cupboard with a panelled door. The other ground-floor rooms have boxed-in spine beams and 19th century fire surrounds. A very fine, mid-to-late 17th century open-well staircase with closed string, panelled risers, bulbous vase-on-ball balusters, a wide corniced handrail, panelled newel posts with ball finials and pendant drops, a large carved acanthus-scroll bracket to the foot-newel, and a carved string with moulded bands and pulvinated frieze with bay-leaf moulding is a notable feature. Three-panel doors with bolection mouldings are found throughout, most with H-L hinges. A brick barrel-vaulted cellar lies beneath the outshut to the west of the stair turret. The roof space contains a 6-bay collared rafter roof with staggered butt purlins. A blocked original 2-light attic window with a plain oak mullion is visible in the right gable. Blocked first-floor windows to the rear of the main range are visible in the west outshut. The stair turret appears to be a later addition, likely built to accommodate the staircase, and its grandeur, coupled with the obscuration of some lower section features, suggests it may have been brought from elsewhere. The building stands near the former south bank of the Old River Don, situated on the site of an earlier hall, the foundations of which have been revealed by excavation in the garden.