Whatton House And Attached Stables

Whatton House is a country house with attached stables, dating from circa 1802 and designed by John Johnston for Edward Dawson. The house underwent rebuilding and extensions following a series of fires in the 1870s and 1880s. It is constructed of ashlar with hipped slate roofs. The original double pile was extended in the late 19th century with wings to the west and north. The east front has three storeys and three bays, with a classical style featuring a rusticated ground floor, a moulded first floor string course, a plain frieze, and a modillion cornice with a short blocking course above. Chimneys also have friezes and moulded cornices. The centre bay was rebuilt in the late 19th century with a square projection and pediment, formerly bowed. Late 19th-century sash windows without glazing bars are present, with the ground floor outer bays being tripartite with stone mullions. Ground floor windows have stone architrave surrounds, while first-floor windows have cornices on scroll brackets. Windows to the front of the central projection have moulded architrave surrounds with shoulders; the first-floor window also features a pulvinated frieze and segmental pediment. A late 19th-century double door with an architrave surround is located below, accompanied by a porch with an entablature, parapet, and Tuscan-Doric columns. The left side of the house retains four original bays, mirrored by four matching late 19th-century bays. Upper windows are similar to those on the east front; the ground floor features two sets of late 19th-century French doors with rusticated arches, and two late 19th-century canted bay windows. A colonnade of 1974 is located at the left end, to the rear of the stables. The right side of the house comprises five bays of sash windows and a single-storey, matching-style wing with a projecting bay containing a door.

The interior features delicate marble fireplaces in an early 19th-century style, possibly original or copied/re-sited after the fires. A delicate plastered ceiling in a ground-floor room to the left is also circa 1800 in style, but has been adapted to a late 19th-century bay window and a 20th-century partition wall, if at all original. The central staircase hall is late 19th-century, with galleries on two sides.

The attached stables surround three sides of a courtyard, with gates across the fourth side. The majority of the 1802 structure remains. The stables are constructed of whitewashed brick with slate roofs. The right wing features a stable door and window blind arcade of seven bays, with doors and windows to the loft above; a lower bay has an arch near the end. The far wing has irregular openings and a late 19th-century wooden clock turret with a bell-cote. The left wing is partly of later build and includes a late 19th-century three-bay coach-house at the near end.