Aughton Court

Aughton Court is a country house dating to approximately 1772, originally known as Aston Hall and designed by John Carr for Lord Holderness. A service wing was added in 1825. The house is constructed of ashlar limestone, with a Westmorland slate roof. It has three storeys and a 2:3:2 x 5 bay layout, with a two-storey, five-bay service wing attached to the right. The central three bays of the main range form a full-height canted projection. The ground floor features a rusticated basement with a central ten-panel door and six-pane sash windows, all with rusticated flat arches. The piano nobile has a deep band, balustraded aprons, and a sill band to the sash windows, which have glazing bars within architraves with pulvinated friezes and cornices. The central window has a consoled pediment. The attic has six-pane sashes set in architraves. A modillioned cornice runs to a hipped roof with ashlar stacks flanking the central projection. The service wing has sash windows with projecting sills and flat arches. A continuous first-floor band and sill band extend from the main range; the upper-floor sashes are taller, and there is an eaves cornice to the hipped roof with 20th-century stacks to the rear. The rear of the main range is similar to the front, but the central bays are less emphasized. On the left return, bay one is bricked up, bays two and four have French windows, bay three has a partly infilled window, and the first-floor windows have been shored up. The interior features a Doric-columned entrance hall with a side-wall fireplace and handrail, wall panels, and an Ionic screen on the first floor. The library to the rear has bookcases in an Adam style. A room on the first floor above the library has a pedimented doorcase flanked by arched recesses, a dado rail, and an enriched cornice. A room across the left side of the house contains an oak floor, two Rococo-style wooden fireplaces, and enriched surrounds to wall and ceiling panels with corner shells. The second-floor landing has arcaded sides and a round roof-light, with several contemporary fireplaces. Later additions are not of particular architectural interest. Lord Holderness, Secretary of State for the North from 1751 to 1761, demolished the existing D’Arcy family house to build the current structure. He did not occupy the house and instead let it to Harry Verelst, a former Governor of Bengal and assistant to Clive of India. Verelst purchased the house in 1774–75 and commissioned John Platt to create the staircase. His family constructed the service wing in 1825 and removed Carr’s original external entrance stair to the piano nobile at that time. The house was later converted to a nursing home.