Hardwick Old Hall

SK 46 SE PARISH OF AULT HUCKNALL HARDWICK PARK 10/6 11.7.51 Hardwick Old Hall (formerly listed GV as Old Hardwick Hall ruins)

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Country house, now derelict. Owned by the National Trust and managed by English Heritage. Early C16 and 1587-90. Coursed rubble sandstone and ashlar. Roofless. Remains of coped gables and parapets. Four and five storeys over a basement storey. Chamfered plinth. Irregular plan and elevations. South elevation of ten bays. The two bays on the left project and have a plain parapet. A single and a 3-light mullioned window to the basement; two cross windows above and above again, and two 3-light windows above again with three transoms. Taller parapetted bay to the right has above the basement five 3-light windows with one and two transoms. Two irregular gabled bays set back to the right have cross windows and 3-light windows with transoms. The second gable has an external stack. To the right is a projecting parapetted and gabled bay with cross windows and 3-light mullioned and transomed windows. Segmental relieving arches. Projecting range to the right has two square bays with the remains of 3-light windows with transoms, the top storey with three transoms. The north elevation is in its east parts completely ruinous. Four bays virtually intact to the right, with a gable and a parapet. The basement floor has two and 3-light mullioned windows, the two floors above have cross windows, and the top floor has 3-light windows with two and three transoms. Chamfered coped walls enclose a rectangular area to the north, and at the north east corner is a two storey lodge; rendered, with quoins and a balustraded parapet. Three-light mullioned and transomed windows to the ground floor and similar three and five-light windows above. The plan of the Old Hall is significant in its revolutionary placing of the hall across the house, at a right angle to the facade. The house had two full scale great chambers and there are substantial remains of decorative plasterwork by Abraham Smith. Sources:Robert Smythson & the Elizabethan Country House by Mark Girouard, Yale University Press 1983.

Listing NGR: SK4614863697