Milton Hall

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 22/10/2020

SK39NE 5/13

HOYLAND NETHER Elsecar FITZWILLIAM STREET Milton Hall

(Formerly listed under WATH ROAD (west side))

GV II Market Hall, 1870 for the Fitzwilliam estate, renovated to form assembly rooms in 1931 with additions to the rear, disused at the time of listing in 1986.

MATERIALS: rock-faced sandstone with Welsh slate roofing.

EXTERIOR: the building is single-storey, being of five bays fronting Wath Road to the east and nine bays fronting Fitzwilliam Street to the south. These two principal elevations each have a central entrance bay which is pedimented and slightly broken forward, the pediment being corniced and having a projecting apex block. Each of these two entrance bays has a pair of double doors set beneath a semi-circular fanlight with radial glazing bars, all deeply set within a round-arched opening that has impost bands. Each of the remaining bays has a round-arched window with glazing bars, the elevations unified with a simple plinth and eaves band. The north elevation features seven round-arched windows retaining similar iron casements with glazing bars. The roof is triple spanned and hipped, the central ridge being higher than the flanking ridges, the central ridge retaining ventilators.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT: From the late C18, Elsecar was the industrial village of the Earls Fitzwilliam, whose seat of Wentworth Woodhouse lies nearby. At Elsecar they invested in coal mining and iron working, erecting industrial buildings along with good quality workers’ housing and a range of other urban facilities including a church and school, all within what had been an agricultural landscape. The survival of many of these buildings makes Elsecar an important and significant place, telling the story of three centuries of coal mining, Christian paternalism, and industrial boom and decline. Milton Hall was commissioned by the sixth Earl Fitzwilliam (1815-1902) as a market hall on the site of the previous open-air market. In 1931 it was renovated by the seventh Earl Fitzwilliam as a concert hall and assembly rooms for the village and renamed as Milton Hall, to celebrate the 21st birthday of Viscount Milton (1910-1948), who became the eighth Earl Fitzwilliam in 1943.

Listing NGR: SK3846199916