Rothley Court Hotel And The Chapel

ROTHLEY

SK 51 SE WESTFIELD LANE (South Side)

6/127 9.7.51 Rothley Court Hotel and The Chapel

GV I

Hotel, formerly mansion, and attached chapel. C13, C17/C18 (stack dated 1742) and 1895. Garden front and wing by John Ely, Manchester, 1894/5. Granite rubble stone, with small part red brick, with stone dressings, stone and brick and stone cornice and parapet in part, and Swithland slate roof with brick ridge and side stacks. Hotel entrance front has a projecting gable either end, that to right with stone buttresses. 2½ storeys of 11 6/6 sash windows. Five 2-light dormers, the central with rounded gable. 2-light casement in left gable attic. Probably C19 central stone porch in Renaissance style with rounded arch, pilasters, entablature and battlements. Part-glazed door inside. Garden front to left has projecting stack dated 1742, and the 1894/5 wing mullion and transom windows with leaded lights, and with a two storey canted bay to left and loggia with two bay arcade to right. Rear has picturesque gables with sashes and attic casements. Inside are C18 oak staircase and C17 and C18 panelling, some with bolection moulding. Doorways with stone pointed arches in rooms next to Chapel. The Chapel, to right of entrance front, restored 1896, has E window facing. Single nave with two storey S corridor linking house. Stepped buttresses and angle buttresses. Tall lancets with cusped heads, hood moulds and label stops. One to W and three either side to N and S. Large 3-light C15 E window, with shaft either side to half way up. Inside, the lancets have a roll-moulding round frame and E window a moulded arch and shafts to sides. Piscina with cusped head and shaft either side. Roll-moulded sill band in part. On S wall fragment of painting with writing in medieval English script. Restored four-bay tie beam truss double-purlin roof with double collars, curved braces and waved wind braces. Round vase font possibly C13, a small marble cartouche of the Babington arms of possibly C17 and three C18 Babington hatchments. S doorway has arch with hollow chamfer and the corridor/porch a quadrapartite rib vault. The restored doorway, facing E between Hotel and Chapel has a many-moulded arch with shaft either side. This mansion was known till recently as Rothley Temple. It was a Preceptory of the Knights Templar, to whom the manor was given by Henry III. After their suppression it was given to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. At the Dissolution it became a private house and the seat of the Babington family. Lord Macaulay was born here on 25th October, 1800. Pevsner.

Listing NGR: SK5767912300