High Melton Hall

High Melton Hall is a country house, now used as a college. It was originally built in 1757, with additions in 1878 and significant alterations in 1948-49. The house was initially commissioned for John Fountayne, Dean of York, and is attributed to the architect James Paine. It is constructed of deeply-coursed dressed sandstone with a graduated slate roof to the central block. The original U-shaped 18th-century block has been extended to the rear, forming an H-shaped range.

The front entrance has a two-bay, seven-bay, two-bay arrangement, with a slightly recessed bay on the right. The centrally recessed three-storey section features a single-storey porch with blocked columns that flank a rusticated round arch. The arch has a console-shaped keystone and a frieze inscribed ‘NISI DOMINUS’. Above the porch are sash windows with glazing bars, with the central bay having a shouldered architrave and three projecting voussoirs. The first-floor windows have a sill band, and the central bay has a swept, shouldered, and eared architrave with a segmental pediment. The second floor has unequally-hung nine-pane sashes, and the central bay has an architrave. A modillioned cornice is topped with a blocking course, and a ridge stack is located to the right of centre. The two-storey wings have unequally-hung nine-pane sashes to the ground floor, with soffit-moulded sills and architraves incorporating small keyblocks. Similar surrounds are seen on the taller first-floor windows, which have unequally-hung, fifteen-pane sashes. A cornice with a blocking course has a later added parapet with rainwater heads dated 1949. Mansard roofs of the same date have end windows. The inner returns of the wings have five bays, mirroring the end bays, with roof dormers.

At the rear, a rubble-walled, curved projection features a relieving arch above a plain Venetian window. On the left return is an ashlar garden front with a three-storey canted bay, having a cornice to each floor, balustraded aprons and a pediment.

The interior includes a Tuscan-pillared entrance hall. A curved projection to the rear, formerly containing the staircase, features an Ionic surround to a Venetian window, flanking niches, and a modillioned cornice. The first-floor library to the left of the entrance has a consoled, marble fireplace with a raised panel over featuring a broken pediment, flanking niches; a doorcase with a pulvinated, oak-leaf frieze and consoled pediment; architraved wall panels; a modillioned cornice and a coved ceiling edge. An adjacent room has a doorcase with a shouldered architrave and cornice.

The house subsequently passed to the Montague family, was used by the military, then purchased by the Doncaster Education Committee in 1946.