Wortley Hall With Attached South-Front Terrace And Steps Including Attached Retaining Wall And Steps To Wing Set Back On Left

Wortley Hall with attached south-front terrace and steps including attached retaining wall and steps to wing set back on left

A country house, now a rest home, of considerable architectural importance. The south front was built between 1742 and 1746 by Giacomo Leoni for Edward Wortley-Montagu (died 1761). The east wing followed in 1757 to 1761, designed by Matthew Brettingham with George Platt (died 1743) and his son John serving as mason and executive architects. Lady Bute (died 1784) commissioned additions between 1784 and 1788, which were completed for James Archibald Stuart Wortley under the guidance of John Carr of York. The building was probably remodelled and a lantern added by William Burn around 1867 to 1873.

The hall is built of ashlar sandstone with graduated slate roofs and follows an irregular plan, mostly of two storeys. The main south front comprises seven bays with a five-bay wing set back by five bays on the left and a single linking bay. The east front extends across one, one, three and three bays, with a wing on the right forming part of extensive service ranges that enclose a courtyard.

The south front is approached by a terrace with a retaining wall and central steps flanked by urns. Additional steps and a balustraded retaining wall serve the front-left corner of the wing set back on the left. The south elevation is divided as one, one, three, one, one bays. The outer bays are flanked by twin Ionic pilasters; the central three bays break forward beneath a pediment. A moulded plinth runs across, with a central French window in an architrave beneath a consoled cornice. A moulded sill band connects two-pane sashes throughout. Bays one, three, five and seven have balustraded aprons, shouldered architraves, pulvinated friezes and dentilled pediments; bays two and six have cornices. On the first floor, the central bay contains an eight-pane window while the other bays have six-pane windows, all in architraves. A full entablature is surmounted by a balustrade, with a central pediment displaying the arms of James Archibald Stuart Wortley, which were added when he was elevated to the peerage in 1826. The roof is hipped with ashlar stacks set to the rear. An octagonal lantern over the entrance on the right return features archivolted openings beneath a lead-covered dome with finial.

The wing set back on the left has a wider bay five that projects forward and displays tripartite windows to each floor; the ground-floor window has a cornice with a pedimented central light. Four-pane sashes appear on the left at each floor, with a balustrade to the hipped roof, a corniced ridge stack and an end stack on the left. The linking bay contains a pedimented doorway beneath a blind architrave and a balustraded parapet.

The right return has a bay flanked by twin pilasters matching the front elevation. A quoined projection on the right features a window with a bracketed sill and an architrave with a segmental pediment, above which is a six-pane sash in an architrave. The main entrance, set back on the right, has an Ionic-columned doorcase with an archivolt within an open pediment. Three bays to the right have sashes with glazing bars in corniced architraves, a deep floor band beneath four sashes, and an entablature and balustrade matching the front. Three further bays set back to the right have sashes with glazing bars at each floor, a modillioned cornice and a blind balustrade. A service wing is attached on the right.

Internally, the dining room occupies ground-floor bay seven of the south front and features a marble Ionic-columned screen with oak panelling and decorative doorcases having oak-leaf friezes; an archivolt serves the servery. The ceiling is elegant with relief plasterwork and an armorial panel, though heavily repainted. The sitting room at the centre of the south front contains a fluted-columned screen, plaster wall panels and a Rococo-style ceiling. A room to the rear left of the south front has end-wall fireplaces and panelling with well-carved drops depicting musical instruments, together with a fine panelled door incorporating carving.

The salon, now called Foundry Hall, was elaborately decorated around 1860 with Japanese and exotic motifs by Geoffrey Sykes of Sheffield, completed by Sir John Poynter, and features a central lantern with stained-glass side lights. The central hall contains a nineteenth-century imperial staircase with brass balusters to a wooden handrail. The landing is fitted with marbled Ionic columns flanking recesses and a frieze with bucrania, together with an oval lantern. Nineteenth-century armorial glass panels are set against the north window of the landing.

Wortley Hall was the former home of the Wortley-Montagu and Stuart Wortley families. It was requisitioned by the army during the Second World War, after which it fell into disrepair. In 1950 it was purchased by the trade union and Labour movement and converted to an educational holiday centre.