Beauchief Hall And Adjoining Steps Forecourt Walls And Gates

Beauchief Hall is a country house, now used as offices, dating from 1671 with significant remodelling in 1836 and restoration around 1989. It stands on the north-west side of Beauchief Drive in Sheffield. The building is listed with its adjoining steps, forecourt walls, and gates.

The hall is constructed of coursed squared stone and ashlar with ashlar dressings, beneath hipped stone slate roofs featuring six large coped ridge stacks and three smaller side wall stacks. It comprises two storeys plus a basement, with a grid of 7 by 5 windows. The windows are predominantly wooden cross casements with moulded mullions and transoms.

The main south front displays a classical arrangement: a central composition with three windows flanked on either side by two canted three-storey bay windows, each with a single window per floor. The focal point is a centrally placed heavily rusticated round-headed doorcase bearing a Latin inscription and the date 1671, now sheltered beneath a flat-topped porch of 1836 with lotus columns and wooden balustrade. On each side of this doorway is a closely spaced single window. The door is approached via a segmental arched ashlar bridge with moulded coped balustrade; below it runs a plain square-headed doorway to the basement. At the forecourt end of the bridge, a landing features segmental steps on either side leading down to the garden, with a moulded coped balustrade. From the landing, a chamfered doorway on each side opens to passages under the landing. Beyond these, ramped balustraded walls divide the forecourt from the garden; the left return includes a pair of panelled square gate piers with cornices and ball finials.

The central second-floor window features a moulded surround and cornice. Above it rise pilasters through the parapet, topped with urns and flanking an enriched ogee-headed pediment dated 1836 with a ball finial. Six two-light stone mullioned windows to the cellar sit below the basement line.

The right return presents central steps with coped solid balustrades leading to a round-arched door with keystone, sheltered by a flat-roofed stone porch with single Doric columns. On either side are two cross casements, with the left-hand examples being smaller. Above sits a small central window with moulded surround and cornice, flanked by two cross casements. The basement level includes four two-light mullioned windows, the outer ones with stone mullions.

The left return has a small glazing-bar window in a reduced opening, flanked by two cross casements—two of them with stone mullions. Above is a small two-light window with a restored stone balcony featuring a balustrade on curved stone brackets. On either side sit two cross casements, the right-hand one with stone mullions. Below stands a central round-headed door, flanked to the left by two two-light mullioned casements and to the right by another similar window.

The rear elevation features a central wing with shouldered gable and string courses. A large four-light stone cross-mullioned window and above it a smaller three-light similar window occupy this section. Below are two small two-light stone mullioned windows, one above the other. To the right lies a recessed bay extending across four floors, with two mullioned or cross-mullioned windows on each floor. To the left, a similar bay contains mainly cross casements; its left half is largely covered by a three-storey square extruded corner with a single window on the upper floors and a twentieth-century double door to the basement. Parapeted wings on either side feature two stone-mullioned two-light windows and, above these, single wooden cross casements. The left wing has two basement-level two-light mullioned windows.

Internally, the entrance hall contains an open well dogleg wooden staircase from the early eighteenth century, remodelled in the nineteenth century, with turned balusters and newels. A minor seventeenth-century oak staircase with turned balusters and newels also survives. The entrance hall itself displays pine panelling, possibly resited, with a moulded cornice and a large alabaster fireplace featuring strapwork, pilasters, a dentilled mantelshelf, and a corniced overmantel with a demi-figure. A ground-floor room to the right contains moulded plaster wall panels and cornice, together with a smaller alabaster fireplace with shaped pilasters and dentilled cornice.

The subsidiary features include substantial coursed squared stone garden walls enclosing a garden of approximately 70 by 25 metres. The higher side walls bear rubble coping; to the north-east, a pair of square ashlar gate piers with cornices and finials in the shape of pyramids supported on four balls are positioned. Attached to the east side and running east then north is a lower wall with chamfered and moulded stone coping, interrupted by a pair of gate piers with pyramid finials and two other piers without finials. The lower south-end wall, dating from the eighteenth century, features chamfered ashlar coping and wrought-iron railing. At its centre stands a pair of panelled square ashlar gate piers with plinths and cornices, topped with busts, accompanied by a pair of wrought-iron gates with an overthrow bearing a coat of arms. Plain square end piers are crowned with urns.