Hellaby Hall

Hellaby Hall is a large house dating to circa 1690, originally built for Ralph Fretwell. An 18th century rear wing was later added. The facade is of ashlar limestone, while the rest of the building is of coursed rubble limestone, some of which retains original render; the roof is pantiled. The house is two storeys high with a basement and attic, and comprises a five-bay main block with a lower two-bay wing to the rear left. The front features a blocked central doorway with an architrave and keystone, flanked by pilasters. Above the doorway, a cornice breaks forward beneath an open segmental pediment. Flanking bays have blocked windows with aprons rising from the plinth, moulded sills and raised surrounds. The first floor has a band that breaks forward beneath the aprons of similar windows, with bays 2 and 4 being blind, and the others glazed. The attic storey has three windows set in raised strips, with sills and cornices; the central window is unglazed and the others are blind cross windows, all set beneath a coped, shaped gable with large, Baroque-style kneelers carved with foliated volutes. The roof is hipped with side-ridge stacks that have offset plinths and cornices. The rear features twin gables with corniced attic windows. The right return displays cross windows to the upper floors, with surrounds linked by strips, and an eaves cornice. The left return retains plainer cross windows to the ground floor of the third bay and the upper floor. A wing to the left features bricked-up cross windows on each floor. Internally, the building was vandalised and partly gutted by fire at the time of resurvey. Remaining features include panelled plaster ceilings, a grand staircase with square newels and turned balusters, and large, arched fireplaces in a rear-left room and a later kitchen in the rear wing. The original interior scheme is documented in a report by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (RCHM). Ralph Fretwell made his fortune planting sugar in Barbados, and the influence of houses built in the Dutch style in that region is evident in Hellaby Hall. Parish records indicate that his daughter, Morafe, was baptised in 1690 as the hall was not yet completed. Fretwell died in 1701, and an inventory of his possessions at Hellaby is published elsewhere.