Wadworth Hall And Attached Wing Walls

Wadworth Hall and Attached Wing Walls

Large house now in office use, with attached wing walls, dating from around 1750 with an early 19th-century service wing. It was designed by James Paine for Josias Wordsworth. The building is constructed in ashlar magnesian limestone with a Westmorland slate roof.

The house follows a double-pile plan with three symmetrical elevations. It comprises two storeys with attics, arranged in a 4 by 3 bay configuration. A later two-storey, three-bay service wing extends to the right, and wing walls are attached at each corner.

On the entrance front, the central focal point is a six-panel door in an architrave with a double keystone that breaks into a consoled pediment. Tall plinths form sills to flanking sash windows with glazing bars set in corniced architraves. The outer bays feature swept-shouldered surrounds to similar sashes beneath segmental pediments. The first floor displays a sill band and a central semi-domed niche with a shouldered architrave and moulded impost to the archivolt, which has a scrolled keystone. Architraved sashes with glazing bars flank this niche on each side, with pulvinated friezes and cornices that continue from the niche impost. The outer bays contain sashes matching the centre but with shouldered architraves. A modillioned cornice runs along the roofline. Three dormer windows with unequally-hung 12-pane sashes sit beneath segmental pediments. The hipped roof carries ashlar stacks positioned to the rear of the ridge.

The 19th-century wing on the right has sashes with glazing bars and a blind window to the first-floor centre, with a hipped end to the roof on the right. The right wing wall continues the plinth from the house around a shaped wall featuring a six-panel door flanked by piers on its left side, which curves in a quadrant with a domed niche. Heavy copings with ball-final plinths top the walls. The left wing wall is similar but includes an open gate leading to the left return.

The rear elevation features a central canted-bay projection with a tall round-headed sash with glazing bars in a swept-shouldered surround to the architrave, crowned by a consoled pediment. The canted sides have unequally-hung 15-pane sashes in architraves beneath floating cornices. Side bays each have pedimented sashes. The first floor displays a sill band linking corniced sashes with glazing bars; the central sash sits beneath a blind Diocletian opening. Wing walls similar to those at the front feature doorways surmounted by rusticated arches with keystones beneath pediments. The left return has a central pair of double doors beneath a consoled cornice, with a first-floor balustrade across a recess and an Ionic Venetian stair window above.

Interior features are notable. The entrance hall contains a Vitruvian-scroll dado rail and a side-wall fireplace with tapered columns having drops from lions' heads, an egg-and-dart surround, a Vitruvian-scroll frieze, and a cornice with pediment. A Rococo panel above features elongated cornucopiae. Opposite the fireplace is an architraved wall panel with cornice. Enriched six-panel doors include one to the former dining room in a doorcase with an oak-leaf frieze and consoled cornice; four other doors have eared and round-headed architraves.

The stair hall, opening to the left, contains a cantilevered wooden staircase with a wrought-iron balustrade of acanthus scrolls and a wooden handrail. Corniced plaster wall panels with egg-and-dart enriched architraves display swags of flowers and fruit. An excellent Rococo ceiling features an oval centre panel.

The former dining room, positioned at the rear centre, has a doorcase frieze carved with exotic fruit and a fine marble fireplace similar to that in the hall but with a carved centre panel. An adjacent room also possesses excellent doorcases and fireplace.