Hickleton Hall With Attached Quadrant Walls And Walls Extended To Enclose Entrace Front Garden Having Associated Gate Piers And Two Statues, Also Linking Wall To Gate Pier At South East Corner

Hickleton Hall with Attached Quadrant Walls and Walls Extended to Enclose Entrance Front Garden Having Associated Gate Piers and Two Statues, Also Linking Wall to Gate Pier at South East Corner

A country house now in use as a Sue Ryder Home. Built between 1745 and 1748 by James Paine for Godfrey Wentworth, the house was enlarged around 1775 and further altered between 1857 and 1860. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with graduated slate roofs.

The building comprises a 7 by 5 bay double-pile main range with flanking pavilions linked by 19th-century additions. A service wing is set back on the right, and quadrant walls flank all but the rear-right corner, with those to the front extending to flank the garden.

The main range rises 3 storeys with basements and measures 2:3:2 bays. Single-storey 3-bay end pavilions are linked across the front by 19th-century corridors and an entrance hall. The entrance hall, of sandstone ashlar with plinth and sill band, breaks forward to a glazed door flanked by twin pilasters and 16-pane sashes set back with twin pilasters on the outside. The corridors, set back, contain sashes with glazing bars in architraves and feature a continuous entablature. The taller pavilions, each set forward, have sashes with glazing bars in architraves with consoled cornices; the central sash has a pediment and the pavilions terminate in cornices with parapets.

The first floor of the main range displays sashes with glazing bars and floating cornices; the central sash has an architrave and segmental pediment. The second floor has unequally-hung 9-pane sashes. A modillioned cornice with an achievement of arms in the tympanum of a 3-bay pediment crowns the composition. Both pavilions and main range have hipped roofs. Transverse multiple-flue stacks are set behind the ridge and at the right end.

The rear facade is an unaltered 18th-century composition matching the front design. It features a central doorcase with swept-shouldered architrave and consoled segmental pediment. A semi-octagonal single-storey projection on the left has round-headed sashes with glazing bars in architraves and a dentilled cornice. The service wing facade, set back on the left, rises 2 storeys with 3:2:5:2 bays. Basement level has unequally-hung 9-pane sashes; the upper floor features a band beneath sashes with glazing bars and a dentilled cornice. The left return of the main range includes a basement loggia with 5 segmental arches and a balustrade.

Interior features are of considerable quality. The entrance hall contains Vitruvian-scrolled dado and a contemporary fireplace, with a Doric colonnaded screen featuring detailed entablature. The dining room has a marble sidewall fireplace with carved overmantel displaying floral drops, festoons and a broken pediment with a basket filled with fruit and flowers. Enriched doorcases with acanthus friezes and a coved ceiling with acanthus features complete the room. A semi-octagonal bay to the rear right contains a marble fireplace with a scene of cherubs at daybreak and an excellent plaster ceiling in the manner of John Carr. The library has a Corinthian screen, frieze and good plaster ceiling. The rear-centre staircase has a 20th-century wrought-iron balustrade with Ionic columns to the first landing and Corinthian columns to the second. A chapel in the left pavilion contains later panelling and a reredos with Ionic columns and segmental pediment.

The subsidiary features include ashlar quadrant walls to the front with copings terminating at finialled piers, each with a linked retaining wall surmounted by an 18th-century statue—the left a Greek warrior and the right a female figure with shield. Lower sections of early 20th-century coursed rubble walling have open-pedimented doorways with tripartite keystones and terminate at large gate piers with gadrooned plinths to ball finials. Walls return and link to a balustrade. An additional section of wall connects the front-right garden wall with a gate pier matching that linked to the east end of the Stable Block main facade. An ashlar quadrant wall to the rear left of the main range links to large gate piers at the south end of the garden front terrace.

The hall was the home of Godfrey Wentworth, who died in 1789. It later passed to Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax, and subsequently to his son Charles Lindley Wood. The property was sold in 1947–48 and has been in its present use since 1960–61.