Wentworth Woodhouse

Wentworth Woodhouse is a country mansion now serving as a college of further education and partly unoccupied. The building has a 17th-century core that was comprehensively remodelled between approximately 1724–28 and 1734 to create the west front, with the east front commenced immediately afterwards and largely completed over the next two decades. The service wings were heightened in the late 18th century.

The house was remodelled for Thomas Watson Wentworth, perhaps by William Etty. Ralph Tunnicliffe (who died in 1736) commenced the east front, but the scheme was revised and completed by Henry Flitcroft, who continued work on the interiors for Charles Wentworth, 2nd Marquis of Rockingham. John Carr worked for the 2nd Marquis before heightening the service wings for William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, the 4th Earl.

The 17th-century fabric includes some walling of tooled sandstone and brick laid in English bond. The west front is constructed of brick in Flemish bond with ashlar sandstone to the central feature and dressings, beneath lead and copper roofs. The east front is ashlar-faced with rear walls of brick and slate roofs. Both elevations are symmetrical, though their axes are offset. The Baroque style west facade conceals an irregular plan adapted from the original 17th-century house, while the symmetry of the Palladian east front is carried through to some of the interior planning, with the principal suite of rooms arranged en enfilade.

The west front consists of a 2-storey central part with single-storey wings and a half-basement throughout. The plan is 4:9:4 bays, with the central part recessed and a central feature breaking forward. Rusticated quoins frame the composition. Sashes with glazing bars are distributed across the elevation. The central 3-bay feature is articulated with 4 giant Corinthian pilasters rising from a rusticated basement. The concave door surround features pilasters in the curve, the outer ones garlanded, with a bird carved on the frieze and a cartouche above. Flanking windows have shaped pediments. A Venetian window lights the 1st floor, with flanking sashes having aprons carved with trophies and carved keystones. The frieze displays serpents and griffins interrupted by a heraldic device that impinges on the window below. Carved modillions support the cornice, above which rises a single-bay open pediment. The parapet is crowned with urns and a statue. The remaining bays feature rusticated arched surrounds to basement windows and architraves with projecting voussoirs to the ground floor. Bays 4 and 14 contain curved Venetian windows, that to bay 4 approached by external steps. The inner returns of the wings display elaborate architraves to doorways (as shown in an engraving of 1728), now converted to windows. A dentilled 1st-floor band runs across the central part, with 1st-floor windows set in architraves. A modillioned cornice and parapet with ashlar panels infilled with brick complete the elevation. Quoined and corniced chimney stacks rise from the wings.

The east front is 2 and 3 storeys high, extending across 49 bays with full articulation throughout. A balustraded line runs the length of the elevation. The central block comprises 19 bays with a rusticated ground floor. Its central 9-bay section is taller and breaks forward, flanked by steps that lead to a vast hexastyle portico with Corinthian columns rising from the piano nobile. The frieze bears the motto "MEA GLORIA FIDES", with arms in the tympanum and statues to the apex and balustrade. Within the portico, a pilastered doorway features a fanlight and scrolled pediment; flanking windows formerly displayed busts above their broken pediments. Other 1st-floor windows have alternating segmental and triangular pediments. Upper windows are set with a sill band and consoled cornices. The underside of the portico is coffered. The service wings rise 3 storeys in a plan of 3:5:3 bays, topped by a 3-bay pediment on giant Doric columns. A moulded string runs to the 2nd floor. Quadrants link the wings to end pavilions, which feature Gibbs surrounds to their lower floors. The pavilions themselves have cornices beneath their upper stage, with a clock on the north pavilion and a wind indicator on the south; urns occupy the corners and domed roofs with lanterns and weathervanes crown each pavilion.

The interior of the principal rooms in the central block retains decorative schemes of magnificent quality. Many rooms were designed by Henry Flitcroft and executed by the finest craftsmen of the period. The Tuscan-pillared entrance hall displays Neo-Classical statues. The domestic suite to the north includes the Painted Drawing Room, whose walls are stretched with canvasses by Auguste de Clermont, and the Low Drawing Room with coved niches carved in the manner of Grinling Gibbons. A Chapel features a 17th-century carved entrance, box pews, Ionic columns to the gallery, and a Venetian west window. John Carr designed the Imperial Staircase in Adam style. The Marble Saloon displays scagiola columns, a balcony, and pilasters above, with a ceiling in Jonesian style. Niches contain mid-18th-century statuary, panels by James Stuart, and overmantels by John Gibson (1821). To the south lies a sumptuous suite of rooms featuring richly gilded coffering to the ceiling of the Van Dyck Room and extravagant stuccoed panels in the Whistlejacket Room. A further suite of rooms to the north of the Marble Saloon maintains similar quality, including two fireplaces by Fisher of York (1768). The Statuary Room contains busts by Chantrey and Greek goddesses on pedestals attributed to Nollekens. The rooms of the west front incorporate Rococo motifs, notably in the doorheads of the entrance hall. Some rooms were retained from the 17th-century house, including the Old Hall with painted panelling and round-arched arcades. Other 17th-century rooms were refitted: the Long Gallery was remodelled by Flitcroft with a columned screen and sparing Rococo decoration to the ceiling. To the north, a suite of rooms known as Clifford's Lodgings was rebuilt by Carr around 1762 and features a room with pine panelling and a marble fireplace with multicoloured inlay. The entire decorative scheme and many other features of note are described at length in published sources.

Interesting appendages to the main structure include a bridge constructed from the south pavilion to the higher level gardens of the west front, and a small octagonal kitchen to the rear of the north pavilion.