Foston Hall And Attached Archway With Wrought Iron Gates

Foston Hall is a country house, now used as an HM Detention Centre, built in 1863 by T.C. Hine in a Jacobethan style. It is constructed of red brick with blue brick diaper work, featuring stone dressings and plain tile roofs with stone coped gables, parapets, and moulded kneelers. Prominent brick stacks are arranged in groups of two, three, and four, with octagonal shafts. The building has flush stone quoins and moulded stone bands and is arranged with a two-storey main block and a three-storey tower. The plan is asymmetrical.

The west elevation is asymmetrical and features eight bays. The off-centre tower has a French Second Empire style roof, complete with ironwork cresting and a weather vane, and is flanked by triple stacks. The round-arched entrance has C19 panelled doors, flanked by tall narrow windows, all enclosed within a tripartite arrangement of Tuscan pilasters. Above the entrance is a tripartite window, and again, a Venetian-style window within a shaped gable. To the right is a single window and a small canted bay, followed by two plain sashes. An external stack rises to four shafts. To the left of the tower is a narrow slit window and a larger canted bay. Two sashes are positioned above in gabled half dormers. A projecting gabled bay to the left has a large tripartite window on the ground floor and a Venetian-style window above. A broad two-bay section to the left has a curved parapet rising to a shaped gable and features a sash window, a round-arched porch entrance, and two C20 windows. Two plain sashes are situated above. All windows have moulded stone surrounds.

To the south, the elevation is symmetrical, with six bays. The centre part has four tall sashes on the ground floor and four smaller sashes above. Projecting end bays have shaped gables and two-storey canted bay windows.

Attached to the north-west corner is an archway dating from the mid-18th century, a remnant of an earlier house. The archway is constructed of rusticated ashlar to the front, with brick behind, featuring fluted capitals and a pediment. C18 wrought iron gates, likely not original to the arch, are also present.

The interior features a Minton tiled entrance hall and a small marble bolection moulded fireplace with Delft-style tiles. A particularly impressive staircase hall is arranged around three sides, with arcaded naturalistic carving beneath round arches, and a stone balustrade with a turned, polished crinoidal limestone handrail. Main rooms have moulded cornices. The study has a dentil cornice and an early 18th century style chimney piece, with a marble surround and panelled wood overmantle incorporating a broken pediment enclosing an urn and foliage. One room displays a Grinling Gibbons style ceiling and a carved wooden chimney piece, while the room in the south-east corner boasts late 18th century style plaster panelling and a white marble chimney piece.