Field House

Field House

This house was built in 1749 for George Stansfield, probably with later additions. It is constructed in ashlar with a stone slate roof, designed in the Palladian style.

The main building has a double-pile plan with two storeys, a basement, and eleven bays. A short central rear wing connects it to a parallel kitchen range. The arrangement is set out so that an outer bay on each end may have been added later, as the 1845 Ordnance Survey map shows a gap between Field House and the adjoining Old Hall.

The south-east front, which serves as the entrance, is organised as 2:2:3:2:2 bays. The central three bays break forward under a pediment. A rusticated basement and quoins are visible at this level, with a ground floor band. A flight of steps with balustrade leads to the central doorway, which has a 20th-century part-glazed door and fanlight. The door frame is a double architrave with pulvinated friezes, cornice, and segmental pediment. The windows are sashes set in architraves with corbelled cills, pulvinated friezes, and cornices. Modillion eaves and pediment cornices run across the top. In the pediment's tympanum is the Stansfield coat of arms—three rams with a lion crest—flanked by foliage. The roof is hipped over the central block and outer bays, with corniced stacks at the ends and ridge.

The rear of the main block has four-light flat-faced mullion windows, transomed on the ground floor. The right return follows the style of the front, with three bays and a central bay breaking forward slightly under a pediment. The plinth has rusticated quoins. Steps lead up to a central door with part-glazed panels and etched glass, framed by an architrave of Tuscan columns supporting a classical entablature with a blocking course and lion carving. Windows match the front elevation. Modillion eaves cornice runs across. The tympanum displays a lion crest and the motto "Know thyself".

The kitchen range sits set back on the right. It features a 16th-century Perpendicular-style transomed five-light pointed-arch window. In front of this stand two columns supporting a cupola-style bellcote with tripled columns and finials. These two features were removed from St Peter's Church, Sowerby, when it was rebuilt in 1762. The inner courtyard front of the kitchen range has a doorway on the left with a four-light window above, and a nine-light window to its right (partly blocked by a brick lean-to), with an eleven-light window above. All windows have flat-faced mullions.

Inside the main block, the entrance hall contains a Tuscan tetrastyle in antis with a full entablature returned around the room. A fireplace has an 18th-century eared architrave with a floral-decorated panel to the frieze, entablature, and later polychromatic tiles and grate. The inner surround is also 18th-century; the overmantel has a swept, eared architrave with a goat standing on the keystone.

The corridor has a lozenge-slated floor with six-panel doors in moulded architraves and entablatures. A dentil cornice runs along the walls, with an oval light-well at the right end and a fire stair at the left end. The staircase curves round with a moulded handrail and stick-on-vase balusters, clustered at the curtail. A Venetian stair window with etched glass is framed by Ionic columns and a modillion cornice. The first floor has a modillion cornice, floral frieze, and central decorative ceiling plasterwork. On the first floor corridor, six-panel doors are set in less-elaborate architraves except for the door to the lobby at the right end, which has a shouldered architrave with console pediment. The light-well has balusters matching the stair and a coved rectangular skylight above, with a cornice. Good fireplaces are present in the front bedrooms.

Inside the kitchen range, the left room is a barrel-vaulted pantry with stone shelves. The central room has two keyed arched recesses at the rear and a stone sink. The right room has three similar recesses, with cupboards in the outer two and a range in the central one.