Slade Hooton Hall

Slade Hooton Hall is a small country house dating to 1698, built for John Mirfin. It is constructed of coursed, squared limestone with a Cornish slate roof. The house is two storeys and has attics, arranged in a 5 x 4 bay layout. The front elevation features a plinth and chamfered quoin strips. The central doorway has a six-panel door with a two-pane overlight, set within a rusticated panel featuring a shouldered and eared architrave, a frieze panel displaying the date 1698 and an unidentified monogram, and an enriched cornice with egg-and-dart and acanthus motifs. Flanking the doorway are sash windows with glazing bars, set in raised ashlar surrounds. The first floor has a band running along its length, with windows mirroring the ground floor design. The central window on the first floor has a sunken-panelled apron and architrave matching the doorway, with an acanthus-enriched cornice projecting over the quoin strips and beneath a segmental pediment containing a mask in the tympanum. The roof is hipped with side-facing dormers, and features later brick-quoined side-ridge stacks. The rear of the house has two two-light cellar windows in a plinth, a doorway in a raised ashlar surround with an eared moulding, two cross windows to the ground floor, and a double-transomed stair window flanked by sash windows with glazing bars.

Inside, the doorway leads into a front-right room with coving. The front-left room contains a bolection-moulded fireplace, fielded wall panels, and an enriched cornice now decorated with 20th-century trompe-l’oeil work. The kitchen to the rear right has a large, arched fireplace. The rear-left room features a bolection-moulded fireplace and fielded panelling. The main hall has bolection-moulded door architraves. The staircase has alternating spiral and plain square balusters, and a shaped handrail. On the first floor, the stair landing has canvas panels with relief laurel-leaf borders; the front-left room has a bolection-moulded fireplace, and the room on the front-right features raised architraved panels. The attic staircase has splat balusters. The gatepiers and stable to the rear are depicted in Samuel Buck's sketch, which is included in a 1720 sketchbook (facsimile edition 1979). Slade Hooton Hall represents an early example of classically-designed architecture in the region.