Warmsworth Hall

WARMSWORTH LOW ROAD WEST SE50SW (east end, off)

1/81 Warmsworth Hall 5.6.68

GV II*

Large house. 1702. For John Battie 2nd. Magnesian limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, stone slate roof. H-plan; 2 storeys with attic, 2:3:2 bays. Chamfered plinth, rusticated quoins. Central feature of raised and chancel-rusticated ashlar panel having renewed sash with glazing bars in eared doorway architrave with keystone beneath carved pediment on consoles. Other ground-floor bays have moulded sills to similar sashes in plain ashlar surrounds beneath continuous cornice; bay 2 has part-glazed door and overlight and together with bay 1 is covered by a later Doric-columned stone porch. 1st floor: central feature has sash with glazing bars in architrave with moulded sill beneath open segmental pediment; sashes with glazing bars to bays 3 and 5; 24-pane sashes to each wing. Cornice to hipped roof with central feature rising above eaves and having channel-rusticated strips flanking a keyed oeil-de-boeuf beneath cornice and balustrade. Gabled roof dormers above bays 3 and 5 and to each wing. Rendered and corniced ridge stacks to left wing and to each side of the central recess. Left return: 5 bays. Central 6-panelled door-and fanlight with glazing bars in eared architrave within a stone-columned porch; tripartite sash to bay 1 otherwise sashes with glazing bars to ground floor and 24-pane sashes to 1st floor; 2 crested rain-water heads. Interior: stair-hall in left wing has gently inclined wooden staircase with scroll-bracketed treads, turned balusters and moulded handrail; fielded-panel dado. At foot of stair an archivolted doorcase; recessed oval ceiling panel over stair well. Fireplace in entrance hall has iron firebasket in ribbed iron panel with fluted wooden surround; similar fireplace in original central entrance hall. In 1668 John Battie (1616-1676) purchased the manor and added to the existing hall (indicated by increase in hearth tax returns). His son, John Battie 2nd, (1663-1724) added the present house which Ralph Thoresby, after a visit in 1703, noted was '.... very pretty for the size, but scarcely finished ....'; Battie became deputy Lord Lieutenant for the West Riding in 1715 (Holland p.6). Reduced to present size in 1945. Became offices of British Ropes; undergoing conversion to conference centre adjacent to Doncaster Moat House Hotel at time of resurvey (1987). D. Holland, Warmsworth in the Eighteenth Century, 1965 D. Hey, Buildings of Britain, 1550-1750, Yorkshire, 1981, p.81 (plate).

Listing NGR: SE5471400608